Okay, Commissioner Tanger, you're ready to go.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you.

I'd like to call to order this special meeting of the Ramsey County Board of Commissioners.

It is being recorded and live streamed.

There will be no votes taken today today.

Today is Friday, October 24th at 10 o'clock.

My name is Rafael Otega, Ramsey County Commissioner for District 5.

Why don't we go around the room with the commissioners and staff?

And then Ling, why don't you just uh take it over right after that?

Thank you, Mr.

Cher.

Do you want us to just start introducing ourselves, Mr.

Chair?

Mary Joe McGuire, Commissioner District 2.

Introduce yourself.

Yeah.

Mary Joe McGuire, Commissioner District 2.

Garrison McMurdo, Commissioner District 3.

Kelly Miller, Commissioner District 7.4.

Oh, my Chanchalong Ramsey County Commissioner District 6.

Tara Jevinsing, Ramsey County Commissioner District 1.

Lingbacker County Manager.

Marissa Rabian Chief of Staff.

Andrew Greenley, Deputy Chief of Staff.

Jason Yane, Chief Clerk.

Liz Brady, Ramsey County Attorney's Office, Civil Division.

Alex Kitza, Chief Financial Officer.

Francois, Deputy County Manager for the Information and Public Records Service Team.

Kristen Schultz, HR manager.

Joanna Berg, Deputy County Manager.

Nadir Abdi, Deputy County Manager, Health and Wellness Service Team.

Ready?

I think so.

All right.

First of all, I want to just thank the board for their time this morning.

I know this is a little bit unexpected to have to get together, but the people that have introduced themselves as staff have been working really diligently over the past uh few days and into probably a couple weeks here, trying to just uh help manage some of the impacts of the federal shutdown.

And as we near some dates, um, there are some things happening both in community and and impacting our organization that we feel are important for the board to understand as context.

So if we can go to the next slide, um, our goals today is to provide a high-level update of the uh to the board about the federal shutdown impacts, um, particularly as they uh uh surround the WIC program, women, infant and children, and the SNAP program, the supplemental nutrition aid program um that we receive federal funds to administer.

Uh we are hoping to get some general direction on next steps as we approach November 1st and the subsequent dates beyond November 1st um to should the shutdown continue, as to some of the decisions that we will um be faced with as an organization.

So if we can go to the next slide here, just a really quick uh agenda slide.

We're gonna popcorn between some of the staff because there have been different people who are in really critical different spaces where we are getting updates and we want no subject that matter experts to uh share some of the information they on they know.

In addition, uh we have Deputy County Manager Berg, uh our CHRO, um, our HR manager Kristen here, who are part of what's called the personal impact team, and they've been really helping us as we've been working on the 26-27 budget around how um staff get impacted by decisions.

So we brought them in as sort of a functional uh uh experts to help us with some of the contingency planning as well.

So today we're gonna be uh sharing a little bit about the background, a little bit about the response that we've already been made, which you have been getting updates at county board meetings and we've been sharing with the public as well, but we want to restate some of those.

Um we're gonna talk a little bit about the contingency planning and some of the considerations that um we are taking um as we go forward.

So, and then we'll have a chance to discuss.

All right.

Um, Mr.

Chair, Commissioners, County Manager Becker, and colleagues.

I'll just take a moment um to provide a brief overview of the supplemental nutrition assistance program or SNAP.

SNAP is a federal nutrition assistance program that helps low-income households buy the food they need for stability and health.

Recipients receive benefits on an electronic benefit transfer card or EBT card, which functions like a debit card and can be used for approved food purchases at participating stores and markets.

To qualify, households must meet certain income limits.

And able-bodied adults without dependence are required to meet specific work requirements.

Under the 2025 federal reconciliation bill, those work requirements are being made stricter, and states, including Minnesota, will be uh begin implementing those changes on November 1st, 2025.

In terms of scale and impact, about 440,000 Minnesotans currently receive SNAP benefits.

Here in Ramsey County, we have more than 34,000 active SNAP cases that serve an estimate, an estimated 85,000 individuals.

And lastly, these benefits don't just feed families, they also support local grocery stores, farmers markets, and small businesses that accept EPT uh EBT payments.