On Thursday, September 18, 2025, the Ramsey County Budget Committee of the Whole convened at 9:00 a.m. in the Council Chambers to review the proposed 2026-27 budget for the Economic Growth and Community Investment (EGCI) Service Team. The meeting began with opening remarks from Chair Moran, who noted that the proposed 2026-27 budget calls for a levy increase of 9.75% in 2026 and 7.5% in 2027. The full day featured presentations from department directors, followed by questions and discussion by county commissioners. No public comments were heard.
Okay, perfect. Good morning, everyone. Um we are going to open up today's uh Ramsey County budget committee of the whole hearing. Today we will focus today is Thursday September the 18th, 2025. We will open up with the economic growth and community investment service team. And before we open up and allow uh Deputy County Manager Carrie Collins to speak, let me just state a few things. On September the 2nd, we heard from County Manager Becker, who provided an overview of the 2024-25 proposed budget. The proposed 2026-27 budget calls for a levy increase of nine point seven five in two thousand and six and the seven point five in two thousand and twenty two thousand and twenty-seven. Meeting with service team on their twenty twenty-six-27 budget are taking place from September the 15th and will go through September the 22nd. The full meeting schedule is available on our public website, Ramsey County.us. Today we will hear from the economic growth and community development service team. Each department director will present details on their department priorities and proposed budget, including an overview of major changes and a discussion on how the county's values and county manager Becker's priorities are reflected in their budget. After each presentation, I will open up the floor for any questions and discussion by the county board.us. Parking vouchers will be provided for Victory Ramp, located at 344 Wapashaw Street. Prior to that hearing, residents and business will receive their proposed property tax statements. The 2627 requested by board members, if any. On Tuesday, December to 16, the county board would give the final approval of the 2026 budget, including any changes approved by the committee and set the final 2026 property tax levy. And so with that, I would like to ask uh Deputy County Manager, Carrie Collins to open up. Thank you so much, Chair Moran, and members of the board. I'm Carrie Collins, the Deputy County Manager of the Economic Growth and Community Investment Service Team. And I'm honored to kick us off in our conversation today. Our budget starts on page 314. I want to start off by thanking the finance team as well as our county manager for developing thoughtful budget priorities. A special thanks to our budget rep Mike Coogan, our controller Tom Mock, our executive assistant Christina Thurry, and an enthusiastic hats off to the directors for their work and tough decisions to get us here today. Today I will do my part to shepherd us through a 2627 budget that is grounded in investments in our most critical infrastructure, our people. A theme across all of our budget presentations that I hope you are hearing is our gratitude for the class and compensation efforts that more adequately and appropriately invest in our staff. The directors have been extremely thoughtful in their approach to budget development. Our strategy in this cycle was to ensure sufficient resourcing for our core services, find opportunities to innovate, streamline and streamline processes where possible, and spur economic growth through specific strategies in place and space. This work can't be done alone. I want to thank the directors for their commitment to internal and external partnerships in an effort to maximize and diversify the range of programmatic offerings and services available. The directors also took a serious look as to how they might strengthen our fiscal health by leaning into budget reduction strategies during what many would argue are already lean times. Speaking of lean times, there are many leaders organization wide that have stepped into leadership vacancies as a result of staff turnover or other unique challenges. Oftentimes these leadership challenges are less visible, but we have amazing staff that have assumed greater responsibility to continue the good work for community. In fact, out of the nine leaders you will hear from today, five have either served or are currently serving in an interim capacity. Thank you for your service. The EGCI service team as it exists today navigates approximately 27 different revenue streams, all with unique eligibility reporting requirements and purposes. EGCI as a whole accounts for approximately 10% of the total levy, but 100% in the hearts and minds of our residents. However, I do believe that our residents and city partners are always understandably paying careful attention to what we do. Much of that is due to the many coalitions that partner with community and city leaders like the Heading Home Ramsey Continuum of Care, the Workforce Innovation Board, the Library Board, the Parks Commission, and the Joint Development Authority for Rice Creek Commons, just to name a few. Additionally, the work that we do is very complimentary to our city partners, city roads, county roads, city parks, county parks, city libraries, county libraries, city economic development, county economic development, etc. etc. A strong relationship with our cities is so important to our residents as we maintain and develop the range of community infrastructure our residents need together. Along similar lines, our cities and counties are facing many of the same constraints and economic realities. Our role in facilitating inclusive economic growth becomes critical not just to ensure our residents have safe access to housing and jobs and services, but to ensure our fiscal health as a county remains stable to sustain the breadth of services and investments this county budget articulates. The organizational relying realignment work will result in housing stability and workforce solutions to join the new community services and support service team. Property management will join the strategic team. Despite these shifts, the departments today will remain unchanged in the collaborative work that is ongoing with these departments and across the county. Our unique area to this service team is the scale of complex projects. Major transit projects or redevelopment projects such as Park at River's Edge and Rice Creek Commons require depth of expertise, resources, and energy to advance. These complex projects also represent a tremendous opportunity to strengthen the tax base and bring along much needed housing infrastructure to our community.