St. Paul Audit Committee Meeting with Mayor Her and Community Advisor Interviews – February 17, 2026
St. Paul Audit Committee Meeting with Mayor Her and Community Advisor Interviews – February 17, 2026
The St. Paul City Council Audit Committee convened on February 17, 2026, at approximately 10:00 a.m. The meeting featured two main agenda items: a preliminary discussion with Mayor Her and her administration to strengthen collaboration on performance audits, followed by interviews with three candidates for a vacant community advisor position on the committee. The meeting was chaired by Councilmember Rebecca Noecker (Ward 2) and included committee members Molly Coleman (Ward 4), Jeremy Lostetter, Stephanie Dilworth, and Noah McVay, alongside staff and administration guests.
Opening Roundtable with Mayor Her's Administration
- Committee chair Noecker opened by framing the audit committee’s role as a service to the entire city, emphasizing the importance of partnership with the administration since the committee can recommend but cannot mandate implementation.
- Each attendee introduced themselves, including new administration members: Assistant Mayors Nu Vang, Nick Stuomalang, and Jody Farr (via video), policy aides Laura Isdall and Bulzu, first assistant to the mayor Erica Schumacher, and Mayor Her herself.
- Mayor Her expressed strong support for auditing, describing it as a key governmental function. She encouraged the committee to be critical and examine whether the city should be running certain programs (e.g., College Bound St. Paul) and whether initiatives are sustainable, resourced, and executable. She stressed the importance of retrospection on implementation rather than just policy passage.
- Committee member Noah McVay highlighted the need to follow up on previous audit recommendations regarding internal controls and standard operating procedures, especially in light of the past summer’s cybersecurity incident. He also advocated for broader community engagement to inform audit work.
- Chair Noecker noted the current audit on data practices is nearing completion, and the committee paused its normal topic selection process to align with the new administration’s priorities.
- Mayor Her suggested potential audit topics including the city’s expansion into non-traditional services, the execution and enforceability of council policies, and the College Bound savings program.
Interview of Community Advisor Candidates
The committee interviewed three candidates for the community advisor position. Each was asked four standard questions: about their background and interest in the committee, knowledge of performance auditing, committee/community engagement experience, and suggested audit topics. The interviews lasted approximately 15 minutes each.
1. Sharon (last name not provided)
- Background: Extensive federal government experience, worked on government-wide regulations and civil rights cases (EEOC), degree in experimental psychology, familiar with GAO standards but no direct performance audit experience.
- Suggested audit topic: Tax increment financing (TIF) and its effect on affordable housing, particularly in District 8 where long-term residents face displacement.
- The committee thanked her and noted she would be contacted within two weeks about the decision or other city board opportunities.
2. Herzia (last name not provided)
- Background: St. Paul native, limited city government knowledge, board member of Minnesota Atheists, currently a budget analyst for the state of Minnesota, experience with data analysis.
- Suggested audit topic: Snow plowing comparisons with neighboring cities to gauge performance.
- She asked about existing metrics outside audits and what makes an ideal committee member (open mind, willingness to learn, collaborative spirit).
3. Dylan Donnelly
- Background: St. Paul resident, owns a business, has a BA and MBA, completed coursework at the Humphrey School including an auditing course, experienced in lean manufacturing and continuous improvement (led lean events), reads OLA audits for fun.
- Suggested audit topics: Facility services (backlog over $1 billion and affordability concerns in concentrated poverty areas); ROI on non-traditional municipal programs like College Bound.
- He recommended posting audit committee videos on YouTube for transparency.
- Committee members discussed the possibility of hiring a city auditor in the future.
Key Outcomes
- The committee will meet next on March 17, 2026. By February 21 (Friday of the same week), each committee member must email their top candidate choice to the chair, who will then draft a resolution for full Council approval.
- At the March meeting, Dr. Britt from Wilder Research will present the initial report on the data practices audit, and committee members will bring ideas for next audit topics based on the mayor’s input and candidate suggestions.
- The committee expressed enthusiasm for the mayor’s active partnership and the strong applicant pool for the community advisor role.
Meeting Transcript
Roll call, please. Hi, can everyone can anyone can everyone hear me? Yes. Okay, perfect. Um Councilmember Molly Coleman. Here Dilworth. Yeah. Lastner. Here. Mike Vang. Here. And Chair Negris. Here. Awesome. Thanks. Thanks, Sonia. And thanks so much everyone for joining us today. We have two items on our agenda. One is uh an introduction to Mayor Herr and her leadership team, which we're really excited about, which is intended to be a conversation between us and the administration. And then secondly, we are going to be interviewing uh three candidates for our new community advisor position. Um so I thought we should start. This is really exciting, I think, for the audit committee to have the opportunity to welcome a new mayor, a new administration. Um we have not done that before, and we're really excited to build a good working relationship with the mayor and the administration, um, in part because of necessity, because this audit committee is empowered to do performance audits of city departments, but we have no authority over what happens with the results of those audits or if those findings are ever put into practice. We've been gratified by the fact that despite not having any formal authority, um departments have really adopted and embraced our recommendations to this point, but we think that will be more likely to happen and more likely to happen systemically if we're doing this in partnership with the administration. And we hope, although this is a council committee, we see this as a service to the whole city, not just to the council. Um so I thought we could start maybe with just a quick round of introductions, um, maybe just name and role and uh if you're on the audit committee, how long you've been on the audit committee, what else you do besides your service here. Um, and then it's really gonna be an open discussion of um really from I think the mayor's administration's perspective. Are there things that just in the few short weeks that you've already been on the job that you are interested in uh exploring? I know all you've been thinking about is potential audit topics this entire time, so we're eager to hear your thoughts. Um and then from our committee questions or discussions with the administration, and we know this won't be our last conversation with you all either. So um, why don't we start uh well I can start maybe we can go this way. So I'm Rebecca Naker, I represent Ward 2 on the city council. I chair this committee, and I actually helped start the audit committee many, many years ago with Councilmember Jane Prince, restart it, I should say. The council had one a long time ago and it was lost in budget cuts. Um and now uh and we're back and I'm I really enjoy this work. I think it's important to be able to show folks that we care about not just that the work is what the work is, but that it's being done well and that we're always thinking innovatively about how to do it better. Amazing. Hi everybody, Molly Coleman, uh St. Paul City Council member for Ward 4, currently our newest but not for long audit committee member. Um I've been on the committee since I joined the council in August, September ish. Um yeah, I guess maybe the one thing that I will add is you know, I've been going with um Member McVay to district councils to get a chance to talk to them about the audit committee, and it's been really gratifying to see how excited folks are about the work that we're doing here and how they are really I think starting to understand thanks to the presentation that I do not give um that member McVay gives, and that is very well done, that this is a real opportunity for people to get into how our city actually works, and I think seeing the ways that people understand a financial audit versus the type of audit that we're doing here, which is really around is our city our services, our programs, our departments actually working for the people that we intend them to work for, has been exciting and I think you know makes me excited to be on this committee. I'm Jeremy Lostetter, I'm one of the community advisors. I've been on the committee for just over two years now. Um, and it's been great. I live in Ward One. I've been pleased uh to be part of this committee, and outside of this, I'm an internal audit manager for Hennepin County, so other side of the river. Um have kind of both sides perspective. Um we're really excited to meet uh Mayor Hear's administration representatives today. Uh thank you for coming. Thank you.
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