Good afternoon.

Welcome.

My name is Linne Palmasano, and I'm the chair of the Enterprise and Labor Relations Committee.

I'll call to order our regular meeting for June 15th, 2026.

As we begin, I'll offer the usual friendly reminder that these meetings are broadcast live to enable greater public participation.

That includes real-time captioning as a further method to increase accessibility.

So please be mindful of the rate of your speech so that our captioners can fully capture and transcribe all comments for the broadcast.

So I'll ask the clerk to call the role.

Councilmember Vita.

Present.

Schaefer.

Present.

Stevenson.

Present.

Chavez, present.

Shoktai is absent.

Vice Chair Whiting present.

Chairman Palmasano.

Present.

We have six present.

Thank you.

Let the record reflect that we have a quorum.

I'll remind my colleagues that we're using speaker management.

So please sign in and I will also sign in so I can see and call on people accordingly.

Let's start with our consent items.

I'll read them for the record.

Item number one is a legal settlement with federal insurance company versus foreign A network solutions.

Item number two is a resolution of a legal settlement John Clausen versus the City of Minneapolis.

Item three is a resolution approving election judge and deputy city clerk appointments for the primary, which is August 11th of this year.

Item number four sets a hearing for July 6th for the mayor's nomination of Rebecca Walmquist as city assessor.

Item number five are resolutions for two gift acceptances from local progress for council members, both Council President Payne and Councilmember Chavez.

Item number six is approving various workplace advisory committee appointments.

Is there any discussion on these?

Seeing none, I'll move approval of the consent agenda.

All those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

That motion carries.

Our next item is a contract authorization with Guide House for ERP system implementation services, and I will invite Paul Cameron, our CIO, to get us started.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Paul Cameron, and I am the Chief Information Officer for the City of Minneapolis.

I'm here to give a brief presentation on Project Evolve.

Before you today is a contract with Guide House.

This is the third and final contract related to the implementation of this project.

So Guide House will be the main entity that is doing this, the implementation services for us.

And so I'd like to just share a little bit more about that project for everybody.

I do want to highlight what a collaborative effort this has been across the human resources, finance, and IT departments.

We've had a up to the state a multi-year undertaking to bring us to where we are with a lot of work put in by all three departments.

So Project Evolve is a citywide modernization initiative that will replace multiple disconnected systems with a single workday platform supporting HR, finance, and payroll business processes across the city enterprise, including the park board.

Our goal is to strengthen our workforce operations and ability to better serve Minneapolis residents.

So today I just have a couple slides I wanted to provide for you.

These uh should be in the LIMS file as well if you want to review them in more detail.

Um I'm not going to cover everything on these slides, but I think they do highlight the breadth of impact this modernization initiative will have for employees, for managers, and for the organization.

One fundamental aspect of this change I want to highlight is that currently our HR and finance systems are separated.

They have separate user interfaces, separate databases.

This can lead to numerous downstream, downstream problems when there is a need to report on data from both systems.

I know this has been a particular pain point for the council.

Getting vacancy reports is an example of this.

This project will address this and other challenges that we have.

On the next slides are a variety of outcomes we will be looking to achieve across the enterprise.

Most of the processes listed here have a manual, time-consuming and technically complex components to them in their current state.

Our goal is to simplify and standardize city processes across these areas.

And with that, I'll thank you and would be happy to answer any questions that you have.

Thank you for that presentation.

Are there any questions or discussion from committee members?

Councilmember Schaefer.

If you could speak a little bit to that, help me understand the background.

Councilmember Palmasano to Councilmember Schaefer.

Of the actual and like break out maybe the implementation work, the teams across the three departments have been working for the last couple years on developing the RFP, reviewing that RFP and going through that process.

As part of that, we have really tried to dive into the data and some of the processes to kind of prepare ourselves for the actual implementation.

The actual implementation of workday itself will begin in July when we have this last contract in place with Guide House.

In case we'll add a little filler in case anybody else has any questions.

I know this might seem mundane, but it actually is really exciting for the city enterprise agenda setting.

It was called the Sexiest Unsexy Project Happening Around Here.

We've needed this kind of a software platform for years.

I've been hearing about it for over a decade.

It really allows our different departments to finally speak with one another.

I know you'd think we'd already had that, but we didn't.

And it really will allow nearly instantaneous reports from HR when we as a city council ask for things like employment updates that will be literally at someone's fingertips to give us.

I was around for some of it, and I offer all my thanks to the people who are shepherding this project in order to get it to this point today.

Seeing no one else in queue and acknowledging that Councilmember Chugtai has joined us, I will move approval of this item.

All those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye, any opposed.

The ayes have it, and that motion carries.

Our next item is a receive and file of the annual report from the Minneapolis Ethical Practices Board for 2025.

Staff has have prepared a brief presentation, and I'll invite Kuma Blake, our ethics officer, to get us started.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Committee members.

I'm Kima Blake.

I'm the designated ethics officer for the city of Minneapolis.

But today here I'm in my capacity as staff to the ethical practice board and to present their annual report for 2025.

So this presentation is structured in two parts.

The first part is going to give some background information to understand the annual report.

So the ethics program and the overview of the ethical practices board.

The second part is going to be some data that is contained in the annual report.

So get started.

I think it's important to understand the Minneapolis city government ethics program.

So you'll see on the screen, I'm a visual person, so I create this to help visual people like me.

So the purpose of the program is to promote high ethical standards and conduct and to foster a healthy ethical culture within city government.

So the program itself applies to both employees and local officials.

And the foundation of the program is the code of ethics, chapter 15 of the code of ordinances and the implementing ethics policies, procedures, and forms.

I like to think that the code of ethics creates four pillars that provide the structure of this program.

The first pillar, we're looking at the defined ethical standards.

This is the baseline that employees and local officials cannot fall below before being subject to discipline.

The second pillar is going to be your education training.

So this is teaching employees and local officials their roles and responsibilities and duties when it comes to those ethical standards.

The third pillar is the advisory opinions.

This is really important.

It's the ability for local official employees to ask: what does the code mean?

Can you help me interpret this when it comes to my situation?

The fourth pillar is accountability.

We're looking at, you know, the ability to report any violations, investigating, and then any accountability based on those results.

All four of these pillars complement and build upon each other.

And two of the roles that are really important to the program and these pillars is the ethics officer and ethical practice board.

Today I'm gonna focus on the board.

So the code of ethics grants the board the power to review and investigate ethics complaints against elected officials and appointed advisory committee, board, and commission members, and to provide advisory opinions.

The board is able to advance the city's commitment to ethical, transparent, and accountable governance through impartial and fair discharge of its powers and duties.

It's able to do this because it's an independent body.

As you'll see on the screen, the board has three members.

They are not appointed by the city council or the mayor.

Instead, you have an external appointing authority that consists of the chief judge of Hennepin County District Court, the Dean of the University of Minnesota Law School, and the Dean of the University of St.

Thomas.

In addition to the external appointing authority, you'll see on the screen that the members, there's restrictions on who can become a member.

This independence ensures that impartial and objective reviews of complaints and maintains public trust.

So it's really foundational to the ethics program.

So with kind of understanding the ethics program in general and how the ethical practices board plays within that program, and I'll transition to the actual annual report and some of the data as it pertains to the program and the board.

So first data in the report on ethics education training, the second pillar that I discussed.

So elected officials must complete the training and every other employee within six months of becoming elected official employee, elected officials every four years thereafter, and all their employees three years thereafter.

So as of December 31st, 2025, training records show 93.4 of employees are compliant with the education requirement.

The percentage of employees in compliance decreased slightly from 94.4 in compliance in 2024, but slightly above the 92.6 compliant in 2023.

As you can see on the screen, 13 departments had 100% compliance, and a total of 19 departments had 95% or more compliance rate.

The goal is 100%, of course.

But overall, I think we're we're sitting pretty healthy when it comes to compliance when it comes to that.

So now the data on the ethics inquiries, the third pillar that we discussed.

For 2025, the board did not receive any questions about the code of ethics or any requests for interpretation.

However, this is in line with previous years.

For the ethics officer, they answered 166 inquiries.

The number of inquiries is down 179 from 2024 and 244 inquiries in 2023.

You'll see the top five inquiries subject matters and the bottom five.

I can't give you data on the answer of why the number of inquiries have gone down over the past couple of years.

It could be as simple as whoever the designated ethics officer is how they define an inquiry is how it's calculated, might be one of the overall, but I think overall it's encouraging that people are still seeking advice.

Finally, data in the report on complaints, the fourth filler pillar.

As mentioned earlier, the board has jurisdiction over complaints as it pertains to elected officials and any board or commission members.

So for 2025, the board reviewed 16 complaints falling within its jurisdiction.

On this screen, you'll see an overview of the board's actions on those complaints.

For comparison, I would like to highlight data from previous years.

In 2024, the board reviewed nine ethics complaints.

None of the complaints resulted in a recommendation for discipline or other action.

In 2023, the board reviewed 10 ethics complaints.

None of the complaints resulted in the issuance of a recommendation for sanctions.

So overall, the board's action on complaints in 2025 is comparable to the previous years.

So overall, the annual report shows that the Minneapolis ethics program is doing good.

As a designated ethics officer, I'm tasked with promoting the city's ethics program.

So I'd be failing in my job today if I didn't leave you with a challenge.

Meaning, do we have the highest standards established in our code of ethics?

Do we have a strong system that supports those ethical standards?

And so I think as the months come, years come, I challenge us to look at beyond of just meeting the basic standards, but how do we improve?

How do we get better?

How do we set the example for other city governments for state and the federal government of what it is to be a top-notch city?

Pending any questions, that completes my presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you for that presentation.

I'll kick it off to allow others time if they need it to get in cue.

On slide five, you were noting not a 100% compliance rate for ethics education training, which is mandatory.

What is the recourse for employees who don't complete it, or is this perhaps a point in time look?

And people haven't had six months to yet fully get on board, and that's why they haven't completed the training.

So my understanding with regarding the six-month, the report that is pulled, it's already built within it to not put those people as not compliant because they're still within that window of six months.

So they shouldn't be captured in that data.

Regarding recourse, I just took over as the designated ethics officer in January.

So I can speak to what my goal as the designated ethics officer is for this year, and before we get to the annual report.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I want us to take it seriously.

On slide eight for the categories of complaints, is that a pretty typical breakdown?

For the categories or for inquiries or complaints?

The categories of about this many of this type, about this many of this type.

I was talking about the top five and top um bottom for inquiries.

Yeah, this is pretty in line with the previous years.

You might, depending on when like election cycle is maybe coming, you might, um, some might jump up more than others.

You know, political activities, things like that, but I think it's pretty comparable.

Thank you.

It's not a flashy position to be the ethics officer either, but thank you for taking on this role.

Um, it holds us all accountable to our employees and also to ourselves.

Um, I appreciate that.

I'm not seeing anybody else in queue.

I'll take a quick look.

Um, Jameis.

Uh Councilmember Whiting, is that you?

All right.

Um, that's all.

Thank you very much.

Um I'll ask the clerk to please file that report, and we have concluded all the business to come before committee today.

So without objections, we stand adjourned.

Thank you.