Good afternoon.

My name is Aisha Chugtai and I'm the Chair of the Budget Committee.

I'm going to call to order our regular meeting for Monday, December 8th, 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 roll so we can verify the presence of a quorum.

Council Member Payne.

Present.

Wonsley.

Present.

Rainville.

Present.

Vita.

Present.

Ellison is absent.

Osmond is absent.

Cashman.

Present.

Jenkins is absent.

Chavez.

Present.

Chowdhury.

Present.

Palmisano.

Present.

Vice Chair Kosky? Present. And Chair Chuck Tai? Present. That is 10 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. Also remind my colleagues that we have a packed schedule today and we'll need to utilize our time wisely. Before we resume budget markup, we have two discussion items on our agenda today.

The first item on the agenda is regarding compensation of the mayor and council members for terms beginning January 2026.

I will invite City Clerk Casey Carl to introduce this item.

Thank you, Madam Vice President.

May it please the committee as stated I'm here to address compensation for the city's mayor and council members for the next elective term, which starts in just 26 days.

As indicated in your briefing materials, the subject of compensation for elected officials is the responsibility of each jurisdiction's governing body.

That's provided under Chapter 744 of Minnesota Session Laws of 1971.

Specifically, that law provides that compensation is to be set in the final year of an elective term, and it becomes effective in the next succeeding term.

The law also stipulates no change can then be made in the level of compensation during an elective term, neither to increase nor to decrease the rate of compensation for elected officials.

So compensation for elected officials in all cities can only be set at the conclusion of one elective term.

It becomes effective at the beginning of the next elective term.

So unlike with our employees where we do the salary setting every year as part of the budget, there is only one time to do that for elected officials.

In 2019, Ordinance Number 2019-44 was enacted, codified under Section 14.60 of the City's Code of Ordinances, which prescribes the process to consider any compensation to be paid to the Mayor or Council members.

and under that part of the code, compensation is to be set by a resolution that's considered first by the council's standing committee having oversight of the city budget prior to any final formal action by the full council as part of the adopted operating budget.

In 2021, a 2% increase in salary was approved for mayor and council members, which took effect in the terms starting January 2022.

At that same time, council directed the clerk to conduct an analysis of elected official compensation in peer jurisdictions, given the change in the city's government structure that was approved that same year by voters.

In response to that directive, the city engaged an outside agency, Guidehouse, to conduct the analysis of comparable peer jurisdictions.

guidelines. Guidehouse evaluated compensation paid to the mayors and council members of

those jurisdictions that shared the following key features. First, each of those cities

must operate under a charter that defines the elected mayor as being the jurisdiction's

chief executive officer with similar scopes of powers and responsibilities as those provided

for the mayor of Minneapolis. Second, each jurisdiction must have a full-time legislative

body, council, that has legislative policy making and oversight powers similar to those

provided for the Minneapolis City Council.

And third, each jurisdiction must have a population similar to Minneapolis, meaning that it has

a similar gross domestic product or GDP, a growing population, or one which is identified

as a greater Minneapolis-St. Paul partnership peer city.

Under the Kahn rule, also Minnesota Statutes 205.84, the City Council experienced two consecutive

two-year terms to adjust for the redistricting of population following the 2020 Census.

Therefore members of City Council qualified for a potential increase again for its current

term in 2024-2025.

However, in response to that first survey of peer jurisdictions, it was found that Minneapolis

Council members were paid at more than 130% of the average salary for all of our peer

cities. The average salary paid to Council members in the pool of comparable cities at

that time was $81,330, whereas Minneapolis Council members were paid $109,846, a difference

of just over $28,000. So in response at that time, the Council decided that it would not

take a salary increase for the 2024-2025 term.

In preparation for considering salaries for the next elective term, that which begins

in 2026, the City once again engaged GuideHouse to conduct a very similar survey of select

peer cities to inform recommendations for compensation to be paid to the Mayor and members of City

Council starting in 2026.

This presentation will summarize the results of that survey and present recommendations.

For this year's survey, we found once again to focus on peer selections of comparable

jurisdictions that shared the same characteristics.

That is, cities organized under a Home Rule Charter with an executive mayor, a full-time

legislative council with similar economic scale.

To be clear, we also did include a few cities that do not meet these criteria, but we did

so for specific reasons.

So for example, in both the 2023 and 2025 surveys, we've included the city of St. Paul.

even though that city has a part-time council.

We did so because of its close proximity

and because it is a first-class charter city

in the state of Minnesota,

which offers important comparisons.

We've also included Denver and San Francisco,

despite the fact that both of those jurisdictions

are consolidated city-county governments,

but it's because their essential form

is a strong mayor council system

with parallels to the structure here in Minneapolis.

We also included Washington, D.C.,

even though it is a completely unique government, being the nation's only consolidated city,

county, and state system that operates directly under the thumb of the United States Congress.

Another comparable city that was in both the 2023 and 2025 surveys is Portland. In the first

survey, Portland still operated under its commission form of government. However, in 2022,

Portland voters opted to change to a strong mayor system of government similar to Minneapolis,

making those results even more relevant to our consideration today.

As you can see on this slide, a total of 22 cities were selected for the survey.

We received responses from 19 of those 22 cities, giving us a response rate of 86%.

The accompanying map on this slide shows the location for all of the cities and uses colors to distinguish between those where responses were received.

So I'll move to the next slide, which starts the compensation analysis for mayor.

As this table shows, the Minneapolis mayor has a salary of $140,814, which was set in 2021.

Among the 18 cities that were part of the comparative pool, the average mayoral salary is $197,565,

which means that the Minneapolis mayor is about $56,000 shy of the average paid in the list of peer cities,

which puts the mayor in Minneapolis at the bottom 15% of the responding cities.

That's using today's data.

Guidehouse also inquired about known or anticipated salary increases for these same cities that would start in 2026.

And as shown on this slide, 16 of the 19 peer cities, which is the vast majority,

have reported known or anticipated increases for their mayoral compensation

that would take effect either in 2025, 2026, or 2027.

In fact, in 10 of those peer cities, that rate has already been defined, ranging between a 2% and 3% increase.

The largest increases in mayoral salaries in the comparative cities are for Atlanta and Boston at 16% and 20% respectively.

Based on those known or anticipated salary increases, the adjusted average salary that will be paid to mayors in comparable cities will increase to about $205,998 in 2026.

That means that the Minneapolis mayor would be more than $65,000 below the average if no change in compensation is provided for the next term.

This slide highlights the salary data for comparable cities in 2025.

So these are the current salary rates paid to mayors in our select peer jurisdictions.

The cities are listed by salary from lowest to highest along the x-axis with amounts shown on the y-axis.

The call-out here indicates the average salary in 2025 is about $198,000.

You can see that Minneapolis is second from lowest in this list, with only Omaha's mayor being paid a slightly lower amount.

The Omaha mayor is paid a 2025 salary of $136,942, which is a difference of about $3,800 for the Minneapolis mayor.

At the other end of the spectrum, of course, you see San Francisco.

the mayor there in 2025 has paid a salary of $320,831, which is more than $180,000 difference

from the Minneapolis mayor. And even across the river in St. Paul, the mayor's 2025 salary

is $153,579, which is about $12,000 more per year than the Minneapolis mayor. Here

we've summarized the known or anticipated increases in mayoral salaries starting in

2026, which I referenced earlier. And as stated in the call out on this slide, you can see the

average mayoral salary for peer cities will increase to about $206,000 next year. This

differential is shown in the lighter green hash marks on the slide for those cities where it's

known. And again, at the lowest end, the Omaha mayor is anticipated to receive an increase

for a salary to $140,788, which puts the Omaha mayor nearly equal to the Minneapolis mayor

current salary starting next year. At the other end of the spectrum, the Columbus mayor is

anticipated to receive an increase that will raise that salary to more than $274,000, which is more

than $133,000 greater than the current rate paid to the Minneapolis mayor. So based on current

salary, as known and as anticipated with these increases among the list of peer cities, the

Minneapolis mayor is compensated at significantly lower levels in comparison to those mayors in

these other jurisdictions.

Here the comparison is between mayor and council salaries for each peer city using current

data for 2025 in all cases.

So this slide then shows the differential between an executive mayor and their council member

salaries in our comparable jurisdictions.

Mayoral salaries are shown in green while the council salaries are shown in blue.

At a glance you can see that mayors are compensated at higher amounts in all jurisdictions including

Minneapolis.

This is to be expected for these types of government structures in which the mayor is

designated the chief executive officer with control over the jurisdiction's bureaucracy

and its day-to-day operations.

However, the difference between the salaries varies amongst the responding cities.

At the extreme in San Francisco and Columbus, the difference between mayoral and council

salaries is $184,937 and $152,460, respectively.

to the middle of the range, in Atlanta, the difference between salaries is about $119,629,

with the Atlanta mayor making $195,390, and each of their council members making $75,761.

At the other end of the spectrum, in Omaha, the mayor makes $136,942 per year, while each of

their seven city council members make $51,609. So that difference between mayor and council is

in excess of $85,000 per year. Portland here makes an interesting case, as I noted earlier,

because it also transitioned to an executive mayor model in 2022, which was based on a voter

approved amendment to its charter, exactly as happened here in Minneapolis the prior year in

2021. Due to its voter approved government structure change, an external salary setting

commission was appointed to consider appropriate compensation for the mayor and council. And

Because the mayor became the city's chief executive officer, that commission increased compensation for the mayoral position by almost 19%,

from approximately $149,000 before the restructuring to more than $177,000 today.

Both before and after the restructure, the Portland mayor was paid more than the Minneapolis mayor.

And for comparative purposes, the commission set pay for council members at $135,000, a difference of about $41,000 between mayor and council in Portland today.

As shown here, even in St. Paul, there's a marked difference between mayor and council pay, noting again, however, that the St. Paul City Council is a part-time position and Minneapolis is not.

But even in St. Paul, the difference between mayor and council pay is approximately $76,000.

Among all the comparative peer cities, the difference in salary between mayor and council in Minneapolis is the smallest.

Again, with the mayor making about $140,000 and council members making $109,000, that means the difference in salaries here is $30,968.

This slide switches our focus to city council, showing an overview of pay for councils included in the 2025 survey.

As the table on this slide shows, Minneapolis city council members receive a salary of $109,846,

dollars, which was unchanged from the prior two-year terms covering 2022-2023 and which was

actually set clear back in 2021. Among the 15 cities that were part of the comparative pool,

the average council salary is $105,908. And what that means is that the Minneapolis council

members are about $4,000 above the average salary paid to our peer cities, ranking in the top 60%

of all of our responding cities. And as with the mayoral comparison, that's using today's data.

Guidehouse also did inquire about known or anticipated salary increases for councils starting

in 2026. And as shown on this slide, starting in 2026, the average salary for councils will increase

to about $112,000 per year. So that's just slightly more than the current rate paid to city council

members. And that suggests that the salary for city council members will still be in about the

middle of the overall range of our peer cities at the beginning of the next elective term in January.

As indicated on this slide, seven of the responding cities indicated that the known pay increase for

their councils had already been defined and would be less than 5% of the current rate. Just like with

mayoral comparisons, the largest increases for council salaries are in the cities of Atlanta

and Columbus at 38% and 13% respectively. This slide shows the range of council compensation

amongst comparable cities, with jurisdictions listed from lowest to highest at the bottom.

The call-out indicates here that the current average salary in 2025 is roughly $106,000,

as I've already stated, so you can see that the Minneapolis Council ranks at the upper

end of the middle of this range.

At the extremes, the Washington, D.C. Council pays all 13 of its members $150,308, while

in Seattle, the nine council members each make $148,000 per year.

In contrast, the nine council members in Columbus make $88,000.

In Atlanta, the 16 council members receive $75,000 in compensation.

And then in Omaha, the other extreme, the seven council members each make $51,609.

So there's quite a range represented amongst the peer cities for city council.

This slide shows the same data, but starting in 2026, showing both known and anticipated increases,

again from lowest to highest along the bottom axis.

You can see in the call out here that the average to be paid in 2026 is going to be roughly $112,000.

And as previously stated, we did include St. Paul here despite the fact that they're a part-time council.

I think the key takeaway here is that if no increase is planned for council members in Minneapolis,

the current pay rate would mean our officials here who are currently in the middle of the range

would slide to the lower end of that middle.

So, we would go almost a full decade with no change in pay for council, and we would

be moved to the bottom of the middle of that range if we don't make a change now.

And over the next four years, if there is no program change in pay, council members

will slip amongst the ranking of their peer cities.

So based on that analysis, Madam Chair, of comparable jurisdictions in evaluating both

current and known or anticipated future pay rates for mayors and council members, staff

respectfully submits the following recommendations for your consideration.

For mayor, the salary be set at $187,000 for the next elective term, which begins January

2, 2026.

It should be maintained at that rate for each of the following years in that term.

This change would reflect the significant increase in the scope of authority, powers,

responsibilities that voters gave the mayor when they adopted the executive mayor structure

in 2021. It would also put the mayor in the mid-range of the salaries for selected peer

jurisdictions, which aligns with similar actions taken in Portland when that city transitioned

to a strong mayor system like in the city of Minneapolis.

For council, we recommend the salary should remain unchanged for the first two years of

the next elective term, which begins January 5, 2026, which would mean that the pay rate

would remain at $109,847. However, in order to keep council members at the midpoint of

their salary range, we recommend that the salary starting in January 2028 be increased

by the percentage of the cost of living adjustment, or COLA as it's known, that's approved for

the majority of the city's collective bargaining units in the prior year to become effective

in the next year and that that should be repeated in each subsequent year in that term. Those

Those exact rates would then be calculated by the Human Resources Department based on

budgetary decisions made by Council as part of the salary schedules for those years and

would be programmed into the City's budget.

In closing, I'd like to make just a few points.

The Mayor and Council have acknowledged that this is a challenging budget year.

Certainly we've all heard the projections for both 2026 and the forecast into the next

five.

Like all local governments, Minneapolis continues to take on increased levels of responsibility

as federal and state governments push more and more down the chain, often without the

requisite funding.

Our revenue streams are limited, and of course, local governments continue to adapt and attempt

to meet the needs and priorities of their communities, and these differ from place to

place.

Still, Minneapolis is the most populated city in the state of Minnesota.

It is the state's economic engine, its population center, and a hub of its cultural life.

Minneapolis blends big city amenities with an above-average sense of community and civic

engagement, it has abundant top-rated parks and public green spaces, and it's known for

its high ranking in terms of quality of life metrics, including overall livability and

happiness amongst residents.

And of course, like every community, Minneapolis has its share of challenges, but we, the people,

elect our mayor and council to take on the burden of planning and preparing our community

for the future to ensure that our core services and our shared infrastructure remain strong

and can support a growing and diverse population.

These elected positions have a significant impact on the day-to-day experiences of the

roughly 430,000 people who choose to live, work, worship, and play in Minneapolis.

And that extends to the nearly 3.6 million people who live and work within the larger

Twin Cities metro region, which is anchored by the city of Minneapolis.

All this to say that compensation for elected officials should reflect the scope of authority,

actual responsibilities and duties of those positions and the impact they have on the lives

of the residents of the community. The Minneapolis mayor and its city council have significant and

important jobs, and their compensation should reflect those facts. Of course, the issue of

elected official compensation is, for obvious reasons, a sensitive subject, and I don't want

to give the impression that I don't understand that. But there also is no union that advocates

for increased pay for mayor and council. There are no exact apple-to-apple comparisons between

jurisdictions not within a state or even across the nation. The best that we can do is to examine

approximations and try to level that field by adjusting for differences in costs across cities,

states, and regions. Compensation analysis for elected officials is essential to ensure that

public service remains accessible, competitive, and aligned with the real demands of modern

governance. By evaluating the pay for elected officials relative to their workload, across

peer jurisdictions, and cost of living trends, the city is better positioned to attract and

retain qualified leaders, to reduce the potential financial barriers to public service, and to

maintain institutional stability. A data-driven approach like the one we followed here in

Minneapolis, both in the past and present, also helped to promote transparency and public trust

by showing that compensation decisions are based on objective standards and not mere politics.

Ultimately, compensation analysis directly affects the quality, accessibility, and stability of our democratic governance.

In very practical terms, it helps ensure fair compensation for those elected to provide effective, ethical, and sustainable leadership for the community.

I'll also note the City of Minneapolis has good overall pay rates and total compensation for its workforce.

We're recognized as a good employer locally in the metro region and in the state, and

we regularly update our surveys to ensure we remain competitive in the public sector

for relevant jobs across our peer jurisdictions.

These types of surveys are routinely done to ensure that Minneapolis remains a competitive

leader in local government for a wide variety of its jobs, and our employees benefit from

that approach.

It's only fair that we take a similar approach in thinking about how to fairly and equitably

compensate our elected leaders, the city council, and the mayor.

And with that, Madam Chair, I've completed my prepared remarks.

Staff recommends the draft resolution be forwarded for action by the council tomorrow at its

adjourned meeting when we will act on the 2026 budget.

Thank you for that presentation, Mr. Carl.

Colleagues, are there any questions or discussion from the committee?

I'll recognize Council Member Wansley.

Thank you, Council Vice President Chuck Tai.

I did just want to thank our clerk staff, specifically Carl, for giving this presentation.

I know you do it every term as required and for giving us a data-grounded basis for how

to make these decisions around compensation as it pertains to either us or the mayor's

office and other elected positions within our enterprise.

That said, I do want to note, follow up just going into next term, conversations that I

would like to have with Council President

and our Clerk staff further,

especially as we're already

in conversations with the Charter Commissions

about how to protect our authority.

I did find it kind of

concerning the letter that

was just forwarded to Council that's being

passed on to the Charter Commission

by Mayor Fry essentially asking for

the authority in which we have to set

compensation be removed and placed

within the scope

of authority of the Charter Commission.

I don't know where this is coming from. I think no one has voted down these increases before because, again, they're standard and you do a tremendous amount of preparation, working with credible experts in order to get credible information in front of this body to make that decision.

So I don't know where that's coming from and if that is going to be part of our continued conversations with the Charter Commission, I would love to be a part of that.

And, of course, hold the line on having our authorities remain within our authority instead of it being treated as a pawn of sorts.

So I just wanted to note that and thank you again, Clerk Carl, for delivering a pretty credible presentation as standard.

Thank you.

I'm not seeing anyone else in queue, so I will move approval of this item.

Do I have a second?

All those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Those opposed, say nay.

No.

Any abstentions?

That motion carries.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next item on the agenda today is receiving a presentation on the 2025 third quarter financial status report on select city funds.

I will invite City Controller George Hardgrove from the Finance and Property Services Department to begin this presentation.

Welcome.

Yeah, thank you, Chair Chugtai, members of the Budget Committee and the City Council.

So thank you very much for allowing me to come here and talk about our third quarter

financial report on the financial status of the City of Minneapolis.

In just a sec here I'll start the presentation.

There we go.

Okay, so, yeah, just to start off here,

this is our financial stats report

as of the end of period nine,

which is September 30th of 2025.

It's a point in time report.

We based our forecast shortly after we closed

the accounting month in September

and made most of those in October.

So this is as of pretty much the end of October.

or so. The information's unaudited and won't be final until the 2025 year is closed. Final

numbers will be available in our annual financial comprehensive report, which I can come back

and talk a little bit about, I believe, in April sometime or so when we do our fourth

quarter report as well, too. Again, things have changed since then, and obviously we're

getting near the end of the year.

So moving on, the quarter two report does show

that we have several fund balances,

we have several funds in the city,

and we see them being spent down,

especially the general fund, which is forecast

to be down about $60 million from where it ended up

at the end of 2024.

But that's not really the only fund,

We've seen some spend downs in the downtown asset fund,

the convention center, property services,

as well as intergovernmental and IT.

So anyway, so yeah, our latest forecast,

I believe we initially forecasted at $60 million

for the general fund going down.

Now it's got up to about $67, almost $68 million or so.

So it kind of really brings the city to a crossroads

at this point.

Certainly, as you can see by the next bullet point,

we've maintained our AAA bond ratings

from Fitch, Moody's, and Standard & Poor,

which brings a lot of prestige to the city.

But we are worried about the sustainability

of the spend down, especially on the general fund.

In addition, property taxes are about 17.4 million

under the fully levied amount that was planned for 2025.

we do know that some amounts are uncollectible

or there's delayed collections on that as well too,

but that still is a little higher

than what the city has experienced in the past.

In addition, as I mentioned last time I was here

to talk about the second quarter,

we did at that time notice a little softening

in the downtown asset fund,

which is financed mainly by sales taxes,

entertainment taxes, restaurant liquor taxes,

things like that.

Now we've kind of seen that a little bit more pronounced now.

For example, the September collections were down about almost $2 million from where they were at in 2024,

which does suggest perhaps a softening in the economy.

In addition, the police and fire department are projected to be over budget by about $25 million.

In 2025, that's about a 3% or $9 million increase from what we forecasted back at the second quarter.

The self-insurance fund does continue to improve and is well above the minimum policy of $117

million minimum by about $85 million. Again, we try to have enough funds in there to pay

out potentially large litigation settlements. And so we do get closer and closer to being

fully funded there as well, too. Then, of course, we monitor the federal grants as well,

too, there hasn't been huge changes in the last few months, but again, certainly especially

with the government shutdown and everything, we do have to monitor that, and we do expect

the funding levels to go down a little bit there as well, too, and certainly lots of

uncertainty, too, as far as what will happen with the federal government.

Moving on, more highlights here.

In terms of our cash and investments,

as of September 30th, 2025,

we're at about $1,186,000,000 or so,

which actually is an increase of $140,000,000

from this time last year.

Again, most of that is made up of the self-insurance fund

and the enterprise funds,

which have accumulated more cash since then.

So that's the main driver behind the increase

in our cash and investments.

Almost all city funds are meeting their cash reserve minimums and fund balance minimums,

but I did want to mention a few of those as well.

Our self-insurance, as I mentioned before, does have a negative net position due to large

potential claims for litigation.

However, it is exceeding our short-term goals and our financial policy to cover the workers'

comp, medical, dental, things like that as well too.

Fleet, well technically meeting our requirements

by about 1.4 million.

We have had, we've been spending quite a bit of time

looking into the fleet budget.

We are worried, the only reason really it's meeting

above the reserve requirement right now

is because the department has cut back

on purchasing new vehicles, which we do worry

could increase the maintenance cost

as our vehicle fleet ages or so.

So something we're keeping an eye on.

Again, it does meet the short-term limit right now,

but could go down from there.

Our IT fund is projected to be about $8 million

at the end of this year versus our target

of about $9.3 million.

So ongoing discussions about that.

Our parking fund is below the cash balance

by about $2 million or though,

but it continues to improve

and hopefully barring any kind of economic downturn,

that will get back into compliance

with its fund balance requirement in the next year or two.

Property services is projected about 2.2 million right now,

which is below our $4.6 million target balance.

And then finally the convention center

is projected to be below the target balance.

However, we believe that's really more of a technical item

that we do need to probably transfer some more money

from the downtown asset fund there

to make up for a transfer that was done before.

So hopefully that could be addressed at some point.

Now at this point, I'd like to introduce

and invite Deputy Controller Robert Lang

to come to the podium here.

And he will go over, Rob specializes in the general fund,

and he'll go over and talk more

about how the general fund is doing.

Thanks, Rob.

Good afternoon and thank you very much City Council for your time to go through the General

Fund today.

As a reminder, the purpose of the fund is to account for all financial resources except

for those required to be accounted for or reported on in another fund.

Year end 2025 balance for the cash is projected to be $166 million in the General Fund.

It was $234 million at the end of last year.

This is a $67 million use of cash projected by year end.

Actual cash at the end of quarter three was $92 million and at the end of quarter three

last year was $148 million.

Again showing a use of cash of about $56 million compared to the two days, two years.

For fund balance you'll see a similar story.

Ending balance is projected to be $141 million.

The quarter two forecast did project $149 million, so about a $7.5 million increase in the use of that fund.

Overall, it is projected to be a $67 million decrease in fund balance year over year.

I do want to indicate that this use of fund was part of the budgeted aspect.

When the original budget included a $24.6 million planned use of fund,

there was rollovers of $41.8 million use of fund.

Approximately when you total up these,

along with minimal amendments during the year,

was a $67 million budgeted use of fund through 2025.

This still does exceed our 17% minimum balance.

It is calculated currently at $109.1 million.

We do have that $141 million projection.

so we're $32.5 million over the 17% minimum balance requirement.

Of that $141 million, there are restrictions and commitments associated with that

that I would like to discuss further.

So on the top of this chart, you will see we started the year $209 million.

We have forecasted revenues and expenditures resulting in that use of fund

down to $141 million, as previously discussed.

Then we do have some commitments and restrictions.

At the time of this report's writing, the planned use of fund was $8.7 million into 2026.

And then we do have restricted for public safety aid and North Commons of another $14.2 million.

This totals to unassigned fund balance of $118.6 million.

Remembering the 109 minimum fund balance requirement for that 17%,

This leaves us with $9.5 million in unassigned fund balance remaining.

At the end of quarter two's forecast and presentation, that $9.5 was forecasted at $15 million at the time of that presentation.

So this has resulted in another $6 million roughly decrease in that forecasted unassigned fund balance.

There are some unknowns related to this number, however.

What the final use of fund balance will be in the 2026 budget is still unknown yet.

There is the rollovers that will be requested going in from 25 to 26.

As a reminder, last year there was $41.8 million in approved rollover.

And comparing that to what we're currently seeing on a signed fund

does mean there could potentially be difficult conversations ahead

through the rollover process.

And then finally, the last unknown would be the market, economic,

and frankly political unknowns going into 2026.

So let's look at the general fund revenues first.

On this chart down here, you will see major revenue categories with what was budgeted

and what is projected to year end, as well as the budget deficit or budget overage.

First I'll point out property taxes is projected to be $17.5 million under budget.

This is a result of less property tax collections over the last few years.

has been decreasing from about 98% down to 97 two years ago, 96 approximately at the

end of 24, and a little under 96 forecast into 25.

Service charges is projected to be over budget by $3.9 million.

This is a result of the efforts of Public Works and their charges for services, both

to internal and external customers.

We go to franchise fees is under budget by $2.8 million.

franchise fees is collecting more than they did last year, the budget had a

higher growth estimate than what's actually coming in. We get to licenses

and permits are under budget by 4.5 million as a result mostly related to

building permits. The end of all of this indicates that revenues are going to be

18 million dollars under what was budgeted. So how does that compare to

prior years? We go to the next slide and we'll see this bar graph here shows blue

is 25 and green is the three-year average. And the last comparison that's in the forecast

of December shows that historically the three-year average has been 99.9% of revenue collections

and what we're seeing here in 25 is 97.3% revenue collections, a primary driver being

the property taxes. So let's look at the other side. We have expenditures. Here again we show

major expense categories, what was budgeted, what is actual, and the over-under. Importantly,

I want to show that of all these categories, the two that are over budget is public works

by $3.6 million. Remembering revenue and service charges was $3.9 million over as an effort

of public works. These are very close to offsetting each other. And then we move to public safety

as a whole is $12.8 million over budget. The remaining expense categories are coming in

under budget. And how does this compare to the prior three years? Similar bar chart you

will see here that over the past three years we've had 91.6% expenditures to budget and

going into 25% we're at 97.6%. So revenues are coming in less than they have in the prior

three years and expenses are coming in higher than they have in the last three years, resulting

in what we're seeing here today in this use of fund as departments are spending more and

more to their budget.

And here is the detailed report.

It is in your 70-page report that accompanies these presentations.

However, I wanted to pull out specifically the details related to the expenditures within

that report.

There's something similar for revenues as well, but I believe expenditures is where we want

to focus in today.

In blue is the current budget, the first blue column, and the second blue column is the

year-to-date projections.

These year-to-date projections are worked on by an accountant that's assigned to the department,

a budget analyst assigned to the department, as well as by the department head or representative

of the department head.

There are, if you include public works as one department included together, there are

26 departments in the city, of which six are currently projected to be over budget.

Of those six, I will quickly mention the ones that are forecasted to be over budget.

So we do start off with the attorney's office is projected to be over budget by $490,000.

The explanation for which is related to effective law enforcement for all, which is a required

term of the settlement agreement, and these are their efforts towards that.

Moving on to assessing department, they did have some costs related to their CAMA projects

that went into 2025, an overage of about $200,000.

They have been diligently tackling that overspend with operational savings of $82,000, resulting

in a still over budget due to the CAMA project.

Office of Public Service is forecasted to be $50,000 over budget, primarily driven by a COLA raise that was unbudgeted.

Then we move into public safety.

Here we see the groupings that make up public safety.

Fire is forecasted $5.5 million over budget.

This is not uncommon.

Over the last five years, fire has been coming in over budget, primarily due to overtime.

And then police, we are forecasting total expenditures of $246 million.

This is a 3% increase from what we presented for the quarter two financials, or forecasts, I should say.

This results in $19.5 million in projected overspend.

Moving down to public works, as mentioned previously, they are $3.6 million overspend.

offset by the service charges that we received.

Very bottom line showing that of the $729 million that was budgeted for expenditures,

the city has spent $712 million, about $17.5 million less than budgeted.

The general fund is the beating heart of the city,

and I believe it needs to get the review it's due

to ensure the health and rating the city has enjoyed.

So I really appreciate you guys letting me speak today

on the general fund and the review of this.

And I will be passing this back to George

to go over our special revenue funds,

our enterprise funds, and our internal service funds.

Thank you.

Yeah, thanks, Mr. Lang.

Yeah, thank you.

Before I move on to the special revenue funds, I just wanted to kind of back up just a little bit here.

Just to make kind of a point here, I mean, this is really the key slide that I look at to just kind of gauge the general fund health.

I just wanted to point out just one more time that if you look at the total above target, you know, the $9.5 million,

which actually is, I think, down to about $9.2 million now or so,

So, I mean, that would be like the maximum that we could roll over next year.

And if you look at like what we did from 24 to 25, we rolled over almost $42 million.

And what the rollover really does is it kind of buys extra time for the departments to finish up their 25 budget.

So we just undoubtedly won't be able to do quite as much as we did the year before.

So just wanted to just kind of go further to that point.

So moving on.

The next category of funds that I'll just talk about briefly is the special revenue funds.

They're used to report revenue and expenses for funds that have restrictions on them.

Our significant special revenue funds are the convention center, the target center arena, the downtown assets.

The police department has a forfeiture and gambling proceed account.

Regulatory Services has some restricted funds,

as well as grants, of course,

are kind of the classic restricted funds for the city,

as well as CPIT has quite a few, too.

So just in summary, we project our cash balances

to go down by about 3.1 million or so

from the 2024 year end, about 393 million.

However, that is up about 21 million

from the second quarter,

and that's mostly due to CPED fund balances being forecasted higher as well as the arena.

And then conversely, cash, again, is forecast to be at $360 million at year-end.

That's a $4 million decrease from 2024.

That's also up $26 million from the second quarter.

Again, mainly CPED in the downtown asset arena because fund balance and cash often moves at the same rate.

So anyway, decreases from last year, like I say, is mainly due to the downtown asset fund as well as CPED.

Again, these funds are set aside for a specific purpose,

and generally it is difficult to move them or move spending anywhere else in the city.

So you can think of these as the city's restricted funds.

And then looking at the details here, again, you can see on the far right here,

that shows how much we're projecting the fund balance

and the cash to go up or down from last year

at the end of last year.

And so you can see, again,

the Convention Center Downtown assets,

we expect to go down, but that's offset by the grant funds

that are projected to be up a little bit,

as well as CPEDS funding as well, too.

Next category of funds is our internal service funds.

These are funds that support departments

that generally sell their services

to other areas of the city.

That includes certainly Public Works's

engineering materials and testing lab,

our fleet department, property services,

public works storerooms, our self-insurance funds

are certainly some of the bigger,

covers most of our internal service funds.

Again, in this case, our net position,

we expect to increase about 21, 22 million

from 2024 at year end.

That's up about a million dollars

from the second quarter when I was here.

That's, again, really our equipment,

property services are forecasted up a little bit,

whereas our IT department's forecasted down.

So fairly similar to last time in the second quarter.

Cash projections are at 226 million.

Again, another 21 and a half million from last year.

Same departments that account for the difference

between now and the second quarter.

So anyway, again, we are hoping that property services

and intergovernmental services can meet their cash balances

by the end of this year, but it still remains to be seen

whether we can quite make it or not.

And then looking at the balances again,

you can see on the right-hand column there,

On the right, we expect fleet as well as

engineering materials to go down, a little bit down,

as well as IT as well too, and then self-insurance

up quite a bit from last year as I mentioned as we accumulate cash

to cover our legal liabilities.

Then finally, the enterprise funds are used to account for

operations in the city that sell their services outside of the city primarily.

That would include our sanitary sewer, stormwater, the water department itself, solid waste,

recycling, parking.

CPIT has a small enterprise fund as well, too.

So in this case, the net position is forecasted to be about, just under 1.2 billion.

It's about 34 million.

Last year at this time, most of that is driven by the sewer and stormwater areas.

They're up about 20 million from when I was here for the second quarter.

Cash wise, we're projecting cash to be at 128 million,

about a 35 million increase from 2024.

Again, that's up about 20 million from the second quarter,

mainly due to the sewer and storm water areas.

And then this tends to be the most stable

of all our operations,

because these are truly they're selling services

that are, you know, private necessities

and things like that, so not affected

by the economy quite as well.

We'll mention parking at the end.

has come a long way since the pandemic,

and we're hoping to get to its targeted cash balance shortly.

And then finally, just looking at the details here,

again, you can see, as I was mentioning,

this on the right-hand side there

that has the difference between how 24 will end up

and 25 is projected.

You can see we have about,

we're up on sewer and stormwater,

a little bit on water and parking,

down a little bit on waste or so as well too,

and CPED is fairly similar.

So, with that, that concludes my formal presentation today.

At this time, I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Thank you for that presentation, Mr. Hardgrove.

Colleagues, are there any questions from the committee?

I will first recognize Council Member Cashman.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Hardgrove.

Thank you, Mr. Lang.

A couple questions about some numbers that I'm seeing here.

One is that property taxes are projected to be $17.4 million under budget due to the non-collectible amount.

Can you explain that a little bit more?

Yeah, yeah, sure.

Chair Chugtie, Council Member Cashman.

Yeah, the amount in the budget there is the total amount that the council levied for 2025,

but we know that some of it, not all of it, is going to be collectible because not everyone can pay their property taxes.

in addition to that there sometimes is legal judgments or court actions that

resulted in being lower so we do know we don't expect it to ever you know ever

collect 100% of what we have but it is less than than what we've experienced

in prior years I think normally Rob did you want to add to that or what sure

yes so a history of our property tax collections is actually shown in the

ACFER on schedule 8 and you'll see the past 10 year collections within that and

so you will see that historically it's been 98 99 percent collections and that

the last three years it has been decreasing thank you okay thank you

that's helpful second part was the neighborhood safety budget coming in

about 10 million under budget this may be a question for Commissioner Barnett or

Or maybe you two know about why the neighborhood safety department was $10 million under budget.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, because we're casting. Why don't we have a Todd come up and maybe you know explain a little more detail

Through the chair Chuck tied council member

Cashman, I believe that

There'll be a significant amount of money asked to be carried over

over, they will encumber some expenses that I don't think are

there right now.

Okay.

Sounds good.

And then can you speak to the $19.6 million overspend in the

police department?

Through the chair, Chair Chuck Tai, to council member Cashman.

specifically when we look at that in the number breakdown I would have to ask

MPD to give you all of the details that I think you're asking for in order to

answer that question for you so just give me a second here sure

Council member, so the question is the details between the projection from quarter two to quarter three and what accounts for the change that was not projected.

Is that correct?

Yeah.

I mean, how did we result in the 19.6 overspend?

So the 19.6 is different from what, excuse me, Council Vice President, Council member.

The 19.6 is the total 8% over budget, much of which was anticipated through the course of the year.

The difference is in this last presentation is there was expenditures that were not anticipated from quarter two that are new now in quarter three.

And those come down to three things.

What was not anticipated included back pay that was contractual that was given out in quarter three.

It was not budgeted.

Settlement agreement expenditures that were not budgeted.

But the largest share of that is this third category, which is new hires.

So we have hired 174 people for sworn positions this year.

every year that I've been here before this the police department has gotten smaller month after

month after month we bottled out bottomed out sometime in the middle of last year this year

there has been a very very dramatic increase in new hires we were budgeted for I think 20

23 community service officers we currently employ 74 we're hiring more next month

you know we hire we edit an entire class of cadets over the last year so what happens when you have

we have 174 new people the overwhelming majority of which are not licensed police officers

committee service officers those 74 they're going to go to college for at least two years

in some cases three the whole time we're going to be paying their salaries and paying their tuition

And because there's so much more of them, those expenses are greater.

At the same time, you don't actually have more police officers, as many more police officers on the street.

There's about 614 total sworn officers, 540 some odd are actually full duty on the street.

And so that is by far the largest unforeseen expense.

during the course of the year.

What compounds that is at the same time,

this is the first year now that because we've hired so many people,

we've had a reduction in the salary accruals.

So in other words, there's fewer vacancies.

There's a reduced vacancy savings through which we used to use

from people that just weren't employed here.

That is reduced because we've hired 174 people.

Okay, I guess I'd like to ask the commissioner who's ultimately responsible for keeping the budget in check.

Where does the oversight come in into making sure that we're planning for and then accommodating for new expenses that come throughout the year?

Yes, through the chair, Chair Chuck Tai, and then Council Member Cashman.

And we have started those conversations internally to shore up this process to make sure that along the way, all of us are lockstep in where we are.

And also that means from finance, me, the chief and I as well.

and so we think that

the next couple of weeks we'll have a

really good process of making

sure that we're lockstep as we go

through this and that there is

oversight. We had

a meeting

I think last week with

some of the staff and finance

Council Member Cashman your time has expired

Oh I didn't realize we were doing time

We are. Commissioner if you

want to wrap up the thought. Just to let you know

Councilmember Cashman, just to make sure that we're all on the same page as we move into 2026.

We did meet with finance to just make sure we're all on the right path to making sure that we have

all the information in the right place and that all of us are aware. Okay, I just want to make

sure that we're understanding the repercussions of this to potentially our AAA bond rating and

other controls that the city has and I'll allow others to ask about it but want to hear from you

as commissioner you're taking some responsibility for this through the chair the council members

time has now expired for quite a bit so we're going to move on and continue with Q council

member Cashman you're certainly welcome to get back in queue before we continue with discussion

I see several colleagues getting in queue I will note we have been joined in this committee by

Council Members Osmond and Jenkins. We've got about five additional members in queue right now.

So starting with Vice Chair Kosky and then we'll go to Council Member Rainville.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a few more questions for the finance team, so not for MPD.

In the general fund balance details page, I know you talk about the total above target is at 9.5.

I think the document we have in LAMS says 15.3,

so I just want to make sure that we get an updated document presentation in the file.

But I see that yours says 9.5.

Could you give us a bit of a look back?

What's the average that we've had over the course of the 5 to 10 years of this target number?

Oh, yeah, Chair Chugtaya, Vice Chair Kosky,

Yeah, getting back to your original question,

I think the third quarter report is on there.

I also think there was the second quarter report as well.

I think they're both there because that's what it was last time

when we were here.

It was $15 million.

But if not, I can certainly get the presentation.

That is what it is.

But if you could just, the second part of my question is just

what has been the last five to 10-year average,

or do you have that by year?

I only really offhand, I can only remember the last year or two,

but we can get that information.

It's readily available.

Okay.

So year end, do you know how we finished each year

for the last five years or so?

Yeah, what that target was and then what the end was.

What offhand do you have for the last two years?

I will say that the ACFER does represent unrestricted fund balances,

So after this, we can pull the 24, 23, 22, however many years we want of the ACFER and provide that information fairly easily for you.

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

No, that's totally fine.

I didn't think you probably would.

So if we could just add that as a memo.

But if we could go back 10 years, that would be great.

And then another question.

If you could pull up just the general fund, I think it might be the next.

where we see the whole list of the underspending and overspending?

It appears the computer is frozen.

Oh, it's okay.

I think what I would just, and again, I can add this as a memo,

but I see there are, I know that Councilor Catherine asked about some of the underspending,

but if we can work with some of the departments

to talk a little bit about their underspent projections

and get an answer of the why.

So if we could just add that to a memo,

that would be great as well.

And then my last question actually is for the fire department,

if there's someone from fire.

Thank you, Chief.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

Just a quick question. I know that you are $5 million over, and my understanding is it's due to overtime?

Yes.

Is that correct?

Okay.

Primarily.

My question would be, how many firefighters would we need to add to the department in order for us to reduce that overage on overtime spending to zero?

Through the chair to Councilmember Kanske.

I don't think we could ever reduce it to a complete zero because of contractual obligations such as staff meetings, coverage for special events and things like that.

But for most of it, what we're talking about to maintain a minimum level of coverage, and I think I've reported this in different committee meetings,

I would believe that we would need, in addition of, at a minimum, 45 firefighters.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That's my question.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

And then next we will continue with Council Member Rainville, followed by Council Member Chavez.

Should be going off the desk.

I have two questions.

one for finance first

and then the chief.

Of the $17 million

that were undercounted

for the property tax,

you say some of that is court

ordered, so I take it that means

a building objects to the

levy and then they get it reduced?

Yeah,

Chair Chugtie, Council Member

Rainville, yeah, no, that's exactly correct.

We get notified regularly

by Hennepin County that

hey, you know, there's been an adjustment

in someone's property tax.

Certainly I can remember one of the railroads

at one point, you know,

got a huge judgment

to have their property tax

lowered, so that

does happen regularly.

Of the $17 million undercount, how much

of that is the court-ordered undercount?

Yeah,

Council Member Rainville, I'd have to

get back to you on that. We don't have a breakdown

at this point in time, but

they do track it. Hennepin County does track it. So we can get back to you on that.

Wonderful. Thank you. My second question is for the chief.

If I can just quick, let's make sure that was noted for administrative follow-up so we actually get an answer.

Thank you. I didn't mean to interrupt. Thank you.

Chief, I just kind of a compliment in that question.

So this amount of new recruits is phenomenal.

No one would have anticipated in 2020 that the force would be growing

so quickly. So congratulations

on that.

But what do you anticipate

going forward? Are we going to see

this fast-paced? Is it

going to be slower, faster?

It seems like we're well on our way back

to the number we had in 2020.

Council Vice

President, Council Member,

you know,

until this year, at the

number of people we were hiring

versus the

attrition rate,

even with the slight increase that we did have in 2024 if we stayed at that rate we could go to

infinity and never hit 731 literally with the amount of people that we were hiring

so it was a very very dramatic increase this year in people that were hiring well over 100 more

people we've hired for sworn positions than what we've lost we've had 48 sworn members separate

and we're already plus over 100 from that.

The problem is the bigger financial issue for the city is

there's no financial plan really to deal with having this many people come in the door this quickly

and still have the operational need.

It's very difficult in Minnesota to hire someone off the street

and have them become a police officer.

There's a very specific college course that people have to go to.

Even in the case we've hired about 71 people this year that are cadets, so they have college degrees already.

We still have to send them to the two-year college here for several months before we can then send them to the police academy for four months and then train them in the street.

so again it is a it is good problem to have and this is a success on the part of the city when

you consider all the way up until this point we were just getting smaller and then even

the little bit of the increase that we had last year was not enough to ever get us to 731 so this

is a good problem to have but the larger issue again is it's very expensive you know to pay the

salaries for these folks to pay for their tuition and then still not get the operational benefit of

actually having police officers on the street for the city. That's the problem.

Thank you for that explanation and keep up the good work. You're doing a great job recruiting,

so thank you for your effort. Thank you, Council Member.

Thank you. Next, I'll recognize Council Member Wansley.

Okay. Awesome. Thank you, CVP. Chuck Ty. I just had a couple of questions and a few comments.

I wanted to start off, and this actually digs further into the 70-page report that you included,

but I would like to better understand the police special revenue fund that has an ending cash

balance of $3.2 million and states that the funding from this also supports police being

at additional services at the request of other city departments like Public Works.

I noticed that in 2024 in this report it says that the fund had about $3.5 million and now

it's at $3.2 million. I'm curious to know what was the $300,000 spent on and actually quite

more specifically if it was spent or tied to the motorcycles that NPD recently posted about.

So probably you can't speak to this, but maybe someone from OCS or NPD.

Yeah, yeah, Chair Chugtie, Council Member Wansley.

Yeah, we can certainly bring them up, too.

I do know that there is, getting back to kind of court judgments or actions,

they sometimes have to refund money.

I believe that's like forfeiture dollars that come in when the police, you know,

seize cash or things like that from people, and then sometimes we have to give it back.

So I can answer part of your question, but I'll bring up the police department to respond further.

Becky Troswick, MPD, Finance Director.

Through the chair, Council Member Wansley.

I don't have the details, so I think I'll have to respond in a memo,

but the motorcycles were purchased with forfeiture funds.

Forfeiture funds can only be used for items that were not budgeted,

so not as part of our regular operating budget, and it can't be part of our budget reduction.

So if the budget was reduced for a certain thing, we can't use forfeiture to then purchase that.

So it needs to be supplemental.

So that would be a qualifying expense under this police special revenue fund?

Pardon?

So that would be a qualifying expense under this police special revenue fund?

Through the chair, Council Member Wansley, the motorcycles were purchased using forfeiture funds.

That is correct.

Okay.

But there is a list of other things, too, like teams rooms for the facilities was a technology upgrade that we used for forfeiture funds.

And the list is long, so I think I'd prefer to be more accurate with the memo because the list is more than $300,000.

We do get income from the forfeiture funds, so the net of $300,000, I think we probably spent more than that.

Yeah, no, I was more so interested in the $300,000 and also just wanting to dig a little bit more deeper into this of seeing there's additional,

additional resources in addition to NPD's general operating budget that we're also talking

about now has exceeded through our cash balance and our general fund balance. So there's all

these different funding sources that's going to supplement NPD's quote-unquote needs. So

just getting clarity on what those needs are and you answer that at least in this piece.

The next question that I had was related to a conversation that we've been having in the

Administration Enterprise Oversight Committee related to the vendor that's doing contract

management for the city's parking lots and ramps. That contract that was recently

garnered a lot of debate amongst council and I think further conversations in the next term around

its inclusivity of off-duty officers to work in those ramps, and that was a component of that

contract. The description

of this fund, the special

revenue fund for police,

seemed like it could have addressed the costs

and also managed the personnel

needs for those parking ramps. So

I'm just curious as to why

this fund was not used as opposed

to the, I believe it was the

parking fund, which we've also talked about

as needing to have some

stability in the

coming years. So I just wanted to know why this fund

was not used instead of that.

Through the chair, Council Member Wansley.

So a portion of the Special Revenue Fund, that's where we use officers and we charge, say, target.

And so those are equal expense, equal revenue.

And if Public Works ABM contract changed to using the Special Revenue Fund, that is where it would hit.

That's at ABM or Public Works discretion.

We did meet about that several times, but I would have to defer to Public Works on what their decision is regarding that.

Is there, I see Commissioner Tim Sexton here.

Because, yeah, we had robust debates around this component

and also around what it felt to be duplicative

in terms of us paying twice.

So to know that there was a potential other funding alternative,

why did we not pursue that as opposed to just looping that into the ABM contract?

Yeah.

Chair Chuck Tye, Council Member Wansley,

Tim Sexton, Public Works Director, and Council Member Wansley, I apologize.

Those conversations are still ongoing.

We committed to having those discussions with MPD about the use of sworn officers for security.

And we're still having those conversations.

So I apologize.

We don't have a resolution yet.

Do you know proactively, because before it came to Council for Consideration, there was

at least a rationale as to why it should go through ABM.

I would like to know if there was even knowledge or awareness about this special revenue fund for the police as an option.

Chair Chuck Tai, Council Member Winsley, I am not familiar with the use of the special revenue fund for this purpose other than the parking fund as a way to pay for the security services.

So we'll have to follow up with you on that and we'll be happy to do that.

Okay, that sounds like a follow-up memo also for clerks.

Awesome.

So just going to the presentation on slide four, it's noted that fleet services needed to cut back,

and you highlight this, on needed purchases in order to meet the cash balance.

And I do want to note, this is just a comment before I move on to the next question,

that had NPD implemented the off-duty fees, this is one of the ways in which we could recoup costs

that's associated with off-duty officers using our fleet to do their side gigs.

And I don't understand why there was an operational choice to slow walk that,

but I know we're going to budget markup where we're literally talking about off-duty,

and this is why I want to reference that, just on slide four in itself,

and the negative financial position that we're putting our other services in.

But staying on that slide, it does note that the self-insurance fund has that forecasted

negative position of about $57 million. And I'm not sure if this includes, and by this,

the figure, also potential, like future police misconduct lawsuits. I'm thinking specifically of

Davis Maturi and Amir Locke's family who have already publicly stated that they plan to take

civil action against the city. And I know that those cases will have tremendous amounts of

impact on the city. Your time

has expired. Would you like to continue to your second

speech? Perfect. Thank you.

Awesome.

So I wanted

to know if those

or like are there

anticipations of significant

liability claims coming forward

as a factor as to why we have that

negative position forecasted?

Yes, Chair

Chugtie, Councilmember Wansley.

Yes, I do believe any

we do work with our city attorney

department, any potential claims that we know about, we do try to put in a

liability for that if it does seem serious. I can find the exact information

by conferring with the city attorney's office, but that is the

idea behind the self-insurance fund that we do estimate. It's based on known

actions that may be taken against us or people that have indicated they

may seek legal action against the city. Yes, if we get a staff memo on that too

based off of your follow-up conversation with the city attorneys around what is being factored

into that. This looks like you're looking potentially for someone. Okay. I don't know

if City Attorney Abelson also is aware. Again, this can be noted in the staff memo.

Chair, Council Member Wonsley, I think this is best left for a staff memo, and we can talk

generally about how we set reserves in the staff memo, but the amount of reserves that's set for

specific case would be attorney-client privilege and reflect our analysis of the case.

So we wouldn't be able to provide information to the public about specific cases.

But we could request the closed session to get more details on that in terms of the piece

that's client-attorney privilege, correct?

I mean, I think at the appropriate time to consider the litigation to talk about, yeah,

the exposure is something we could have closed sessions.

So once the litigation is initiated?

Or you can also have a closed session when there's a claim as well on threatened litigation.

Okay.

I definitely want to follow up there.

Again, knowing that some members of the public have made those claims and getting clarity on if that has happened and if that's part of this figure.

So I think it is actually timely.

But it sounds like follow-up staff memo on that piece.

and also I just want to note too these are one of the reasons why I'm working with Council

President Payne to bring forward and to create that executive risk management office just so

we can make sure that we have someone on the executive and administrative side that is doing

that proactive risk reduction and mitigation and implementing measures so we're not constantly put

in positions like that but just a couple takeaways from this presentation that is very

eye-opening. I think it is

however you want to dress it up,

being $20 million over budget

when NPD already has

one of the largest budgets in the city.

That is of grave

concerns as much as you want to frame it around

staffing. We've talked to NPD

at least through Public Health and Safety

multiple times about a staffing study

follow-up around how we can reappropriate

NPD's existing resources

to make sure that we're implementing

actually proven methods that

doesn't also lead to this overspending pattern that we're seeing so that we're maximizing

efficiency.

Like there are so many things that could have actually not led us here.

And I think that's going to be a continuous conversation of how we're making sure that

we're not just treating taxpayer dollars as like a bottomless pit.

And especially knowing that every dollar that we spend towards overspending for this one

department, that means one less dollar available for other critical priorities. We've often just

talked about in this budget markup, people want to see us doing more robust things towards addressing

homelessness, towards improving walkability and accessibility amongst our sidewalks, and those

type of priorities become compromised when we're put in these positions where we literally have to

bail out one department time and time again. So I really look forward to figuring out how we can

continue leveraging our budgetary

authority, and I know this is going to

complement some of the financial policies we're

bringing forward, to really think

through how we don't keep

being put in this position

that jeopardizes the

financial credibility of our city.

So with that,

I have a couple of staff memos,

and I look forward to getting that information

from the, mostly it's MPD

and some of the other departments like the

City Attorney's Office.

this. Wonderful. Thank you. I will next recognize Council President Payne. Thank you, Vice President

Chugtai. This is on the MPD overspend, and I'm curious, do we have a breakdown on how much of

that was critical staffing overtime versus standard overtime? And then I'd like to know more about the

critical staffing details.

Yeah, Chair Chugtai,

Council Member Payne.

Let me confer with the

police here.

You guys have something.

Sure.

Council,

Vice President, Council President.

So I

will let Director

Trotsky give you the exact

details, but on the higher level,

critical staffing

overtime this year, starting on January 1st, was used to prioritize minimum staffing in all

five precincts around the clock for 911 response. It had not been used that way previously.

And so every shift that was filled in the city to ensure there was a minimum level of police

officers on each shift in all five precincts was paid for with critical staffing overtime.

So that is more than what it had been used in the past.

The other thing that had been used for reliably this year was the late night safety plans.

That had been happening downtown for at least two years prior to this.

This year it had been used in Dinkytown and in Uptown as well.

In addition, we added the end of last year, I think September of October, we added a juvenile curfew task force that operates at night and on the weekends with juvenile investigators and other officers on a secondary assignment that assists them doing outreach to the most at-risk juvenile offenders and their family members.

That has been staffed all with critical staffing over time.

So the other thing I would add to that is I had reduced the overall hours of the late-night safety plans at the beginning of the year.

However, there's other major incidents that happened during the course of the year that required additional spending with critical staffing overtime.

So the biggest of which was July 4th of this past year.

We spent a lot in critical staffing overtime around that day and that weekend.

and I would say it was successful compared to what we had seen on July 4th the previous years

as well as critical staffing overtime due to other major events.

We've had mass shootings.

Obviously the most high profile is the Annunciation shooting

which then and in the aftermath of that there was a significant amount of critical staffing overtime

but there were other incidents as well.

Staffing for masjids and synagogues, houses of worship, as a result of both bias crimes and other incidents that were frightening to the community, that was all used with critical staffing over time.

That being said, that memo expires at the end of this year, which will level set, I think, expectations internally as shifts are filled, but also will reduce, I think, by several million dollars the overall overtime expenditure.

So that's the higher level, and I'd just ask the director if she can give you the specifics with the numbers.

Through the Chair, Council President Payne.

So overtime and CSOT, I do have the total amount for each year, but we do look at overtime

and the aggregate because we don't budget that separately.

So for 2025, CSOT was $16.5 million.

In 2024, it was $15.6 million.

The total overtime and CSOT is $31 million in 2025 and $27.1 in 2024.

So that's a 12% increase year over year.

And the budget for overtime in 2024 was $13.7 million.

And the budget for overtime in 2025 is $5.9 million.

And that represents the intention to use vacancy savings to pay for overtime, as we've done in the past.

So this is the first year that we've been over budget due to the influx of the recruiting.

Chair and Council President, one other thing I forgot to mention,

with prioritizing 911 response and adding managerial controls,

there's really a negligible gain in sworn personnel on the street over the last year.

We have significantly reduced response times, especially to this point now.

We're about two minutes, more than two minutes faster responding to priority one calls,

which are the highest emergencies, emergency calls.

Priority two calls are several minutes faster in terms of response.

Again, without a dramatic change in either the sworn staffing allocation in the precincts

or the call load, the workload.

So I think that's both a result of having filled the shifts

and also adding additional managerial controls

to ensure that we're responding as fast as possible.

So I think there has been a gain to the residents of the city.

Does the mayor's current recommended budget

take into account the operational changes

that you have put into place?

meaning are we assuming vacancy savings that won't be there and we're going to be off the mark again

come one year from now or are we accurately forecasting the amount of overtime that we're

going to need given our actual staffing reality? Chair Chuck Tye, Councilman President Payne,

we are concerned about the 26 budget for sure because there was not change in the overtime

budget. It wasn't increased and we weren't aware of the influx of this recruitment. So we do have

to regroup and rediscuss and create some projections on what 26 is going to look like and what those

mitigation efforts will be. But start that work now because I think the outrage that you might be

getting from the dais right now is that it was, we shouldn't have been surprised by a $19 million

overage. We should have known this for months, right? Like if we know today that there's going

to be another overage. Let's not pretend that it's going to be a surprise a year from now.

So let's get on top of that. Let's be very transparent, not just with us, but with our

community. Thank you.

Next I'll recognize Council Member Chowdhury. Thank you

Vice Chair, not Vice Chair, Chair Chowdhury.

Vice President Chowdhury. I don't want to

extend our conversation too long, so I'm just going to ask

for administrative memo.

I want to just get in writing the reasons for the overages

across the departments that had a larger spend on their budgets.

And then specifically for the Minneapolis Police Department,

there are three areas named back pay, settlement agreement expenditures,

new hires, and if there are any other categories

to kind of get into the details of how that was spent same for fire I think

that would just be helpful to understand more in numbers how we ended up here and

I'll just say I think something that I'm pondering is as we're hiring more CSOs

and that is causing a larger increase in budget spend and we're also spending

more in critical staffing over time there needs to be a clear explanation to

when are we going to start seeing over time go down if we're seeing newer

hires what's our financial plan into the future and I think that falls on the

Office of Community Safety to articulate and I was also troubled to hear that

that review and oversight conversations have quote-unquote just started I think

it should have started as soon as we started to see an overage just continue

to increase and increase and at what point and at what point does a

department start kind of internally having those conversations is that the

five million mark is at the seven million mark because yeah watching a

nineteen point six million overspend is a lot to absorb it is really surprising

and this can't be a trend that continues budget year after budget year it's a

significantly different picture than it was during last year's third quarter

financial report so those are all my comments thank you chair thank you and

clerks let's make sure that we've noted the the follow-up from councilmember

Chowdhury put myself in queue just a couple questions I want to this is this

is for the police department I want to understand this back pay issue tell me

about where that's coming from as one of the contributors of the overage

Chair Chugtie, I had been aware of some back pay, but it was the numbers I had heard originally at the beginning of the year that I was projecting was $350,000.

So I was surprised at the $2.5 million.

It did include, and I don't know if those contracts weren't settled, like at what point those contracts were settled,

because it is a new contract, a new unionized group.

And there was also some back pay from the federation.

They were still working out premiums and some shift differential from 24 that I didn't have a value for.

So that is one.

And I did want to add clarification that we do meet monthly with finance.

And so the overtime projection has not changed through the whole year.

The settlement costs are not included in the projections.

And so that's why you continue to see an increase.

It's a citywide approved CFO approval process and they're one-time costs.

And so that's not included in the projections as we move through the year

because I don't know what that'll be.

Gotcha.

So, I mean, okay, first clarify, what did the actuals end up being for back pay?

Chair Chuck Tai, $2.5 million.

$2.5, sorry.

I don't have that written wrong.

Then moving into...

So new from the beginning of the year came up in monthly meetings that you have with finance

that the reality of overtime would look the way it does

and that this would result in this large overage for the department's budget.

what other types of choices were made or did you bring to the like how when did you bring this to

the leadership team of of the police department as as a as something that was happening and were

there any discussions to your knowledge at any point over the course of the year about how to

make adjustments in other parts of the department's budget to accommodate such a significant overage

Chair Chugtai, in quarter two, I believe the projection was $12 million, and that was related to overtime, and that was before I knew the level of influx of the recruitment.

So the payroll is what jumped greatly from quarter two to quarter three, that now we need to do something different, which would be connect to HR and know how many people are coming on board in order to kind of calculate that.

That wasn't originally included in the projection.

So I would say in quarter two, everybody was at the table regarding that.

Historically, the police department has been able to use vacancy savings to fund that.

So originally, we weren't too concerned.

We did have mitigation efforts in place for saying no to property services projects, having approvals in place.

We did not, and that was before some major incidents happened.

I also wasn't aware that we were going to contract with the state patrol to the level that we did.

We knew about 4th of July that's kind of a standard.

That is not in the budget.

But we didn't know that we would have to continue to have enforcement details at synagogues and churches, et cetera.

So there was many things that happened, emergency related, that we didn't really talk about how are we going to scale back with the reduction in crime.

And that's something that we need to consider when we're looking at mitigation.

How far can we scale back overtime without affecting crime, which is one of our goals?

Absolutely.

That's helpful to know.

So I'll leave the remainder of my questions for administrative follow-up as well out of an interest in time.

And then, Chief, I'll come to you to add the thought that you have right now.

So it'd be helpful for administrative follow-up to know if any regular overtime was used within the police department.

And so there was an earlier question by President Payne about critical staffing overtime.

And so it'd be helpful to get back from the department total number of hours in overtime

and a breakdown of critical staffing versus regular overtime.

The next thing is it'd be helpful to understand.

So I believe the department currently has 155 vacancies for sworn personnel.

What is the total cost of those vacancies?

and then how was that used in the department's budget.

Really what I'm trying to get at is what's the real number of how much overtime costs are driving

what's happening with the budget.

So how much did you use vacancy savings versus what was budgeted for overtime

and then the additional overage on top of that.

And those are my questions for administrative follow-up.

Chief, to you, and then I have one minute on the clock.

We'll have to wrap up.

So, Chair, Vice President, thank you.

I did issue an order at the beginning of the year, January 1st,

with listing out significant changes to supervisory review

and managerial control, both over critical staffing overtime

and regular overtime.

So I believe that did have an impact to ensure greater levels of accountability.

As Director Trosky was stating...

Troswick.

Troswick, excuse me.

I'm sorry.

We have had, during the course of this year,

we're going to finish this year with the north side of Minneapolis

having the fewest number of shooting victims

since the city of Minneapolis has tracked shooting victims, literally.

And historically, the 4th Precinct had the majority,

more than half of shooting victims.

So that's significant.

What has also been happening that we've needed to respond to

our problems on the south side of Minneapolis.

Over the second half of this year,

we had a lot of street crime,

a lot of robberies,

a lot of violence concentrated on the south side,

including multiple victim shooting incidents.

And so we did concentrate a lot of our additional resources

with overtime and critical staffing overtime,

but then also lobbied the state

to provide additional patrols and additional resources,

and that, both of which, was not anticipated

but was obviously needed in response to the changing dynamics of street crime.

Wonderful. Thank you.

With that, I'm not seeing any further discussion.

I'll ask the clerk to file this report,

and we are now ready to move to our next item. Thank you.

All right. Back to markup. We will now continue considering revisions to Mayor Fry's 2026

recommended budget. A reminder to the public that the council will be hosting the final public

hearing for the budget tomorrow, Tuesday, December 9th at 6.05 p.m. This is our statutorily required

truth in taxation hearing. We made excellent progress last week on the market packet finishing

review of amendments number one through 26 with the exception of number 16 which we postponed.

As we work through the budget today I'm going to remind all of us once more to be respectful of

each other and the process. Speeches as a reminder will be limited to two per motion. The first speech

may not exceed seven minutes and the second speech may not exceed five minutes. Do my colleagues have

any questions before we begin? I'm not seeing any but I do see that everyone has their binders.

That's excellent. So with that we are ready to begin progress on the amendment packet. I will

recognize the author of each amendment to introduce their motion and then we will open the floor for

discussion on the amendment before taking a vote. Staff from the budget office is on hand to answer

questions that may arise during our discussions as well as the departments whose budgets are being

considered for changes. I will note that we have a hard cutoff today at 4 p.m. but we do have some

time tomorrow morning along with time tomorrow after the public hearing concludes for any business

that we don't get to today. I am aware of some revisions to existing amendments that authors

want to go back and make or are being worked out at the request of the administration. So we'll

plan to take those up in one of those two additional times. So we will begin with the

amendment that we tabled on Friday, amendment number 16, and then pick up where we left off

with Amendment No. 27. Amendment No. 16 is related to MPD off-duty fees, and for that,

which is presented by Council Member Wansley and Council President Payne. Council Member Wansley,

will you please reintroduce your amendment and make a motion? Thank you, Council Vice President

Chuck Tai. This amendment related to MPD off-duty fees is a one-time allocation to MPD for the

implementation of the off-duty program. This figure is taken directly from NPD's presentation

on off-duty fees that took place in the Public Health and Safety Committee just this past May.

On Friday, many of us learned that NPD is nearly $20 million over its already large $255 million

budget, one of the largest in the city. And the presentation that we just received from finance

also confirmed this. That alone underscores the need to keep this amendment intact as it provides

NPD with the resources needed to implement off-duty fees in 2026 and root coop up to $1.4

million to offset the cost of taxpayer dollars who have been subsidizing officers NPD, sorry,

officers off-duty program at that tune and would actually give those taxpayers a modest relief.

Although this is a earmark, again, this full amount can be recouped through the fees once

NPD implements the program, which council has already given them authority to begin collecting

in 2026. Again, this year, we've passed several ordinances to allow NPD to implement fees starting

in 2026, and that goal has been communicated to the administration throughout this past year as

we've advanced that legislative work forward. Council even passed off-duty fees in the 2026

fee schedule, and if the mayor had issues with that, he had time to make them known or even veto

that action as he's done with other measures like PCAR this year, but he did not do that.

I've also heard from the COO

That there is an enterprise-wide technology

Change that departments have

And are going through

That they anticipate MPD will be

Part of

And that will start in 2027

And while that's great

This amendment is about allocating the resources needed

To implement off-duty fees in 2026

And

A solution is needed for that

And this amendment allows for that

So once again

There's been lots of conversation

around how we're addressing the overspending that we just heard of,

this presents the opportunity for NPD to recoup $1.4 million starting in 2026

and not allow taxpayers to subsidize this program,

especially as we're having to contemplate a budget that's growing tighter and tighter.

So that said, I will motion approval of this amendment and ask for a second.

Second.

This amendment has been properly moved for approval.

Is there any further discussion?

I'm not, oh, Council Member Palmisano.

Madam Chair, MPD did give a presentation on this in committee.

They also talked about the costs to run the program, not the implementation costs of the program.

it's my understanding we're dealing with the motion that was originally in our packets there

isn't any change to this the source of that is public safety services and that's mostly

precinct operations and staffing and so i'm curious what kind of impact will this cut to

operations and earmark is a cut what kind of cut would this be what what would be the impact of

this cut. If this is going to impact precinct operations and staffing, I have to tell you

that I share a lot of residents' concerns that they show up to a precinct with a particular

need and it's very hard to find somebody there because everybody is on duty. Does anybody

want to help us understand what this means?

Well, I see the commissioner just walked out of the chamber, so I'm not sure if he's going to grab someone.

Yes, he's going to grab someone who can answer your question.

If we can just pause Councilmember Palmisano's timer.

Let's wait so that we don't use up all your time.

Thank you.

Actually, you don't have to pause the timer.

I can kind of share some of my other.

On the other hand, given that professional staff made it clear that they can't achieve compliance with this ordinance next year anyway, that was something that was said in the committee, so not everybody heard that, why would we be making this cut now?

Based on their own decisions and their own timeline, we should be making this cut for the following year.

Staff made it clear that an IT system to do this work is already in the works.

but I am concerned about what kind of an impact

this cut would be to operations.

For Ms. Troswick, I believe that

as you're just walking into this conversation,

the source of this amendment is a cut

to public safety services,

and my understanding is that's precinct operations

and staffing.

I'm curious what kind of an impact that would have.

the amount being cut is $329,000.

We're talking about MPD off-duty fees right now.

Chair Chag-Tai, Council Member Palmisano,

I would say the $300,000 cut is minimal.

It's still a very tight budget in that area.

That's where I thought that they had points.

Well, if it's the public safety budget,

while that's a very large budget,

the majority of the budget is personnel.

and then jail fees is about 1.3 million of it.

So there's not a lot of discretionary spending in that area.

The concern I have with the impact of this really relates to amendment number 17 that was passed

and that if the revenue isn't generated, the $1 million cut to public safety

is a larger issue than this 364 that has the same source.

And our response in the memo is that it's possible it could result in civilian layoffs.

We only have, I believe, 12 civilian vacancies right now to look at, and most of those are in progress.

So it is concerning trying to figure out what we're going to do with the impact to that.

I see.

Thank you.

Thank you for the answer to that.

I guess we're getting the answer that it's both minimal, but then it also could result in civilian layoffs or not filling open FTEs.

And then next I see Council Member Wansley.

Yes, thank you so much. Just want to note again, there is literally a presentation that NPD did themselves after several years of trying to get them to do the study in the first place on off duty that we took this number from. It says 329054. That is the cost to implement by NPD's own estimate. That's not Robin's implementation cost that I just conjured up.

So they did give us the cost of what it would need to have personnel and also the software needed to do a 2026 implementation.

That's always been clear. And also, I want to stray away from saying that this is a cut because we've authorized fee collection on this.

This allows MPD to recoup what they're already subsidizing right now as a one point four million dollar cost to taxpayers for this program that only benefits officers while they're doing their side gigs.

This does not go back into a public benefit by no means.

So we got these numbers from them.

And also, again, they can recoup the cost of it.

And that is why we're pretty much holding firm on a collection to start in 2026 as opposed to 2027.

You have the ability to bring in revenue via this fee and actually reduce the burden of financial strain that's being placed on taxpayer dollars.

hence by the conversation we just had about NPD going $20 million overhead.

Also, I want to address this IT, which we heard that from the administration, the IT need.

This actually has been cited as an excuse or rationale for why they have not been able to do implementation of off-duty.

Actually, quite frankly, since Council Member Palmisano, your time when you were leading, quote-unquote, on off-duty fees back in 2019.

That has not happened.

We've seen this be recycled time and time again.

NPD has the ability, and I know this because we've been contacted by vendors who said we can give them this software today if they do a bid.

And this does not conflict with the work that they're doing with IT to do an overall database haul.

They can still go forward with that work and buy software needed to track off-duty, which they've said they are not doing.

So this gives them the resources to do all those things and collect those fees

and actually take a financial barrier off the place of thousands of taxpayers

for one program that I think we've all collectively agreed,

because the ordinances tied to this have been usually passed with near unanimous support,

that we want to see regulation of this program.

This gives them the resources to do so.

So with that, I will ask for my colleague's support.

Director, did you have anything else to add?

I saw you come back.

I think you should be good.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

Just to be clear, the presentation that I gave regarding the off-duty fee,

that was to calculate what the fee would be to recover, to fully fund collecting a fee.

As stated in the presentation, it did not include the implementation.

So that fee is just for the work that the people does.

The second bullet on the second page says it doesn't include the implementation.

Great. That's helpful. Thank you so much, Director. Councilmember Vita.

Thank you, Chair. I was just, I just need a clarifying question answered. I'm trying to understand where the off-duty fees go, because I thought they didn't go back to MPD and that they went into the general fund.

I'm going to invite Budget Director Descenza to talk about where that revenue goes.

Good afternoon Chair Chugtai, members of the committee.

Typically all of the fees, unless they're in a special revenue fund, go to the general

fund overall.

When we set department budgets, we don't take into account the number, the amount of revenue

that they're bringing into the city.

We use the current service level method of budgeting.

And so MPD would not see a budget increase to account for this additional revenue.

Okay.

It would alleviate pressure on the property tax line.

Right.

Thank you.

And then the other question is, I think I'm a little bit confused about the timeline.

Council Member Wansley is saying that MPD wants this implementation next year,

and then Council Member Palmisano, you're saying the following year?

No?

No.

Oh, okay.

So what's the 2026?

I can speak to as author.

The ordinances that we've passed has been for 2026 implementation.

The administration is trying to do a 2027 implementation.

Right. And when we got the presentation, that is what they said to us, is that 2027 implementation was more suitable for what they needed, right?

And we passed for 2026.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Wonderful. Councilman Brosman.

Yeah, I am trying to catch up and see where we are with the off-duty policy or ordinance.

Can you just...

Yeah, the off-duty, that's been adopted already by the council.

The fee schedule has also been adopted by the council.

Okay.

Okay.

No, no, my discussion is that, you know,

can we just have a conversation about the off-duty

and what are the benefits of having off-duty officers?

Are we implementing officers not to take their squad car when they go off duty?

No.

Council Member Wansley, do you want to answer the question?

So as you know, Council Member Osmond, the 2026 fee schedule came through BIS.

As part of the off-duty fees that we authorized, it allowed pricing for an officer with no squad car and with a squad car.

So that's what's passed.

I don't have the figure right in front of me.

So that is what's passed. That allows us to collect a fee on those things. So again, there's been robust conversation about this for over a year. We've passed at least at minimum three ordinances tied to off-duty alone with the 2026 implementation start date all tied to them.

Okay, just overall comments for me is that I believe if we put officers on charging them the vehicle they take, they will be taking their personal vehicles.

and what was told by having off-duty, for example, somewhere in a business when things happen

or crisis happen, then they're able to get in the vehicle, go take care of that crisis.

And one is we implement this, and if it creates a problem where officers leave their squad

vehicles behind and take their personal car, then it's not going to be the same response.

So that's just something to think about.

Can I offer clarification on that?

That is not what's been discussed at all, Councilmember Osmond.

What we're putting in place actually supports still officers,

because not all officers use squad cards when they're doing off-duty.

What has been happening, there's been no fees collected

because they're using city-owned resources to do this.

So we've just attached a fee.

If an officer would like to take an off-duty bid and use a squad card,

here's a fee for that.

that's charged to whoever is soliciting those resources.

And that's a different fee.

It's a little bit higher.

And if an officer has an off-duty gig

where they don't want to use the squad car,

then there's a separate fee for that.

It's a little bit less.

So that's it.

It's not about pushing them to use personal cars.

It basically allows us to recoup the cost

for an officer to use the city-owned resources

to do it now.

And just to clarify,

no one, the officer themself is not paying that amount, right?

Yep, that answers that question.

Okay, Council Member Osmond, I believe you're in queue a second time.

That must be an accident.

Yes.

Yeah?

All right, seeing no further discussion on Amendment Number 16, MPD, off-duty fees,

clerk, please call the roll.

Council Member Payne.

Aye.

Wansley.

Aye.

Rainville.

Aye.

Vita.

Aye.

Osmond

No

Cashman

Aye

Jenkins

Aye

Chavez

Aye

Chowdhury

Aye

Palmisano

Aye

Vice Chair Kosky

Aye

Chair Chokhtay

Aye

That is 11 ayes and 1 nay

That motion carries

All right. Next, we are going to continue to Amendment No. 27. Right? We completed 26.

All right. So, just reorder my packet here. All right. Amendment No. 27 is 38th Street Thrive

implementation offered by Council Members Chavez, Jenkins, Chowdhury, and Wansley.

um council member chavez will you please introduce your amendment and make a motion

thank you uh chair truck ty this uh 38th street thrive representation program is being authored

by myself council member jenkins council member chowdhury and council member huansley this fund

gives the ability to invest collectively in stabilizing physical property and infrastructure

it gives funding for events marketing and a branding strategy funding for ownership and

preservation of homes and businesses for economic security and implementation of this plan,

which is really critical to the residents in South Minneapolis who have been advocating for

the strong implementation of the 38th Street Thrive Plan. We believe that this funding will

help achieve many of the strategies identified in the plan. Before we continue, I'd like to

pass it to Councilmember Jenkins to speak on the item as well and make a motion.

Councilmember Jenkins.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Councilmember Chavez.

Yeah, I mean, I am thrilled to offer this amendment so that we can really begin the implementation process around the 38th Street Thrive plan that has been adopted by the City Council, I believe, in 2019.

and we still have yet to really invest in the implementation.

I believe that 38th Street has become a destination for visitors and travelers from all around the country

and subsequently around the world.

And we should be investing in this process not only to improve the communities that surround 38th Street, but to lift it up to the significance that it has garnered as a result of, you know, the murder of George Floyd.

George Floyd Square has become a prominent destination.

and deserves this investment by the city to improve the infrastructure

and businesses, homeownership, entrepreneurship in the area.

And I would move this amendment.

Is there a second?

Wonderful.

We have a proper motion before us.

Is there any discussion?

I'll recognize Council Member Cashman.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to all the authors for putting this forward.

It's very clear from our public hearing that we had in the Climate and Infrastructure Committee last Thursday

that the unanimous view of everyone in the community is that the small businesses of the area

and the community resources of the area deserve more investment from the city,

and I think we all agree with that, and this is how we can put our money where our mouth is

when it comes to our support for 38th Street and the Chicago Corridor.

And I would like to ask if you'd be willing to add me as a co-author on this amendment.

See thumbs up from some of the authors.

Thank you so much.

Wonderful.

And then I'll recognize Council Member Chowdhury.

Thank you so much, Chair.

I really appreciate it.

I saw it.

I think it just needs to move closer to you.

Yeah.

Is that compliant?

Good.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you so much, first of all, to Councilmember Chavez for your work on this,

and then just taking the time to really be a voice on the city council

for investment into areas of our city that have been underinvested in

for a really, really long time.

And then a big thank you to Councilmember Jenkins for your leadership, not only as a council member, but even prior to being a council member as a policy aide for the 8th Ward, for 38th and 38th in Chicago.

So I know that this has been something that you've worked on since you got elected year by year, day in, day out.

And I just wanted to say I'm really proud of you and your office's work to bring this big allocation forward,

especially in your last budget as the eighth board city council member.

And I think that this amendment within, I really encourage people to read all the steps that were taken by Council Member Jenkins that led to this point.

So I just wanted to give you your flowers on that.

Over the last year, I know I don't represent 38th Street, but I have heard from constituents I represent in the 12th Ward and then constituents all throughout the city

that there is a really strong shared North Star for making sure that 38th Street and 38th and

Chicago got what it deserved and what it deserved for many, many years prior to 2020. And so I'm

proud to bring this forward. And as a council member into the next term, I'm committed to

ensure that we see a strong implementation and be a member on this body that will help cheer for it

and help it grow. Thank you. Not seeing any further discussion, I'll ask the clerk to call the roll.

Council Member Payne. Aye. Wansley. Aye. Rainville. Aye. Vita is absent.

Osmond. Aye.

Cashman. Aye.

Jenkins. Aye.

Chavez. Aye.

Chowdhury. Aye.

Palmasano. Aye.

Vice Chair Kosky. Aye.

And Chair Chubb-Tag. Aye.

That is 11 ayes.

That motion carries.

All right.

we will now continue okay i see councilmember vita councilmember vita would you like to be

noted on okay wonderful if we can note her in the affirmative uh great excellent

so and that changes to 12 eyes no nays great

Next is amendment number 28, which is downtown street outreach offered by Council Member Rainville.

Council Member Rainville, will you please introduce your amendment and make a motion?

Yes, thank you.

So what this amendment does is it funds a contractor for street outreach funding for downtown.

The funds would be sufficient for a team of six street outreach workers, two unarmed security guards,

four ambassadors and one late night safety dispatcher working in the first precinct

to address livability issues and safety for residents, visitors, and businesses.

The contract would cover Friday and Saturday nights from 6.30 p.m. to 3 a.m. from May 26th through October 26th

and expands the geographic area to include Nickel Mall, the theater district along Hennepin Avenue

in addition to the warehouse district.

you have a new

sheet in front of you and speaking with

Council Member Wansley and Chavez

we made some changes

this would be run through the

Office of Community Safety and what it

does is guarantee that the Council will have

a review of the vendor chosen

so that we'll be in control of that vendor

I see Council Member Wansley

nodding thank you for that advice

and I just want to point out that

by protecting

the sales tax that we get

the local sales tax from downtown that allows us to invest in the neighborhoods.

We just voted to invest $1.9 million into 38th Street.

For the most part, those dollars came from the local sales tax in downtown.

So this will help us keep ongoing revenue to support neighborhood projects.

And with that, I'll make the motion to approve.

Is there a second?

Second.

Wonderful.

Great.

We love it.

I'll recognize, is there any discussion on this item?

Council Member Cashman.

Thank you so much.

And thank you for your leadership on this, Council Member Rainville.

It's super important that we have more public safety resources, especially at night.

And especially in the downtown and the entertainment district where we have so many bars and restaurants and clubs.

And it gets pretty wild around 2 a.m. around bar close.

And so I think it's really important that we develop the full resource capacity around the bar close time in this area.

I just did have a question for city staff, maybe Commissioner Barnett, about the implementation.

It's been a little difficult to implement nighttime services,

and I want to see if there are some barriers that you've cleared in conversations with the DID

to be able to hire these ambassadors that do work after, you know,

this goes from 6.30 p.m. to 3 a.m. on the weekends.

Through the chair, Chair Chuck Tye, Council Member Cashman,

I think what you have before you comes from some discussions with Councilmember

Rainville to try to expedite services a lot quicker. There's been a lot of

conversations with Shane Zahn, his staff, about some of the needs and I think

we're on a path to make sure that this service is available by May.

Okay.

Yep.

And then just a follow-up here is because I know that we've allocated money

to safety ambassadors in the past,

and a lot of those resources still haven't reached our neighborhoods.

In Uptown in particular, safety ambassadors were budgeted for two years ago in 2023

and still haven't been implemented in Uptown.

and I've heard over the last couple of years that it has to do with a lack of kind of operational structure in place in that area.

And downtown has that, right?

It has more infrastructure to complement it with DID.

And so it does have, you know, a greater ability to get done within the confines of the budget.

However, I'd really like to see us develop those late night spots that ambassadors could operate out of in uptown as well.

So I just wanted to add that comment that we have budget still for ambassadors in uptown,

and I'd like to see the strategies they're implementing downtown be applied in the other neighborhoods

that also have nighttime economies and big safety concerns.

Chair Chuck Tai, Council Member Cashman.

The safety ambassadors through DID, they do do a service and do a great job there.

you know that we have a pilot right now that's happening on East Lake Street with our safety

ambassadors that are being dispatched out of the Lake Street Safety Center. The idea is to be able

to expand that program. So I hear the urgency like you, business owners and other residents in

uptown want to see it there as well and so we are working towards as much as

possible being able to expand our safety ambassador program thank you next I'll

recognize councilmember Chowdhury followed by councilmember Wansley thank

you chair Chugtie I'm inclined to support this amendment I think an

expansion of these services is a real benefit but I do have a question maybe

it's for the author maybe it is for Commissioner Barnett and just kind of

understanding the source impact I see that it's sourced from public safety

aid appropriation for community safety center pilots and I just want to get a

better understanding of what that means to shift two hundred thirty six thousand

from that to here.

Chair, Chuck Tai, Council Member Childry.

That was a discussion that I had with Council Member Rainville.

I think that's one reason that he reached out to other council members.

That pilot programs that fund is there for, I believe,

we're at $2.4 million on that fund for pallet programs once the South

Minneapolis Safety Center opens up. I still think we can get services there

and remember still we have to continue to look at what services are there but

but also looking at how do we continue to fund those services long term.

In looking at that, we are continuing to be creative as possible,

knowing that some of the funding that we would have looked for previously

would have come through federal funds.

Those funds, as we know, have some strings attached to them that the city would not accept.

I know this council would not accept.

And so we look at those funds, and also we continue to look at what local philanthropic opportunities are there for us

to try to not only fund these type of programs ongoing,

but just how all of this fits together.

And that's why the NYU folks who continue to help us navigate this area

and have experience in this area,

we continue to talk to them about what we can do for long-term funding.

I mean, in the short term, I think we're okay.

long term I think that's something that we have to continue to talk about and

build out but that affects all of these programs okay thank you I appreciate it

yeah just good to good to know good to kind of understand what we're looking at

into the future the South Minneapolis Community Safety Center hasn't yet

launched yet and so we're still waiting on that and we still have to wait and

understand what the needs are going to be and what the cost is going to be in real time.

So I think this time around I'm okay with this source.

As a council member that represents a significant portion of the third precinct area.

But I am weary about continuing to take from this pot into the future.

because I know that we have taken from this earlier in the year

for Metro Youth Diversion, which I think was a good use for sure.

But I'm going to support this amendment.

Yeah, those are all my comments.

Just wanted to note that for Council Member Rainville

and others in the body for this pot of funding.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member Wansley.

Thank you, CVP.

Just clarity on a couple of things.

I did have the opportunity to have several conversations with Councilmember

Rainville around this, sharing also some of the concerns that Councilmember

Chaudhury raised as someone who also represents the third, well, the area,

including the third precinct and also the ward that's going to have the South

Minneapolis Community Safety Center, making sure that we're making sure those,

that funding for our pilots there is being preserved for longevity.

And I would encourage Council Member Chaudhry,

the reason why I feel pretty confident in supporting this

is we did receive a pretty extensive presentation

from Office of Community Safety that laid out the allocations

that they're making using the public safety aid

towards the South Minneapolis Community Safety Center.

And there's still a decent chunk of dollars left over, but I share those concerns.

And ideally, next year, we can look at how to continue beefing up those pilots to make sure that that center has everything that it needs.

Just clarity around the oversight piece, because this is also one of the concerns that I had.

And I think Councilmember Cashman raised this piece.

So just for clarity for either Councilmember Rainville or the Office of Community Safety to be intentional of making sure that whatever vendors are selected to carry out these services for it to come through council review and consideration and ultimate potential approval or not.

These are going to be administered via RFP through the Office of Community Safety, not through external agency like the Downtown Improvement District.

I just want to get clarity on that.

Yes, we've built it in, but Commissioner, would you like to comment on that as well?

Again, my commitment is strong that the council has oversight on the vendor's selection.

100%.

Awesome.

More than strong.

Chair Chuck Tai, Council Member Wadsley,

you saw that there was a change and it was revised in what Councilmember

Rainesville proposed on this amendment so that whatever services are used we

would come here probably through I'm not sure exactly what committee I think it

would be through PHS, but we would come forward with whatever services that we would want

to see implemented.

So yes, we would come before the committee.

Thank you.

I just wanted to make sure that was clarified.

I know that was a big priority of mine.

As you know, we do a lot of contracts with external organizations, and what we've seen

this past year is we've had deep concerns by some of the vendors that have been selected

by our external partners, but that does not fall under our oversight.

So I'm really happy that we were able to have a conversation

and come to this place where we know Office of Community Safety

will be administering RFP and allowing council to be part of that oversight

and approval process.

And, yeah, I feel pretty good in light of that, supporting this amendment.

And thank you, Council Member Rainville, for being amenable,

as well as you, Commissioner Barnett, in these conversations to get to this place.

If I could, just one second, Chair.

Councilmember Wadsley, just to be totally clear, I'm not sure if it's a sole source or it's RFP.

We have to really define what the service is.

So I just say that we will come before you, but you say RFP,

and I just want to leave that option that there might be a sole source here.

That's all.

Okay, so wherever procurement process you initiate,

that will move through the legislative process though.

Okay.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

I just want to,

I put myself in queue for two clarifying questions.

The first is for the author.

In the original version of this amendment,

I saw the purpose was listed as for street outreach services in downtown.

And then in the revised version,

I see to support the warehouse district live program in downtown.

Is that with intention?

Are you?

That was with intention.

that allows more control by the neighborhood safety department.

Okay, great. Understood.

And then the second piece of this is I'm just a little bit confused

about this discussion on council approval of whatever vendor is selected

and that being the primary reason to move to the Office of Community Safety

instead of leaving this in the neighborhood safety department.

Is this about the master contract question?

or what's the go ahead Commissioner sure Chuck to answer that question in

working with councilmember Rainville I felt as though to move the process

faster neighborhood safety has a lot of different contracts that move we've had

those discussions before I think with my staff although I shy away from these

things I thought with the staff and the support we can make this happen faster

I know that's been a concern about services and in this case I knew that

councilmember Rainville was talking to other council members as well so I just

wanted to make sure that we could get it get services there by May as council

member rainville said without it being in a queue and neighborhood safety it's more about not that

neighborhood safety couldn't do it for sure don't get me wrong um in fact i don't even think they

know about this revision which i think they'll be happy about sounds great thank you um that's

helpful to know um okay i'm not seeing anyone else in queue so on um amendment number 28 downtown

Town Street Outreach. I will ask the clerk to call the roll.

Councilmember Payne. Aye. Wansley. Aye.

Rainville. Aye. Vita. Aye.

Osmond. Aye. Cashman. Aye.

Jenkins. Aye. Chavez. Aye.

Chowdhury. Aye. Palmasano. Aye.

Vice Chair Kosky. Aye. Chair Chugtay. Aye.

That is 12 ayes. That motion carries.

um all right colleagues we've got about eight minutes left let's try to get through one more

amendment really quickly amendment number 29 is nicollett avenue public restrooms offered by

council member cashman council member cashman please introduce and move approval of your

amendment thank you madam chair this amendment pulls seven hundred thousand dollars ongoing

from the streetcar value capture fund to public to fund public restrooms along nicollett avenue

So as everyone is likely aware, public bathroom access is a human need that we all have.

And Nicollet Mall is the most active transit corridor in the entire state.

And as the Ward 7 Councilmember representing a large stretch of Nicollet Mall,

I know how great the need is for both residents who live there, elders going to the doctor's office,

tourists coming into downtown for the very first time, workers who are moving along the mall.

and everyone in between, there is a big need for public restrooms.

And currently, Nicollet Mall also has a problem with people relieving themselves in alleyways and other spaces,

which the DID does have to pay for.

And you'll see a map in here about the areas where there are public bathrooms,

but also the areas earmarked red pins that are public urination hotspots.

So my amendment will improve access to public bathrooms for the transit riders who use the corridor,

the transit operators who need somewhere to go during layovers, and every tourist and resident and worker who's coming through our city.

We received a really high-quality report from our policy and research team a few months ago about the different various strategies to implement public restrooms, and my proposal builds off of that.

So the idea here is to fund public works to procure multiple high-quality, high-tech, and climate-controlled standalone restrooms, not porta-potties.

from a private provider and site them along the transit lines within the value capture district

project area, which goes on Nicollet Avenue all the way south down to Kmart, but also north across

the river into northeast. And these units would also address the public safety concerns that had

arisen in the past with the porta-potties that DID implemented back in 2019 because they will have

more innovative technology and features. We are seeing these rolled out in cities like Ann Arbor,

Michigan, Portland, Oregon, LA, and Washington, DC. And they have been highly successful in

mitigating various issues. And the bathrooms that they've implemented have been highly cared for and

cherished by the communities that use them. So the source of funding here is the value capture fund,

which was initially created by the state legislature to fund the streetcar, which

was not materialized, but the funds are restricted to public space improvements in support of transit

along this corridor. I would hate Toilette to let this funding opportunity go to waste,

so I hope to have your support for this budget amendment. And I'll move approval.

Is there a second?

Second.

Wonderful. Okay, so I see three members in queue. We've got about five minutes left,

so here's what I'm going to do. I've noted down the order in which you are in queue,

and we'll pick up the discussion when we come back tomorrow. I want some time. We do have a

real hard cut off at 4. So I need some time in order to be able to walk through what comes next.

All right. So with that,

this is, we are going to pick up with Amendment

Number 29 when we return tomorrow since we still have work to continue.

I'm going to forward this and I'm going to adjourn our committee meeting

to tomorrow, Tuesday, December 9th at 10 a.m. so that we can continue our work on the 2026 budget

for any outstanding items that remain after that morning session. If there are any revisions that

are caught, anything like that, we'll pick that back up after the conclusion of the public hearing

tomorrow evening. So we have time and we will get through this packet with not the same type of rush

that we were in last time.

So without objection, we are adjourned to tomorrow,

Tuesday, December 9th at 10 a.m. in these chambers.

Please, again, remember to bring your packets,

although you can leave them in here tonight.

Nope, never mind.

We have planning commission.

Please take your packets with you and bring them back.

Thank you, everyone.

Thank you.

Thank you.