Good morning, calling the St.

Paul City Council Finance and Budget Committee to order.

We have uh it looks like light schedule, but it's not.

We've got um uh our wonderful staff member Madeline Mitchell from OFS is going to offer us our 2025 year on projections, and then we also are having a conversation about um the chair's budget and any budget amendments that are coming from my colleagues today.

Um, even though it looks pretty light, we've got a lot to get through.

So um, Madeline, to the best of your abilities, please um give us your best timely presentation.

Um I think what I will do is um again kind of mischief, not mischief management, but time management.

Um, so we'll be open to questions, but kind of the moment we hit a critical point, I'm gonna make sure that Madeline gets the rest of her presentation.

So with that, I hand it over to you today.

Hi, Madeline, welcome.

Thank you.

Good morning, council members.

I'm Madeline Mitchell, budget manager in OFS.

I'm here today to present the 2025 projected general fund spending and revenue.

Um I I was asked to be brief, so I will do my best.

Uh, I'll talk quickly.

Um I would like to start by thanking the budget team and all of our department partners.

There's a ton of work and time that goes into making these projections.

Um so thank you to all involved.

Um, if I could distill this presentation into two takeaways, they would be that this is an extraordinary year due to the cyber incident and a historic payment for a lawsuit, and that these projections are changing every day.

Um we work really hard each year to provide the most accurate and um information that we can, but there's still a lot that can change, and really the only thing that I can guarantee about these numbers is that they will change.

Um, so like I said, uh we have two extraordinary and unexpected costs that created um immense pressure on the city budget this year, two and a half million in costs related to the cyber incident, 1.5 of which is in the general fund, and the seven and a half million paid in September as the result of a recent lawsuit.

Um, this is the best information we have right now.

Transactions and budget amendments will continue to process through the end of the year, and then revenue will continue to come in even into 2026, as some of our revenue lags a month or two behind.

And then we have year-end transfers and internal charges that occur well into 2026.

So this is a really busy time of year for city accountants as they continue to clean up entries and make um final budget changes.

On the whole, we are projecting that we will have a one-time deficit of 8.4 million for 2025.

This number comes from comparing projected revenue to projected expenditures.

Um, said another way, we expect to spend 8.4 million, then we will receive in revenue.

As you know, um, we do have a spending and hiring waiver uh hiring freeze in place to help with this gap.

We won't know the full impacts of this freeze until the books are closed on 2025, but we're hopeful that it will continue to help bring that 8.4 million number down.

Um in OFS, we are actively working with departments to find creative solutions to close the gap for 2025, but it will be a significant challenge.

So to start, here's a high-level summary of our projections.

Um I'll walk you through reading this table.

The amended budget in the second column reflects the adopted budget plus any changes that have occurred in the last 11 months, um, including budget amendments and any carry forward needed for purchase orders that were open at the end of 2024.

Um, these second, the third column are projected actuals, and those are a combination of actual spending and revenue that has occurred and uh posted in our finance system, and any anticipated additional spending and revenue for the remainder of the year.

The fourth column there is the projected variance.

That's the difference between the projected actual spending and the amended budget.

A positive number in the projected variance column is a good thing.

Uh on the spending side, it means a department has not overspent their budget.

On the revenue side, it means we collected more revenue than budgeted.

And the last column shows the percent of the amended budget over or underspent or um over or under revenue.

We are expecting the 2025 general fund budget um to be overspent by 8.9 million, which is balanced by additional uh projected revenue of 5.3 million over budget.

Um and if you're doing the math here, you may wonder why our deficit is 8.4 instead of um the difference between 8.9 minus that 5.3 number.

And this is because the number in the fourth column, that projected variance are um variants to budget.

So if you look at the second column, you'll see that our amended spending budget is 419 million, and our amended revenue budget is only 414 million.

The majority of the difference between those two is due to our carry-forward process where budget authority for open purchase orders is rolled forward into the next year.

If we compare projections of actual revenue to actual spending, that's where we get the $8.4 million number.

Next we have spending by department.

Oh, sorry.

Yep, sorry.

Cruiser Millennium, whose question was it?

Oh, council president.

Sorry, council president.

Thanks, Chair.

Um, so Ms.

Mitchell, just to make sure I understand, because um we were gone kind of quickly through that.

So even before the cyber incident costs and the lawsuit payment costs, we would have been 8.4 million below what we expected to be, or does that include those additional costs?

Council President, um the before the 8.4 million includes the cyber attack and um the lawsuit.

So were it not for those two items, we would be 617 to the good.

Okay, so you're showing them underneath not as additional information, but pulling them out above to illustrate why.

Okay.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Johnson.

Thank you.

Um, so that is really helpful additional context.

My question, I guess, is more of if we're projecting at a time.

Um, I guess looking into November and December, we're in the final months of the year.

What is the can you just share a little bit more about what steps are being taken to curve that um projected variants?

I know we talked a little bit about the hiring freeze in the previous slide.

But um what exactly is taking place right now that is going to curve that because clearly that would be over budget and it's finances that we don't seem to have.

And even looking at just the next slide over and the department spending, I'm just curious as to what each department is doing.

Um, when my understanding is that they were all instructed to give to basically see where they could make cuts.

Some of these are gonna be less uh less in dollar amounts than others, and I'm just wondering what steps are being taken citywide.

Yeah, um, Chair Kim, Councilmember Johnson.

Um, so I'll tell you a little bit about the methodology for the projections first.

So the way the way that we um projected these is we started with actual, so what we have already spent this year, and then we looked at um like recent history of payroll and salary expenses and projected that out for the remaining pay periods of the year.

So that's the the sort of salary expenses, which as we know is the bulk of our general fund spending.

Um, and then we worked with departments to get an understanding of what um what other costs they have remaining to pay through the end of the year.

Um so typically the way we do that is like a straight line spending.

We base it on how much they've spent um earlier in the year and continue it through the remaining months.

This year we started with that as a baseline, but knowing that we have a spending freeze in place, um, we asked departments to come back to that number and make adjustments accordingly, knowing that there will be some things that may have been spent in prior years and will not be spent in this year.

Um the hiring waiver, the hiring and spending waiver process that we have in place means that um departments we are we are putting additional scrutiny on any hiring decisions, and so they are um essentially limited to positions that have urgent public safety needs or that would otherwise cause like additional financial burden to the city, and then on the spending side for any um purchase over 5,000 departments have to submit a spending waiver and it goes through a similar review process for us to understand what the impacts are of either foregoing that expense or delaying it until 2026.

So we we don't know uh we don't know what is not being submitted through that process, and that's where the savings uh likely comes come from.

Um so we'll we'll know more about that uh as we close the books on 2025.

Um but I think it's it's gonna be very different from department to department, um, just knowing that the needs are gonna be different in each department.

All right.

Um next we have spending by department.

So the majority of departments are coming in underspent in 2025, um, and that is uh largely due to the spending and hiring freeze that we have in place.

There are a few exceptions, largely related to public safety and cyber costs.

Emergency management and OTC are projected to be overspent.

That's all related to the cyber incident where we had emergency management and OTC staff operating out of the EOC for something like 18, 20 hours a day.

I don't think they slept at all.

The general government line here is projected to be overspent by 6.3 million.

This is where the lawsuit was paid from.

So but for that payment, we would have had savings in this department.

And as a reminder, the general government accounts isn't really a department, but it more is more an account for activities that exist across the city but are not necessarily assignable to one specific department.

So the budget for things like city elections, outside legal services, district councils, citywide audit, and tort liability costs there.

The parks department is projected to be overspent by just under three million.

A large chunk of that is driven by replacing and repairing lights hit by copper wire theft.

The remaining is due to unexpected costs related to summer storms and closing off caves.

And there are also increased costs for rec center and pool safety, which I believe Director Rodriguez touched on in his recent uh presentation.

The police department is projected to be 2.5 million dollars, but I will note that this will be closer to 1.5 million once a budget amendment is processed that recognizes additional spending and revenue.

And this is largely due to services and materials, including computer software, maintenance supplies, and ammunition.

Council President.

Thanks, Chair.

I I know that we often have unavoidable things that come up, but I guess I'm curious about some of those reasons for the overspend that you're talking about, which are significant, especially in fire parks and police.

I mean, for example, replacing copper wire lighting theft issues, we've frequently heard from public works, for example, that they don't have the money to replace the lights in certain areas.

Chair Kim, Council President Maker, Laura, do you want to jump in that?

Sorry.

There we go.

Yeah, um, Chair Kim and Council President Acre.

So in the case of the copper wire theft, um, because of the public safety concerns related to lights being out across the city and the like pervasiveness of that issue.

Um, earlier in the year, there was a decision made to proceed with um doing as much replacement as we can, um, and an understanding that like throughout the year, OFS would be working to make sure that the city still kind of came in on balance.

Um, I know, like in the slide where we can see you know, our revenues are actually coming in better than budget, right?

So I think we have five million more revenue than we had budgeted for.

So in a typical year, um, we would see some overspending in parks to address that public safety need, and we would still be coming in on budget because we have you know better revenues than expected.

Um, but this year, because of the unplanned kind of one-time um spending that came up that is um kind of uh adjusting.

But OFS is still working to ensure that we do come in on budget on the whole.

Um, but basically there is a decision made earlier in the year to try to address that public safety need.

Um, and um Ben Parks was directed to do that.

Great, councilmember Bowie.

Council uh member, council vice president Kim, thank you so much.

Um, I just want to also just like um piggyback off of council president acres's question because I I just think in terms of being good stewards of our of our dollars, and we go through an entire process, right, to adopt a budget, and we go through an entire process to be able to approve whether it's transferring or certain emergencies, and even all departments have the opportunity to go through a process, whether it's like capital improvement budgets and all different types of other ways of being able to finance some of these these initiatives and these emergencies, these public safety needs.

I'm just wondering um, is are there guardrails, right?

Um, is there caps in terms of like where is the alert systems, I guess, of when a department is going over budget, and then how is that being conveyed to council members in advance going?

Sure.

Um, Chair Cam and um Councilmember Bowie, thank you.

Um I would say, I mean, throughout the year, the departments like in the budget presentations, um, departments are presenting kind of where they are in process.

Um, so I think we all shared our budget to actuals at that point.

So in I think that was August, September, um, departments are sharing kind of where they are during the year with that budget to actual data.

And I would also add that um there are there are a number of different guardrails in place.

Um, one of them is that um departments hit budget restrictions, um, and then uh for certain categories, we don't have those on um personnel because people need to get paid, but um, for services and materials, um, once a department is going to be over in that it does um trigger an alert to OFS.

Um, and so then that is when we look into it and see what um you know what is causing that.

Yeah, thank you.

Councilmember Johnson.

Yeah, I uh appreciate it.

I won't uh elaborate a little bit more on you know, I won't labor the points.

However, um what I will say is just that with the projected variance, like the projected variance from the budget is the gap that we would be looking for, and as the folks are going through like the budget or overspending the budget or or um being able to exceed their um department budgets by the end of the year, like that gap itself is above what the negative projected variance is um in itself could problem solve if people would stick to their budgets in the departments that they have.

And looking at just some of the, you know, I don't actually know if it's a I heard you say that we are projecting this kind of as a one-off, but last year we also had similar issues where there was overspending in some of these same departments, and I'm not actually sure if that's a one-off situation or if that's a reoccurring one in some in some instances for different reasons.

But I remember having conversations in particular about overtime and overspending, which actually warranted council decisions on the police department, um, and having conversations similar in the fire department.

And you know, general government may not may be an exception because that's where the lawsuit was paid out from an OTC because of the emergency management.

But then as we're heading into next year, we also are seeing and receiving memos that are addressing a need for additional funding on cybersecurity and and addressing cyber attack needs into 2026.

And I'm just wondering um, instead of treating something like this as a one-off, how we're planning ahead for future potential pending lawsuit litigation that we have to account for that can come and trajected higher, or even just additional emergency situations that come up, because it doesn't seem like that is something, you know, if we're treating this like an anomaly, then I would expect to see the numbers or the variances as well.

But we've seen those in 2024, we've seen those in 2025 as well, prior to this um, you know, in the space of like even talking about um how to budget how to budget for the year.

And as we head into next year, you know, I'm I'm not sure if we kind of allow for overspending and in two of our largest departments, you know, just in quick math, like of our overall like the projected expenditures, you know, half of that is housed within two departments.

And I just am wondering, kind of looking at you know, just the numbers at the end, and even hearing from how we were responding and talking to departments about how they would be, you know, needing to think about their proportion of the overall budget.

Um if they're overspending their budget, I don't see how they're contributing to the 8.4 million dollar deficit that's there.

And then some of these other departments or even the housing redevelopment authority having to account for millions of that 8.4 deficit because they cannot, doesn't seem appropriate for me.

And it's actually quite concerning.

And so I guess my question really is like we're treating it like an anomaly, but I don't necessarily know if it's a one-off situation because we can't predict the future of litigation and pending lawsuits, but we also can't predict the future of how to respond to crisis and emergencies without being able to budget for that or to plan for it in the future.

So instead of like treating it like a one-off, I'm just wondering what can be learned from this year.

Um, because last year's numbers in some of these departments weren't all that different in overspending, which thus required additional um, you know, budget contingencies, additional action from council, additional reporting requirements this year for some of the departments that were overspending in their overtime budget um by millions.

So that's not an anomaly.

And I'm just wondering how we're planning ahead for 2026.

Um Chair Cam, Councilmember Johnson, I should clarify that the piece of it that we are treating as a one-time anomaly is the lawsuit in the cyber attack.

Um the lawsuit was a historic payout.

Um we've never had an amount even anywhere near that number.

Um so it it really was something very different than what we have before.

We do have funds in place for for lawsuits and how we you know work through those throughout the year, um, but this one was was far beyond anything that we've ever paid out, so it really was something that was um was an anomaly in in that way.

Um, and then the cyber attack as well is you know, not something that anybody expected.

We have um made investments and put um new systems in place to prevent against that going forward.

Um, there are investments included in the 2026 budget to help protect against future attacks like that as well.

Um question from the CP.

Thanks, Chair.

Um, just going back a second, um, Ms.

Mitchell, to the previous slide, because I think what um I'm hearing some of my colleagues getting at is that there were obviously those unpredictable and extraordinary expenditures, and then there's um the fact that with the amended budget, as you pointed out, we were already predicting five million dollar shortfall from revenues to compare to expenditures.

And so I guess I just want to understand that a little bit better.

Is it that we adopt a budget, a balanced general fund budget when we adopt the budget, and then over the course of the year, all of those budget amendments that we see coming in front of us at the council week by week?

That's how we got to a point where the amended budget overall showed a five million dollar shortfall, and I guess, and my follow-up to that would be um, as I think Councilmember Bowie said very well.

I think it's important for this council to understand the impact of those budget amendments as we're making them because I think we're putting a lot of faith.

You know, there's always the attachment that says and the mayor certifies that there is money for this, right?

Um, I don't I've never thought as we've been making those amendments that that means that we're gradually adding to a five million dollar or whatever the size is every year gap at the end of the year.

Um, and I think it's important for us to have that context as we're making those amendments.

So am I understanding it right that that's how we got from a balanced budget to this point over the course of the year.

Well, council council president, um, the main piece of that difference between the the um 419 in expenditures and 414 is what we call carry forward, and that's when a department um enters a purchase order in the prior year, um, it's which is you know attached to budget authority from a prior year, um, and then that purchase order is not closed or not completed, the purchase is not made, um, that authority from the prior year moves forward.

So it is essentially um uh it's similar to like a use of fund balance, um, and this is just sort of like uh an accounting technical piece where um we only add it on the spending side.

The assumption is it's like we have savings from that in in either the year before or the year before that um that we are pulling from to make those purchases in the current year.

Okay, so the five million, just to make sure I understand, is all dollars we expected to have spent in the previous year that we had budgeted for that weren't spent, end up getting spent in this year, and we're showing it as a five million loss, but we actually had five million left over last year that wasn't spent.

Council President, yes.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, on the revenue side, we are coming in pretty close to budget overall, about 1.3% over our initial projections.

The biggest driver here is in that third line.

That's pension aids, paramedic fees, and interest earnings.

We expect about 2.7 million higher than budgeted revenue on interest earnings uh on city investments.

Uh, that's in part due to the higher interest rates in recent years.

We do expect this revenue source to decline in the future as the Federal Reserve is projecting um cuts to interest rates.

Then we are projecting an additional 400,000 in paramedic fees and around a million in additional police aid and um police pension aid and disability insurance.

Police pension aid is based on the car insurance premiums and also the number of police officers that we have.

The amount we receive for fire and police disability insurance is based on the number of employees on duty disability under the age of 65 and the cost of health insurance.

Um so this increase is driven by more people going on due to duty disability and then um paired with rising health care costs.

Franchise fees are also coming in better than expected by about one million.

2024 was a five-year low for both gas and electric franchise uh fees, and 2025 is more of uh more of a return to normal.

For many of these, we have already made um appropriate adjustments in the 2026 proposed budget to reflect these increases.

Um, so we're continuing to work on finding solutions to uh end 2025 on budget.

We're hopeful that we will continue to see further savings from the spending and hiring freeze.

We have also started the process with the state of Minnesota for potential reimbursement of costs related to the cyber emergency.

Within our own budget, we are looking at all options, including grant funds that are expiring soon to see if we have any eligible expenses that have yet to be shifted to those grants.

We're looking at special funds with healthy balances that could provide support to the general fund on a one-time basis.

This includes evaluating some of our own internal charges to determine whether we can reduce or eliminate some of those expenses for this year.

So closing this gap will be it'll be a big challenge, but it's essential to maintaining the health of the general fund long term.

And that is the end of my presentation.

Great.

Creston from the CP.

Thanks, Chair.

Two questions.

Can you say a little bit more about what you expect to be the potential reimbursement for the cyber incident?

I know we were really proactive and smart about declaring it an emergency so that we would be potentially eligible for some of those reimbursements.

So I'm just wondering what the scale of that is projected to be and when we would know.

And then second of all, are is OFS coming to this body asking for any amendments or changes to the current budget in order to fill this gap.

I'm gonna defer that to Laura.

Sure.

Thank you, Chair Kim and Council President.

So the first question related to the reimbursement request with the state, we're still in that process.

So I believe that's on the governor's desk right now.

And then if they do if he declares that this is an eligible emergency, then we would continue to move through the process to ensure that our expenses that we have coded to the incident are actually eligible.

There's potential for us to be reimbursed for up to I think 75% of our costs.

Um so it would not be the full amount.

Um but we've worked really diligently with all departments to ensure that we have coded all of our expenses that we know are related to the cyber incident in a way that it's easy for us to pull and share with the state when they start reviewing.

Um they have really specific rules about what is deemed an eligible expense in emergencies, and so um what we deem as all of our incident related expenses may not actually be eligible.

Um so we're doing everything we can to make sure that we make the best case for why we should get reimbursed for as you know that full 75% of our expenses.

But at this point, um it's not clear to us.

Um, you know, there's just a lot of steps that still have to flow through that we don't have control over.

Um, but we're doing everything we can, and emergency management is leading on that and um has been doing really great work.

So we're as prepared as we can be to get as much money as we can.

Um your second question.

I just talked for so long and I forgot what it was.

Sorry.

Any asks to this body for amendments to cover the gap.

That's right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you.

Um at this point, we're um still working through exactly what is needed.

Um we've started to do some outreach with uh Chair Johnson related to the HRA.

I know that she just referenced that as well.

Um, so we're kind of in in discussion on that.

Um, but uh I don't think we anticipate any other budget amendments.

Um, a lot of the solves that we're looking at would be um looking at expenses currently in the general fund that are eligible to be paid for out of other sources that are already budgeted as well.

So, like if there's a grant that's already budgeted that's underspend, can we move any current general fund expenses into that grant and out of the general fund?

Um, so most of what we're looking at would not require budget amendments.

Um yeah, that's it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Johnson.

And I guess just so I know that what the fees are the 75% of the costs.

Is that of the 1.5 million, or is that of the I guess what is our actual cyber cost looking like?

So looking here, we've heard many different numbers, so I'm just wondering.

For sure.

Um, Chair Kim and Councilmember Johnson.

Um, so the the numbers, the number kind of continues to change because there's still ongoing work related to the cyber incident.

Um right now we're at around 2.5 to 2.7 million.

Um, some of that is for employee salaries that we would have already paid if not for the cyber incident.

So it's not 2.7 million in addition, you know, over and above what was already budgeted.

Some of that is people's current salaries.

But there is overtime in there.

There are, you know, contracts for support that we did not have in the budget already.

So some amount of that 2.7 million is kind of over and above what was in the city's budget.

We're hopeful to make the case that the full 2.7 million is eligible.

And so that it'd be 75% of that.

But I doubt that the state would agree that that full amount is eligible because there are we included some folks, like current salaries.

And there's just really specific rules related to current salaries and eligibility.

So thank you.

Councilmember Bowie.

Thank you, Vice Chair Kim.

I do have a question.

I just wanted to just get a quick refresher.

I know you talked about it in the in the third slide here, but in terms of like the lawsuit payment, can you just walk us through what is like also the source of it from my understanding?

I believe it just comes from the general fund, but it hasn't always historically been that way.

Or has there been some adjustments to actually address some of the lawsuit payments?

Sure Kim, Councilmember Bowie.

Um it does come from the general fund.

As far as I know, that is where we have always paid for things like this, and it's just exceptional in that it's a much bigger number this time.

And then can you speak to I guess if you could just like reference the the tort fund and how that's budgeted for, and you know, it seems like that's kind of like the mechanism we use to actually fund on lawsuits, but it it seems like historically it exceeds that.

Am I correct?

Councilmember, um the I believe the tort budget has around 72,000 in there.

Um, and it it's been a mix.

There have been many years where we don't meet that budget at all.

There are years where we exceed it a little bit, and then there are years like this year where um we exceed it by quite a bit.

Uh so we we do have an amount budgeted, and then um, yeah, it's it's really highly dependent on the way that litigation flows through the city.

Thank you.

And um Chair, if I could just add the that $720,000 is also budgeted in the general fund.

It's all it's not a separate fund, it's just general fund.

Great.

Okay, Councilmember Johnson.

Do we have when um I guess it's we would have October year to dates at this point?

So I know we have the projections, but would this be based off of October numbers or uh Chair Kim, Councilmember, these are based off October numbers.

Um would we be able to get the October numbers by department?

I'm just curious as to how we're tracking.

Chair Kim, Councilmember, yes.

Um the thing that I would add to that is that there is a lot of um analysis that goes into those projections to make them what they are.

Um there are quite a few accounting entries that have yet to be made.

Um you know, departments doing journal entries to move costs between funds.

Um the actuals um may not reflect some of those changes that need to be made.

Um so they don't tell the full story, and that's why we you know put the work in to do projections so that we can figure out some of that before um you all see that.

Understood.

And then also I guess just to the piece of um the projected spending and revenue and like the carryover from year to year.

Do we anticipate like do we anticipate having carryover this year since we're there certain things that will show up next year in an amended budget or predicted actual variance that is money that is not being expended this year that we're anticipating for next year?

Um and I'm just curious as to how that gets factored in as like what we continue year after year.

Because for some of these, I'm just wondering, like if we had five million dollars of unders of unspent money that we moved into the year we carry over, you know, consistently year to year.

I'm just wondering if not, like how do we have a chance to see like what is actually being carried over in the budget process every year that didn't get completed?

Councilmember, we are um we're still working through that process right now, um, given that we are in the situation that we're in in the general fund, um, we're reviewing how much you know, if any is appropriate to carry forward into into 2026.

So more to come on that.

Um in general, I would say over the last few years we have been working on our carry forward process to make sure that we are really um only carrying forward the funds that are needed and will be spent um and that are available.

So we're continuing to refine that to make sure that that is um that we're not doing that unnecessarily.

Chair, um, I would just add that we're also planning to connect the carry forward process next year with our spending waiver process this year.

So we would want to see from departments did we um approve this spending, did it go through the spending approval process in fall of 2025?

And if so, you know, that's like um we already approved the department, could do that spending, and so that would likely be allowed to carry forward.

But if that um was not you know, kind of pre-approved, that would have additional scrutiny.

Um so we're trying to ensure that we connect those processes this year.

Councilmember Johnson.

And just as far as like the budget process itself, like I think what is really interesting to me is like so many of those decisions are internally done and not communicated to council about what actual requests are coming in, like which positions are being approved, which ones are not being approved, which like things are being cut, which is not being cut.

What is the communication look like to council about the carry forward and the things that like the decisions that are being made currently pri predominantly within the city OFS administration, but not necessarily being communicated back here to us?

Um, Chair Kim and um Councilmember Johnson, I think um we're like we're we're certainly open to continued communication on those items.

Um I think the year end projection meeting.

I know that Madeline did this presentation last year, so I think this is this is a space where we're providing that information.

Um I think a lot of these processes are um administrative in nature.

Um, so certainly happy to um like share information, ensure understanding.

Um there's also just um yeah, uh a level of administrative um work that's happening, you know, based on um our our responsibilities in terms of managing the budget.

Yeah, I think it'd be really helpful um just to um especially for some of the positions and like for example the hiring freeze, the positions that have been approved, not approved, um, those budget impacts, like those questions to me, like if they're going through a process, we have documentation of what that process entails.

If they're going through the processes we had into 2026 to continue, there'd be an argument for why they would or rationale for why they would continue, but likewise would be you know for carryovers and things that would get into the 2026 budget.

I'm I'm assuming we would, as council, still see those projected on the the time when we have budget proposals for next year, or is that not right?

So, Chair Kim and Councilmember Johnson, I think the um when we I'm just gonna make sure I'm understanding the question.

When we're putting together like the gap for next year, are you asking if the carry forward is kind of considered as part of the gap?

And to what extent the council has the ability to weigh in on that.

Sure.

Um, so when we I guess when we're putting together the gap, we're looking at the next year, so like the 2027 budget, um, and that the you know the mayor's proposed budget is is solving that future year gap.

Um, what we're facing this year is sort of extraordinary circumstances that have created a gap like in the current year.

Um, and so um we're we're working through solutions to solve that gap, like in real time.

Um, and some of them we can do um administratively just because of the way that the budget is already set up and you know, grants have already been accepted, and so we can try to move expenses into those.

Um, but then some of the other potential solutions are things we do need to come to the council on.

Um, so I think we're we're working through that process to the best of our ability of um ensuring that we're partnering with council and you have the information that you need, um, and then in the areas where we can administratively move forward solutions, we're gonna do that, and then in the areas where we we cannot move forward without council support, we we need to work with you on those.

Sounds great.

All right, thank you so much for coming to chambers and having such a great update.

Um, we appreciate all the time and energy that you put into all of our financial documents.

So thank you so much.

Um we are now going to transition.

Um it's 1045, we're sort of right on time.

So we'll run on time with still a lot to go.

We are going to transition to just really briefly speak about the chair's 2026 proposed budget, budget amendment to the mayor's proposed budget.

And then we will take time and we will I will time folks, but whatever time remains after Strodemish Spiels, the amount that we'll have for amendments.

It appears as of yesterday there were 12, and as of this morning, there were 15.

So I'm gonna just also briefly speak about process and what to expect moving forward.

So since the mayor's proposed um has proposed the 2026 budget, the city council's been in a very lengthy and deliberative process on the way our final budget vote on the way to our final budget vote on December 3rd.

This process has included detailed presentations and briefings from every single department, community engagement across the city and every ward, where we heard directly from residents about their priorities and concerns and a strong collaboration with our OFS partners.

The depth of input we've received reflects the shared values and concerns that we all share about St.

Paul.

As we present these proposed amendments, we do so with the weight of our fiscal reality in mind.

The budget decisions before us require balancing competitive priorities with very limited resources.

At the end of September, the council voted to approve a 5.3 maximum levy.

We understand that increases in property taxes are felt acutely by our residents.

Our amendments are designed to strengthen our core city services, our residents depend on most.

And we believe that these changes will strike the right balance between investing in what matters and exercising fiscal responsibility during these challenging times.

Specifically, these amendments include, in no particular order, restoring the number of firefighters.

Oh, I should use this one.

Restoring our rec center hours, restoring our library hours and FTE, our firefighters, restoring our BLS night shift unit, restoring our CARES unit, our council communication staff, restoring funding for audit committee and our children's collaborative, adding additional funding for our district councils, restoring our council's security, safety and security renovation, listening, our listening houses work now program, and sustaining our commercial corridor funding at the level of 2025, which was proudly led by our HRHR Johnson, and carrying forward our reparations commission funding.

We also have identified key sources that help us balance the budget with our priorities.

We're increasing our ambulance transportation fees, we're eliminating vacant positions, reducing money for mill and overlay, remove removing funding for robotic stripping, repurposing transfers from HRA, and we are adjusting the timeline for hiring our unfulfilled hero director position.

And this information will be posted to Legislatar, but our total proposed uses is 4.1 million, and our total proposed sources is also 4.1 million.

So I'm very proud.

Thank you, Chair Kim.

Yes, that the proposed amendment shared with you all is uh I would uh share that it it has the consensus, it has the broader support.

Um we are still working through to provide a finalized reversion in the sense, you know, match to match.

Uh this is where the sources and this is what is going to f uh how it is going to be paid for, and we appreciate your patience and engagement as we define uh the amendment to ensure accuracy and alignment with the council priorities.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um I'm now just very briefly gonna very briefly talk about essentially how um what this process has looked like and what folks can expect moving forward.

So we had asked uh folks to submit an idea to our um budget officer by Friday, November 5th, um, any idea that they had in terms of um how they would like to amend um amend the proposed chair's budget.

And it's also the council members' responsibility to budget solve for it, and we were asking for potential budget solves um by this last Monday at 5 p.m.

It was also very clear that budget solves for our amendments cannot include funds that we used for the chair's budget proposal, um, and that we would be strongly discouraging our colleagues to provide or bring forward amendments that impact or alter the chair's budget, as um we have a very strong support through conversations with all of our colleagues.

So all of the amendments with a potential budget budget solve were distributed to Kamud yesterday by noon and for review and also a little bit of vetting.

So now moving forward, we will hear all of the amendments today.

And next week it is each office's responsibility to submit their amendment into Legistar with no less than four supporting members, and to do so so that we can vote on it with our final um adopt our final budget and max levy on December 3rd.

And I'll put all this in writing for folks.

So just for the millions of viewers at home, if you hear an amendment that you really love, please lobby your council member.

So it is 1050.

We have 40 minutes, right?

Until 11:30.

And we have 15 amendments.

So whatever that is, it's like two minutes.

Someone wanna do math for me.

Two minutes.

Two minutes each.

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

So we will each minute will have each minute, each person will have two minutes per amendment.

And again, what we're looking for is what it is, kind of why you're interested, and if you have a potential budget solve for it, you don't have to be incredibly detailed, but we do have a list that our budget officer provided us if it's one-time or ongoing.

Um I am going to distribute the list that was existing for our budget officer within that timeline.

And then my understanding is that Councilmember Bowie, thank you, um, has also provided three, I see three additional um potential amendments.

I'm not sure if they've budget implications or not, but we will find out shortly.

So we will prioritize the ones that were submitted within that timeline, and then we'll take up the three that um council member Bui submitted this morning.

So yes, Council President.

Thanks, Chair.

I I'm happy to use my time to say this.

Um but I just I just wanted to thank you for your leadership on this process.

I think people throw the term unprecedented around a lot, um, not always in context where it's appropriate.

And in this case, everything about this has been unprecedented, right?

We started by saying that we were going to have a transparent process for our budget, that we were going to talk about our budget publicly in a way that we never had before, and that we were going to commit to a timeline and stick to that timeline and an inclusive process.

And you and I have both been through enough budgets to know that it's easy to say that at the beginning of the process, it's much harder to actually lead through it.

This conversation is unprecedented.

The fact that we're sitting here today talking about our amendments publicly so that everyone knows what we're thinking is unprecedented.

The fact that we are proposing 13 amendments that we have consensus on is this council.

I've never seen so many amendments that are that we have funded.

Um, and they are they are all responsive to the things that we've heard from our constituents specifically about frontline services and things that affect people's daily lives.

Um, and then we're going to continue and be on time and on budget on December 3rd when we adopt our budget.

So I just I don't want that to go without being said because it's been your leadership and yours also, Chair, um, that's gotten us to this point, and I'm really proud and we're gonna disagree, right, on some of the details of this.

I know we will, um, but by and large, this process has been unprecedentedly good and transparent.

So I wanted to say that.

And if that took my time, it's fine.

I really appreciate that.

Yeah, and I I just uh strong kudos to leadership team with you and um councilmember Johnson.

It's just been such an incredible partnership, and a huge kudos to our budget officer and our operations director, Jay Wilms.

Um, it's the it's the teamwork that gets us through the bulk of the work.

And again, a huge shout out to the staff and OFS who've been incredible partners through this.

So, all right, with that, now it's 1053.

So we're gonna still stick to the two minutes.

Um, and I think we're just gonna go from the top.

So I will I'll be the kind of guinea pig in this exercise.

Um, so um, I'm gonna start my two minutes.

I I do plan on bringing these together.

I guess I could bring them separately, but um I've in strong partnership with um Chair Yang and Councilmember Coleman on both of these items.

So, really quickly, the immigration defense fund.

St.

Paul's home to roughly 70,000 migrants or about 20% of our population.

The American Immigrant Council reports that detained migrants are 10.5 times more likely to succeed with representation than without.

In Minnesota specifically, the Vera Institute for Justice estimates 51% of migrants facing deportation are without representation.

Now more than ever, with a federal administration intent on subverting our constitutional rights, we need to sustain funding for our own for our own immigrant defense fund.

St.

Paul partners with Minnesota legal aid advocates for human rights and the immigrant law center to provide and rep to provide representation to residents facing immigration um action.

The New American Loan Program or a naturalization support fund in a similar vein.

The new American Loan Program is one of the the package of programs the city has to support our migrant community.

This program is particularly for permanent U.S.

residents going through the naturalization process, which is a lengthy and incredibly expensive for new residents.

This program offers an interest free loan to assist residents with the cost of naturalization.

So the amendment for both of those that Cherry and Councilwoman McColeman and I plan on bringing forward is to amend the budget to city to the city attorney's office to increase by 300,000.

The amendment allocates 300,000 in one-time funding to support the migrant defense fund and the new American loan program.

We have a budget solved that we will be using unspent.

Special fund dollars 21 that were specifically budgeted for the police academy.

They did not use any of their funds, and they're planning on using salary savings to fund the 2026 police academy.

I have 15 seconds left, and I would yield to two of my colleagues if you want to speak for 10 seconds about it.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

I really appreciate this part from my colleagues.

We look forward to earning your support.

I asked a clarifying question.

Sure.

So just to be clear, Chaired, um the funds, the source for this would be from unspent funds for the police academy in 25.

It wouldn't affect the department's ability to hold academies in 26.

The police, based on their proposal, they are using salary savings to fund their 2026 Academy.

So it does not impact their ability to host an academy next year.

Thank you for the question.

Yep.

All right.

Going down the line, um, I did two in two minutes.

We have uh retain two PEOs proposed to be cut in 2026.

Whose amendment is that?

All right, Council President.

You've thrown down the gauntlet by doing two in two minutes.

So we'll see what I can do.

Um, as we all know, parking enforcement is a huge issue in our city.

One of our basic promises to our constituents, our residents, our employees, um, our visitors, is that uh we set our laws and we enforce our laws, and right now that's just not happening when it comes to parking enforcement, which means that um accessible parking spaces are taken up.

Um we're not seeing the turnover that we need to support our businesses, um, and people get frustrated when they pay for permit parking districts every year, and then they don't actually see that enforcement happening in their neighborhoods.

The reason for that is that we have currently 10 parking enforcement officers citywide.

Um, that's three at any one time because they're divided into three shifts.

Um, and we're proposing the mayor has proposed in this budget to cut two of those, so we would go down to eight parking enforcement officers citywide.

Um, parking enforcement officers not only pay for themselves with the ticket revenue that they collect, but also they're a critical pipeline into the police department, specifically for young people, specifically for young people of color.

So, this proposal is to retain the two PEOs who are being proposed to be cut and add six additional PEOs, um, which would bring us up to a total of 16 officers.

Um, we do need to have 25 to be fully staffed, so this doesn't get us there, but it is revenue neutral in that it is uh bringing in the amount of money and actually a slightly more through expected ticket revenue according to the department.

Great.

We're at one minute 16 seconds.

Any questions or additions?

Wonderful.

There's a whole 45 seconds per second.

I know, reason on through.

This is great.

Um, I will lift up a single finger to show you your one-minute mark, and then I'll maybe give you one of these at your two minutes.

All right, next up we've got higher community prosecutor and the city attorney's office.

Thanks, Chair.

This is also me.

Um, this is a revenue neutral or budget neutral proposal.

The downtown alliance has proposed hiring a community prosecutor that would live in the city attorney's office.

Um, they have the budget for this, so this would not be coming out of our general fund, but the idea is to budget for it and then take the dollars from the downtown alliance.

A community prosecutor offers benefits such as reduced crime through stronger relationships with the community and proactive partnerships that try to get at the root cause causes of some of the quality of life crimes we see in our neighborhoods.

Um, drug use, vandalism, retail theft, which I know we've seen in many areas, both downtown and uh in the midway.

Um, and these are folks who can actually get a little bit more proactive and more relational about solving these problems rather than taking everything through a justice system that is frankly already overloaded and is not going to take those crimes as seriously.

These are folks who can actually get people into the treatment they need, get people connected to the services that they need, um, and kind of like familiar faces, be the prosecutor who's more familiar with the individuals who are regularly committing these kinds of crimes so that they actually get the help that they need.

Um so this is a model that's been proven in many other jurisdictions, and again, we would not be paying for it.

This would simply be accepting the grant from the downtown alliance.

All right.

Any thoughts or questions for the council president on that amendment?

Wonderful.

Moving right along.

Like lighting on Shepherd Roads.

That's what I get for submitting them all one after another.

Okay, dunno.

Uh my last one is uh lighting uh Shepherd Roads.

So as we all know, um, we have lost lighting throughout the city due to copper wire theft.

Um, and it is the most um both used but also sort of most remote stretches where we have lost lighting that are the most dangerous, both to pedestrians, to cyclists, and to motorists.

Um, and they're also the areas that um there are public spaces that we've invested in, and when they're not lit, they don't feel safe, and then people don't use them.

So we are losing all of the investments that we've made in these spaces because people don't traverse them uh because they're afraid.

And we've been hearing um from many of our constituents, both Councilmember Jost and I about Shepard Road.

Um the cost for lighting Shepherd Road is extremely high because the lights actually need to be replaced with new lights that are harder to steal from.

The whole idea here is not just to replace the wiring um and have it get stolen again, but to replace the lights with lights that will prevent that theft.

Um, the $750,000 I'm proposing is only for the stretch from downtown from Sibley to Eagle Street.

Um, this is the stretch that public works recommended starting with because it's the most traversed and has the most potential for conflicts.

Um the proposed source is from the CIB fund for lighting.

Um, and actually, I was originally proposing 500,000 from the lighting fund and 250,000 from the street alley sewer and lighting program, but we've now seen from um OFS that there are balances in those accounts, and actually there's about 1.1 million in the lighting fund.

Um so I'm gonna revise my proposal and suggest that we take all of that 750 from the lighting fund, which we'll still have um several hundred thousand dollars left over after that for lighting in the rest of the city.

This does just come down to where we think we need to replace lights, and uh, I know that that we might argue about that, but I think Shepherd Road is worthy of your consideration.

We've received 54 emails, uh, 53 in support, one opposed.

Perfect timing.

Six seconds to go.

Six seconds to go.

And we are cruising right now, actually.

So this is fantastic.

All right, next up we have um EV car share.

Oh, okay.

Um, yes, I can also be of assistance too.

Um I think multi multiple folks had uh had this um on their on their list of amendments.

Um the EV car share program is something that we you know utilize throughout the whole city.

Uh and right now we're in a really challenging situation.

Um this came in kind of last minute that we did not have uh the the funds that we needed for this item, a lot of it due to you know the federal government and other pressures on our city.

Um so what we're asking is for uh the city to kick in 200,000 um to be able to restore part of that.

We're also hoping to get some support from Minneapolis and through regional solicitation, but this is just a program that is so important for um accessibility to transportation and as well as you know, transportation that is you know better for our for our environment, and that I think a lot of our a lot of our wards really care a lot about because we do have still have areas um throughout the city um on the east side um and uh some parts of some parts of my ward too that that don't have access to this yet, and we would like to continue to maintain what we have and expand um expand the program.

Thank you.

Um I will just I will add on to that and strongly uh second everything that Councilmember Joast shared.

I will also add that I think in this moment as we are thinking about the need for new investments in both our multimodal transportation infrastructure and our climate resiliency work, making sure that we are not losing or backtracking on investments we've already made is very critical.

And so when we identify a gap like this, I think it's quite important that we work to fill it, knowing that we won't be able to make all of the new investments that we might want to see, but that hopefully at a minimum we are able to maintain the work that has been put in place up until now to address both transportation and climate.

Awesome, thank you.

And with the last 10 seconds, I'll add my understanding is that they're using um the decertified uh funds to um to allocate the 200,000.

Thank you so much for the time.

Perfect timing.

All right, St.

Paul Port Authority to increase staffing capacity.

Chair Yang.

Thanks, Chair Cam.

Yeah, this is uh um a budget request that came from the St.

Paul Port Authority.

Our budget committees were very filled, and so we couldn't put them in, but they're gonna be coming in later today at the council meeting to present.

Uh, they originally asked for a $500,000 increase, and in the mayor's proposal um wasn't granted any increase, but they're asked uh the revised ask is an increase of 250,000 dollars for inflationary costs and to increase their staffing capacity, and as you all know, they are a very important partner to our city, especially this is why I've added them to our list.

Um and the um you'll all hear a bit about 900 or over 900,000 in excess TIFF coming back to this city, and so that is where the money for this would be.

Um, however, if this is an ongoing cost, then we'll have to definitely think ahead about what we want to do for future years too.

That sounds great.

Thank you.

All right.

Oh, question from Councilmember Johnson.

Not necessarily a question, just wanted to add as another as the treasurer of the St.

Paul uh Port Authority.

Um they have also been operating as a net a network budget for years now.

Um so this is actually an increase that they have asked for after not receiving an increase for several years at counting and a rural.

And so some of the staffing pieces that they're asking for, like while we've kept up with other inflation costs throughout the city regarding salaries and other staffing capacities, the St.

Paul Port Authority hasn't actually received an increase from the city.

Um and so this is something that I think just when we were hearing about like what their rationale was for um in asking forward, we have obviously adjusted salaries and staffing capacity in the meantime on the port um in the last few years, but the actual increase has not been reflected in the budget.

Great.

Thank you.

Treasurer of the port, Councilmember Johnson.

Um moving right along.

We have fund seven FTE public safety specialists.

Whose item was that goes um, I think also number yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I I believe it's already resolved though.

Oh, okay.

Oh, perfect.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Everybody else gets by time.

Everyone else.

We're gonna I have a a couple of things on on um in my email that I didn't see on the list, but I'd be happy to just skim over it when if we have time later on.

Yeah, yeah, I think at this point we are we are cruising.

So um the next one is funding for I-94 study.

I believe I'll just offer, I think there might be a typo, but I'll let um Council Mama Coleman address that in your two minutes.

Thank you for there is the typo, it is one tenth of the amount of money listed here.

So the ask is for $50,000.

The the total cost of the study is $500,000, but fortunately, um we are not being asked to fund all of that.

So I will just say quickly, you know, coming into the council much more recently than other folks here, working very quickly to get up to speed on top priorities from folks in ward four for what they wanted to see in the budget this year.

This was one of the first asks that came to my office within weeks of being seated on the council.

I had heard from multiple district councils asking to sit down and have a meeting about the I-94 study that is um listed here.

So we know that the rethinking I-94 process has been going on at MINDAT for many many years.

It was initially seen as an opportunity to reimagine not only a major transportation through fare, through fare, but also the land use around it.

Um it has tremendous implications for public health, environmental equity, climate change, taxable land value, and general quality of life for folks in Midway, St.

Anthony Park, Union Park, and that's just a more forward, not to even get into ward one and other parts of the city.

Um Mindot has been, you know, I think in many ways it frustrated the community and felt like they were not being responsive to those most impacted.

And so this effort is a collaboration with the city of Minneapolis, Hennepin County, and the University of Minnesota to better understand what more expansive visions of this project of rethinking 94 and of how we conceptualize urban freeways, um, what that could mean for our city.

So supporting the study, while it does, you know, it is in part about I-94, it's also an effort over the next two years to identify, model, and apply a full cost benefit analysis to urban freeway capital projects.

Um, so it would include other urban freeways that are impacting our city and help us develop a fuller understanding of the impacts of these projects and allow us to make data decisions, um data-driven decisions going forward.

I think it's an important way to show that we're serious about equitable transportation, land use, development, and community need.

Great.

What's sort of the proposed budget solved that you're thinking through?

And so for the proposed budget solved with that um defense certified TIFF district coming in right at about $950,000.

We are looking at that as a source of the $50,000.

Great.

Thank you.

It's our time for a question.

Sure.

Just for clarity, is that a city study or a council study?

So the the study itself would be commissioned by the city of Minneapolis with the Center for Transportation Studies at the University of Minnesota.

So with funding from multiple sources.

So would we be funding the city of Minneapolis?

So it yeah, well, it would not go to the city of Minneapolis, it would go towards the full cost of the contracted study.

But they would be the one holding the contract.

And executing the study?

The Center for Transportation Studies would be executing the study.

Would it be a joint study between so it's a joint study between Minneapolis and City of St.

Paul and ahead of orchestrated through this center to the through the center?

What's the name of the center again?

The Center for Transportation Studies.

Great based.

The University of Minnesota.

Okay.

Yep.

Is that the full totality of 94, or is there a corridor that you're looking at specifically, or would this be ward wide?

I'm mostly asking because obviously ward I-94 goes through multiple wards.

Yeah, so it no, it would be ward wide and metro area-wide, looking at the impact throughout both the twin cities.

Okay, thank you.

And then also just to add going beyond just 94, and so looking at urban freeways within the metro area generally.

Okay, and is that $50,000 quoted from like somewhere, or is that so that's the ask that we've received from community?

$50,000, $500,000 is the full amount, but with the amount that's anticipated from other governmental entities.

The ask for St.

Paul is $50,000.

Thank you.

Oh yeah.

Okay.

Perfect.

Yes, go for it.

Council President.

You may have said this, Miss Coleman, but is Ramsey County being asked to participate as well?

They have been asked at this point.

I um it's unclear to me.

We don't know for sure if they will.

Obviously, they are dealing with their own bunch of challenges of their own, so while we're hopeful that they'll be contributing.

We don't know yet know that.

Thanks.

Okay, wonderful.

I think we're gonna keep it moving.

I have a question.

Well, this is definitely award-wine related.

Yeah, that's fine.

We have 20 minutes left.

And so it is just to say we've got one, two, three, four, five.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Councilman, we have at least five more, and then it sounds like Cherry Yang had a few that didn't make it onto the list.

So I'm just I'm just you can ask the question.

I'm just saying we have now limited, we got 20 minutes left.

Yeah, I totally understand.

Um, I just was uh we couldn't talk offline about it, um, but particularly I'm just wondering to to the degree that um chief resiliency officer, chief climate officer Russ Darks is is brought into this because I know he's stare hitting um the Mendot PACs um process.

Yeah, uh so we've been in touch with um with Rustark about this.

Um he's aware of the study and of the ask and how it might play into kind of future decision making for the city.

Is he in support of it?

My understanding is yes, although I double.

I don't want to totally speak for your own.

Your understanding is yes.

Okay, you got commitment from him.

That that he thinks that understanding this further is a good option, yeah.

Um I definitely will talk offline.

I think it's really important that reconnect rondos engage in it.

Um impacted the Ronald community definitely have been impact and experienced harm from the freeway.

So I think to the extent that that community group is an engaged will be really important.

Strongly agree.

Thank you for those comments.

All right, moving right along.

Restore public works robotic painter.

Um, I'm gonna combine those.

Oh, perfect.

That's great.

Are you gonna bring them forward as one then?

I they're they're separate amendments, technically, but when I talk about them, I'm gonna talk about them together.

So um thanks, Cher.

Um, so this item restoring the public works robotic painter and restoring the public works mill and overlay fund um are is an amendment that I'm bringing basically to restore two of the proposed funding sources um from the council's um amendment that was presented earlier.

So the robotics print machine is about 450,000, the mill and overlay money is about almost 319,000.

So I think these two investments which were originally part of the mayor's proposed budget are about public safety and about investments in our infrastructure.

Our roadway quality and safety is a core function of our city that our residents expect.

Um the mill and overlay money is important for keeping up with our street maintenance.

Uh it's important to the resilience of our roads and as well as a lot of the deferred maintenance on our roads that only gets more expensive if we don't continue um to maintain those investments.

I'm gonna spend a little bit more time talking about the robotic prints machine, road prints, which I think maybe not everyone is familiar uh with the people listening.

Um this was presented to us by Public Works when Director Kershaw came in with those giant life-size stencils.

Uh this is a modernization of what's almost a hundred-year-old practice for how we lay down street markings.

So right now it requires three workers to lay those markings down.

This is for crosswalks, turn arrows, school markings, bike lanes.

We use about 4200 gallons of paint per year for those markings with this um prince machine that would only require possibly two workers and would take workers out of the street.

So this would significantly increase our efficiency in this process, and we'd be able to reallocate staff to other critical um you know public work services, and this it would pay for itself over seven years.

I think this is about two things.

This is I mentioned road safety, but it's about pedestrian safety, which um you know is a priority that uh is that our council shares and that our city shares.

We are currently behind in our printed markings.

You can see them in our roads when you drive through them.

I saw dozens of them on our way here that you you you can't even see anymore.

It's absolutely critical that we catch up on those printed markings.

Uh these need to be visible for the safety of our streets.

And the markings, for example, I had some markings installed um through public works in ward three nearby a school last year in the fall of 2024.

Uh today you you can't you can barely see them, and they need to be repainted.

I think this is a top issue that I hear about in our city about pedestrian safety, you know, especially kids being able to get to schools, road safety.

We get so many requests for traffic improvements all throughout our ward and I think throughout our city.

This increases safety for all road users with these with more effective and more efficiently placed visual street markings.

It's more affordable and more accessible and safer to apply.

Also, talk about worker safety really really briefly.

Just as I mentioned, the more that we can get road workers off the streets, the safer that it is, fewer injuries and accidents for cars.

Roadway safety, these wouldn't be used on highways, but when you combine roadway safety with highway worker safety, that is one of the top uh most dangerous kind of uh fatalities that we see for our workers.

So I think that these two just to wrap up, you know, this mill and overlay, the restoration of mill and overlay and road prints are about our shared commitment to safety in our city on the job site and on all of our roads, no matter how you travel, if you're a pedestrian, a biker, if you're in a car or taking transit.

The resource, um, the source for this right now would be a TIF district decertification, uh, which we think is gonna be about um $950,000.

Uh, if you do add up the uh, let's see, one, two, three, four or so items that folks are proposing for that money.

We are we're proposing over $950,000.

So I do actually have a couple other potential sources that I'm gonna look into too if needed.

Um, but that's where those would come from.

Great.

Perfect timing.

Thank you, Councilmember Jose.

And we are moving right along.

Okay, so now we've got four minutes or no, we've got I'm not doing math.

We have six more.

It's 1116.

Everyone still gets two minutes.

Okay, so the first one up, we've got oversight of opioid, which was real um something that council member brought in this morning.

Yeah, um, do you mind if I just do back to back, I could just do all three of them in one.

That's how I'll prepare to get it out the way.

Yeah, that's totally that works with me.

Hold on one second.

Let me set this timer for you so you can see.

So I'll start.

I have three.

Um, so the first one is opioids, and that for uh, well, actually, if you don't mind, the first one's gonna be the Rondo Library, and then the second one is Ujama Place, and the third one is the opioid settlement funds.

Um, so with the Rondo Library, this particularly is just making sure that there's guardrails to make sure that council is in collaboration with this new administration.

The real reality is that we're preparing for a budget for a different mayor and for a new transition in a new administration.

Um, it's really really important that we have some guardrails put in place to protect our most critical public asset, and that these guardrails help us move forward together with clarity and um and accountability.

What's really important as you all know as a ward one representative of the Rondo Library is really really truly the heartbeat of this neighborhood, and closing it is going to cause some harm to that neighborhood.

Um, this amendment simply ensures that there's clear guidelines and clear deliverables, particularly um ensuring that there's a firm reopening date for the Rondo Library, a contractor selection timeline, a community input process regarding the design, programming, safety, and services, and ensuring that there's monthly updates in the future from the library directors and also a uh uh a joint uh department um approach, particularly around safety issues on that corner, not just the library, but that surrounding areas.

So this actually doesn't um require a budget solve.

It it pays for itself.

Um, it's going to be utilizing the existing um library budget funds.

This is pretty much just putting um conditions on the funds in terms of how the funds will be rolled out and how the renovation projects will be managed in the future.

Uh, there's going to be a lot of transition, um, and I think it's really important to make sure that you know, for the community who has uncertainty that this is clear guidelines and making sure people know every step in the process.

So that's any questions for that.

Okay.

The second one is Ujama Place, um, the second chance housing allocation.

Um, for the last, if you were here at the last public safety and community wellness committee meeting, we had um Minnesota Justice Research Center come and present about the returning home program that existed in the Office of Financial Empartment about three years ago.

Um, that work was incredible.

Um, it was done under the pandemic and really didn't get a chance to really see the day of light.

We have heard from many community organizations, such as Ujama Place, who has been, you know, great partners with the city in terms of delivering the community ambassadors program.

This program is more so to provide funding so we can ensure that people with um backgrounds have access to housing.

We know that they face severely barriers to housing, a lot of stigma.

So this is more so of a crime prevention and public safety um investment to ensure that our most vulnerable has access to housing, reduces uh recidivism and strengthens our public safety.

Um and these are just proven strong partners.

Uh I anticipate on um actually um solving for this budget by looking at um three different um budgeting sources.

I don't want to share it now just because you know I still need to get more information and clarity about it, but I do appreciate your all support, particularly um not only hearing it in the public safety committee meeting, but also like actually investing into um um fair housing in the future.

Any questions moving forward?

I have a quick question.

Yes, very quick.

Chair thanks, Chair King.

Yes, I just want a quick uh clarification.

Are we already making this investment into a program like this already?

Like to Ujama.

There has been.

So one of the sources was Office of Financial Empowerment.

It was um the city has had one time um investment in it, so it just would be a reoccurring investment from uh about three years ago.

So it will still be through the Office of Financial Empowerment, um, and or it could also be from OFS.

There is a fund through OFS that they can just directly um appropriate these dollars to to that organization.

Okay.

And the next one.

Okay, last but not least.

Um, this one uh has been uh has been a really clear pathway forward um in ensuring that we have um um uh uh strong council oversight and controls over the a big conversation that we've been all wanting to have as a council regarding the opioid sediment dollars.

Um, you know, it was some months ago.

I do want to appreciate um our budget chair um ensuring that we hear from Ramsey County public health director regarding the settlement um of approximately 14 million dollars um that is going to be going through the city, but there hasn't been really a consistent coordinated centralized plan.

Um, and that is just really what we have experienced.

Uh we have been really excited to see what the departments and what the city has in mind to actually address Fed and all um um crisis.

We have um attended a budget um address where there was an announcement of a million dollars to go to a Fed and all intervention.

I have requested on multiple occasions for them to come and present about how that one million dollars should be invested into the community, and we have not heard anything.

Um I think giving the authority that we have moving into the future, uh, we should have strong controls in ensuring that these dollars are secured and ensuring that the departments and going into a new administration the opportunity to actually collaborate and the opportunity for us to make sure our residents have the funds so we can continue saving lives, so so we continue supporting recovery, so we could continue expanding our services, and most importantly, stabilizing our neighborhoods.

Um, this amendment is a simple commitment.

Before we go out to spend millions of dollars that has not actually had come to council, we need to have a plan, a real plan, a shared plan.

Um so this is I'm asking um my colleagues to support me into uh ensuring that there is council oversight.

I'm gonna be continuously working um with our central staff to make sure that we have the proper excuse, the proper account mechanism for it.

Uh, but if there's any questions, I could definitely answer that.

Sounds great.

Um, I don't see any questions, and we're at 1124, which leaves I think the perfect amount for the last three.

Thank you so much for the incredible detail and I think um the strong uh amendments that you're bringing forward, Councilmember Bowie.

Um, so uh Chair Yang, you have three and your six minutes.

I'll just keep it rolling and pause for questions, but you get the remainder of our time.

Thanks, Chair Camel.

Well, I just want to give you all a heads up that I will be making rounds with everybody to talk um more about further eliminations of vacant positions as I look at the list from HR.

There are some positions that have been vacant since 2023.

Um I'm just you know doing that based off of the things that we've been hearing from community members and even our city staff too, which is we want more frontline staff members, less supervisors.

We've always um the in the council here talked a lot about um wanting to have a a one-year mark and uh I think it you know if a position goes open for longer, there really should be an evaluation about what are we doing with that position and are we needing to make some adjustments, for example, like wage adjustments so that it's competitive.

There's also some positions that have been open since 2022 as well.

Um and then the the second thing I have on my list is that I am uh um in favor of fully funding our council run uh council office renovation project to make sure that our spaces are safe for our staff and the public too.

The amount that we see on the amendment list here, I don't believe that is the full amount, but I would be interested in filling the full gap for that and Kumwid, I'll connect more with you about that.

And then lastly, I am still very committed to lowering the levy even more.

So I want to let you all know that if there are unused dollars or let's say you know, we know there's new revenue coming in next year.

I am very interested in using that to lower the levy more and would love your support on that.

Awesome.

Yeah, that um wonderful.

1125.

So again, I'm just going to thank you first.

I think just to all of my colleagues in the incredible budget work that we've been doing, and I kind of listening and hearing of all these great ideas.

Um I think it's just really a testament of the big body of work that is the the best group project, but the chairs, the chairs proposed a budget.

Chair's proposed budget, but oh, I can't speak today.

Um and then also um the incredible ideas and the ways that we're really just kind of looking at the guts of the city.

Um and I just really appreciate the level of detail and the thoughtfulness um throughout this entirety uh of our budget process.

And so a very brief and friendly reminder.

Um please work with Kamud um and our office.

We are expecting each council office to submit their resolutions into Legistar.

Um we will provide a format to do that.

They will need to be entered into Legistar with no less than foreign support.

Um, and we will take on uh we will take up voting on them um on December 3rd with um our finalizing our levy, our max levy, and also finalizing our budget.

Any other lasting thoughts, questions, or concerns for my colleagues?

Yes, Chair Johnson.

Thank you.

I just um wanted to I had a clarifying question.

Um to what's required for the Rondo library renovations and the oversight um of the opioid dollars.

These don't have budgetary changes, correct?

They're just they're no changes.

The reporting uh resolutions.

Yes.

Great.

And then um, so but oh Jama place would be new additional funding that would.

And then I think along that vein, um, just something that I'll flag for our colleagues.

We will be uh like along the lines of reporting.

Um asked for Camou to include language in the housing redevelopment authorities budget.

Um the overall resolution that would require quarterly year to your um year to date budget to actual reporting.

That same language is my intention to also make sure that it's embedded in the city's budget and part of really getting to a place where we are seeing quarterly reports of our budget to actuals.

And so that's just something that didn't it's not an amendment.

It's similar to like the reporting mechanisms of um what's presented here by council bui and better ways to ensure that there's like oversight but also transparency, just because the way that we're doing our budget to actuals currently um when it comes to reporting at least, right?

We we hear about them before like in the middle of the year, and then we hear about them again after um the budget is already passed for the previous for the next year moving forward in a public way.

This would change that to be quarterly in both the city and the HRA budgets.

So that language isn't coming as like a separate resolution, it'll be a clause within the overall budget resolution that's approved.

That sounds great.

Thank you so much.

Um and again, a friendly reminder to all of our millions of viewers at home.

If you heard an amendment that you particularly love and would like to cheer on, please please lobby us for those interests.

All right, was nothing else before us for adjourned.