Roll call, please.

Chair Johnson.

I'm here.

My chair yang.

Council member Bowie.

Councilmember Comey.

Here.

Council Member Kim.

Here.

Council Member Joe's.

Councilmember Naker.

Here.

All present and no one absent.

Okay.

So we have two presentations today.

First up is the presentation on the presentation of the tree canopy and right track program.

So we'll start off.

I oh, I guess is it tree forestry?

The budget in front of me is missing my item, but we'll go first with the forestry presentation.

Welcome, Rachel.

And is it Joan Ward?

John Ward.

John Ward.

Hello, Ms.

John Ward.

How are you?

I'm good.

How are you doing?

Good.

Um, thank you for having me today, council members, to talk about our forestry budget.

Um, I'm gonna give you a brief outlook on where we are currently and where we'll be in the future based on um our current budget and then optimal budget.

And I will rely on my notes, so I apologize if I'm looking down a lot.

Okay, so I thought it was important to start with um kind of who we are and and what we do in forestry.

Um during budget presentations and a lot of the city council presentations.

I understand that you typically will see like the big bucket items of pruning, tree removal, um, and planting, but I wanted to point out some of the other important work that we do in forestry.

Um grant management is one big thing.

We currently have three grants that we are managing um in the forestry division with the U.S.

Forest Service and the DNR.

Um, community forestry.

We we have a we don't have a dedicated fund for outreach and forestry, but we do work collaboratively with private nonprofits on public and private tree planting initiatives.

We host events such as Arbor Day, and we have a small team of volunteers called the tree stewards who do pruning and um planting for us.

Um we currently have one urban forester who reviews all public construction and development projects in St.

Paul, including anything that public works is doing, Ramsey County, MINDOT, St.

Paul Regional Water Service, and then all of the private development.

Our crews also help with those projects by pruning trees in advance in as much as our capacity for that work allows.

Often those projects are planted by our contractor with forestry oversight, storms.

That work has generated well over 200 calls to our office forestry does that are down, trees tree branches that are down.

So we've been working through all of that, and I think it's worth noting that the storm response is something that is entirely unbudgeted for forestry.

Oops, I forgot that I'm changing slides too.

Okay.

So where we are with budgets and then pressures.

In the general fund, we did have a small increase in 2025 of $500,000.

Otherwise, my understanding going back, you know, a couple of decades is that that budget has remained relatively level, with the exception of increases for salaries and fringes.

For EAB, it was so if you go back to Dutch Elm Disease days back in the 1970s, there was a ton of federal funding to cities and states to help with Dutch Elm disease.

And that really never came to fruition with Emerald Ash Bore, although it is just as devastating of an insect versus disease.

The city did start a general fund for EAB management back, I think around 2010 or 11, but overall it was less than half of what was spent on managing EAB in St.

Paul.

Staffing wasn't increased substantially, so backlogs were created that we're still working our way out of.

So I'll get more into that a little bit later, as far as the planting that that budget covers.

And that was to complete the EAB program, which we uh we did in 2024, and it has allowed us to start addressing some of the backlogs as well as purchasing some needed equipment for our crews.

Our accessible removals budget, and I'm really not going to talk about this a whole lot later in the presentation, but if you have questions on it, then we can take those.

Grants, like I said, we currently have three grants, and we've received varying levels of grant funds over the years since I've worked here.

It is in the millions, but it's not funding that we've been able to consistently consistently rely on because there is a lot of competition in the state for the small amount of grant funding that's available for urban and community forestry.

And just kind of for a comparison, the Minneapolis Park and Rec Board manages about the same amount in terms of tree numbers and the size of the city, and their funding is about twice what ours is as well as staffing capacity.

I think they have around 90 staff where we have 42 in forestry, 43 maybe.

And I believe their budget is around 9 to 10 million dollars per year.

So despite all of that, it's it's good to have goals, right?

So when we we got the Port Authority funding, we wrapped up EAB management, but part of the process when looking at the port funding was to develop goals associated with the backlogs that were created during our management of Emerald Ashbore.

So we looked at what we could achieve once those funds were exhausted with sustained general fund dollars.

The ultimate goal being to reestablish lost canopy citywide, increase species diversity, and maintain both established and young replacement trees.

And so those goals did include, as you can see, establishing a pruning cycle and establishing a three-year tree replacement program citywide.

So we would be looking at, you know, if a tree came down due to the storm last week, that we would grind the stump next year, and then in 2028, we would be replanting a tree there.

And I'll get more into all of those things as I go along.

So for pruning, like I said before, I've been with this city for close to 20 years, and the first time we've established an actual pruning cycle was in 2024, immediately following the EAB management program.

Prior to that, I think we did say that we had a uh anywhere from a 12 to a 15 year cycle, but that was really all complaint based.

So we might be on a street pruning all of the trees one year and say we might get back in 12 years, but it really wasn't doing a systematic pruning of individual areas.

Um, I think as we all know, complaint-based management of programs is not really equitable and it's not sustainable.

Um, it's also in terms of forestry, it's not good for trees.

So routine pruning is really the number one thing that we can do to care for our trees in the city.

Um it helps with storm resilience by removing over extended, so long branches or structurally weak limbs.

It increases airflow.

So if you see trees, even young trees waving around in the air.

If you prune out some of the limbs, it will let airflow go through so that it doesn't snap the tree off.

Um it increases health and longevity by removing dead and dying limbs, increasing airflow again, which decreases fungal growth and redirecting energy to healthy new growth.

It also helps with risk management and mitigation.

We have clearer sight lines so that people aren't running stop signs, and it's trees aren't tree branches aren't touching uh roofs or structures, you know, and damaging the exterior of homes or buildings.

So when we started thinking about what a pruning program could look like back in 2020-ish, um, and knowing that there's not really an absolute industry standard, but that five to ten years is generally accepted throughout the industry.

We used our tree inventory to split the city into 50 small areas with the goal of reaching five per year, and that the thought process behind that is um, you know, that we would be on a 10-year cycle.

We have five crews, um, they would reach one of those, each crew would reach one of their areas in a given year, and they would go through 10 years, and then the 10 years later they would be back doing those same areas.

So you can see what we completed over the last couple of years, and we do have the 2026, which is year three of the program is in progress.

In 2024, there was some funding to support contractor assistance for this work.

Long term, it could have cut the first cycle, the first 10-year cycle in half down to five years.

Um, however, that funding wasn't sustained, and since then it's been 100% in-house crews doing the work.

Excuse me.

So, like I said, we are we are meeting the goals of the program thus far.

I do have a quick question from uh council member Kim, so I'll go to her at this time.

Sure, sorry, you're on a roll.

Um can you I what I believe I heard you say was these were determined based on the like the current, like understanding of what trees are where?

What's my question?

I'm trying to determine how did you determine on these kind of based on your knowledge of the tree, the diversity of trees that we have in the city, because like even when I look at um, you know, even the lower part of Rice Street, kind of near the graveyard, like that I was living in that area, and every single tree on my block was taken down for EAB.

Sure.

I don't know if it was like we were part of the protective border or like so I'm just kind of wondering like are those considerations being made as you think about like where you're kind of prioritizing your plan based on like where AAB was been has been, where you were taking down trees, like how do those connect at all, and how did you make a decision around where you were going next?

Sure.

So the way that we generated the the prune areas was really looking mainly at the number of trees in each area to try to make it as even as possible.

So you'll see some really strange um, you know, squiggle in and out type of thing on that.

Um, and it generally in all of those small areas, it's around 2500 trees.

Um we've done ash replacements everywhere, and I will talk about the young trees a little bit more, but we've done them everywhere.

We also did look at the um the age diversity in each area, so how many young trees there were versus older trees.

Um, but in general, it's it's pretty much citywide, like there's a good a good mix, but I will talk about a little bit about the the younger tree and pruning with those.

Um does that answer your question?

Okay.

Um so where it was.

We have been meeting the goals of the 10-year pruning cycle over the last um two and a half years.

We're uh we have a really good start this year.

We've gotten most of our pruning um done for the year.

Um, however, we do have to, we will have to go back and finish that up, and that will depend on how many trees come down this summer, either just due to you know age, death, whatnot, and then the storms that we we see throughout the year.

Um we also have been addressing prioritized complaints such as trees touch uh blocking stop signs and touching houses, and we've done a lot of construction-related requests this year, early this year.

Um this is where I'll get to the butts of the program.

Um constituents could wait well over 10 years to have a tree pruned.

Um, you know, if you're accounting for trees that were planted before we started the routine pruning cycle, and depending on which prune zone they're in, so the the prune zone one is what we did is year one.

Prune zone 10 is year 10.

So if a tree was planted in 2020 and they're in prune zone 10, they could wait, you know, 14-15 years to have a tree pruned.

Um, I think we all know that means continued complaints, right, about where we are in our cycle and how long it's taking.

This doesn't include formative pruning to your question, council member Kim, of um young trees.

There are now tens of thousands of those because we've been replacing ash trees, replacing storm storm damage trees, and everything else.

Um we should actually have a separate program for structural pruning of young trees where they're pruned two to three times in the first 10 years.

That is somewhat of an industry standard, um, where you know, if you have a pruning cycle of anything between five to 10 years, that is considered good.

But for young trees, it really is that you're getting to them at least a couple of times while they're young, so that you're giving them a really good structure for their growth.

This also doesn't include park trees.

So we are the parks department, but unfortunately, we don't have a lot of capacity to do a lot of maintenance in parks.

So this does um the prune zones, the 2500 trees that I mentioned is really just street trees, and when we if we get areas done early, we would go into parks and do as much pruning in those areas as we could.

So for a budget need, um, I think this was presented this graphic by Andy last week, I'm pretty sure by Director Rodriguez.

Um an ideal scenario would include roughly 3.7 million dollars annually in additional funding to support pruning contracts.

Um we would have the capacity, and that's included in that ideal number that is circled in red.

Um, we'd then have the capacity to expedite the first round of the cycle, reducing it from 10 years down to seven.

I think that's like what would be achievable now that we're already into year three of the pruning.

It would just address backlogs of complaints, it would keep us up on construction related pruning needs, develop a program for structural pruning of young trees, and complete park pruning during the same year's cycle.

I see a question as well from council president maker.

Thanks, Chair.

Um, can you give us a sense of how the 6.3 million for general tree care breaks down in you mentioned staff?

I'm curious how many staff we have, what else the money goes toward.

Um, and then can you speak a little bit about what the expectations or the metrics are for staff like per week or month or day?

Like, how are we setting expectations to get a certain amount of this work done that meets our goals?

Sure.

Um, I do have some other information.

So your question is for the the base six point two nine million.

Is that the or the yeah?

I see the sort of sources here, but I'm curious what the uses are, like how how is this money being used, and then sort of a second question is for just staff expectation.

What is the amount was the average or ideal amount that a crew can perform in any one of these um areas?

So how do we measure that?

So the roughly six million in general fund um right now four and a half million, roughly four and a half is staff and salaries and fringe benefits.

Um, that leaves us with around a million dollars for what is included in like supply services, materials.

So that's any contract work that we do.

So we do contract out our planting program, and we do contract out our stump removal program, and those are the two like bigger ticket items that come out of our budgets, and then we have you know, just smaller contract work such as crane removals, which I'll touch a little bit on later, um, that assist with our crews doing their routine work.

Um, we have some trainings that are required for forestry staff annually, so uh like smaller things like that, safety equipment, which you'd be surprised by, you know, how much equipment is needed to do this type of work.

Um, so I think right now for 2027, if we had the stuck with the budget that we currently have, um, our planting program uh we would use roughly $450,000 of our general fund would supplement planting, which I'm gonna talk about next is how the budgets with the planting work, and then roughly the same amount for uh stump grinding, which leaves a little bit left over for the miscellaneous you know, trainings and equipment that we need for our programs.

Um we are increasing some of the work that we do with the grant funding that we have right now.

So for instance, the the forest service grant that we that I mentioned, um there is a small amount of that is going towards stump grinding.

Um next year, around 300,000 of that will go towards tree planting.

Um then our capital improvement, the $330,000 budget that goes towards tree planting.

So the majority of general fund does go towards salaries and infringed benefits.

Um that is, I think we're at 42 or 43 staff.

Um so there's myself, we have two other supervisors in forestry who who's really there's supervising our crews that are doing all of the work that you see getting done.

Um there are five crew leaders and 26 uh arborists that are responsible for all of the pruning, um, all of the removals that we're doing, which again, like removals, I'll talk about a little bit.

Those are really done in-house.

We we contract out very little in terms of removal work.

As far as um, and then we have our like professional side where the technicians, we have four technicians in forestry and and five urban foresters.

The urban foresters are overseeing different programs, such as our planting program, um, park tree inventory and and management.

So we have one urban forester who's doing the park trees, um, look, you know, doing inspections in parks, making sure that we're keeping up on the minimal amount of work that we can do in parks.

Um we have a forester like I talked about before, who does all the construction related work, and then we have two foresters who kind of have split the city in half who are doing all of the general inspections of our street trees, and they're also doing all the private property um abatement work.

So if they're going on to private property to mark trees, and the four technicians we have support our um customer service, so they're taking turns answering phones specifically for forestry that are routed to them, and um assisting with all of those other programs and then running some of their own smaller programs and helping with grants that are partnerships for grants.

Um, in terms of what is expected of a daily workload, it really varies, you know, based on what um what they're doing for the day.

So if they're doing removals uh for a crew, it could be that they're removing 50 small trees or two large trees, right?

So it varies pretty significantly.

Um as far as the pruning work goes, I think crews were generally completing, and I don't know if I have the numbers off the top of my head, but they've been going pretty well, and probably pruning around a hundred trees per crew per week, I think.

So they they have been getting through that work pretty efficiently.

And the routine pruning program, I think where it varies pretty significantly from the complaint base, as I'm sure you'd understand, is if we get a complaint for one tree, we are going to go and resolve that one tree.

We're not going to say, oh, every other tree on the block is also low, we should do this too, because it kind of is never ending at that point.

So to go into an area and prune every tree on the street at, you know, once or within a short time frame is really a much more efficient way of going about the work.

Does that answer?

Yeah, I really appreciate just kind of a deep dive.

I'm gonna turn to commission uh to Councilmember Coleman just to see if her answer or answer was that her question was answered in that or if you had a follow-up.

I have a follow up.

I have a follow up.

Thanks, Terry.

Thank you so much for the presentation.

It's super helpful.

We get a lot of questions about trees.

Um I'm curious.

So it's very interesting to me that we haven't previously had a budget for storm contingency, thinking about a week like last week, where I assume that was a ton of the work with storm cleanup.

Um, just curious how that plays out.

Is that then are we do we end up spending more than budgeted for?

Is it that other work isn't getting done when we have big storms?

If we have a super stormy summer, that just sort of throws us off on every other metric.

And then the second part of the question is sort of looking to if we were to able to add that million dollar budget for 2027.

Curious how that would be spent.

Would it be more staff?

Would it be more equipment?

What would that look like?

Sure.

Thank you for the question.

Um, I to your first question, I think all of the above.

It does throw our schedule off, obviously.

It also can generate, you know, hundreds.

I think last year with the storm in late July, and it didn't help that there was also a um cyber attack.

I think like the week of, so that didn't made it a little more difficult to resolve issues, but that was close to, I think it was close to a thousand calls.

Um, so numbers of trees obviously for removals increases during the year.

Um, it can pose issues if you're trying to stay on a pruning cycle.

Um, it definitely impacts the budget in terms of all of the overtime that is done.

So when we have a large storm like that, even the storm last week, our crews did work until I think 7 p.m.

So if we have a large storm, they are working, you know, 12-hour days at least, which um there's overtime involved, and potentially on weekends, depending on the size.

Um, we do have contractors assist, which then it's kind of up to people like Dave over there to try to find money within the park's budget to um pay for contracted work, and we're typically looking at contractors helping with things like park trees, because on our kind of list of priorities, parks come in towards the bottom of the list when we're trying to clear streets for emergency vehicles, get trees off of cars and houses.

So the park trees are kind of at the the bottom.

So we'd have contractors help with that.

We, you know, depending on the size of the storm, we have contractors hauling material, so we might set up um a number of marshalling yards or dump sites where we would have contractors then hauling all that material down to pig's eye because it's more efficient for us to drop it at Como Park if we're working in the Como Park area than to drive all the way down to Pig's Eye to dump loads of material down there.

So it's kind of a variety, and I think the the one million dollars um we've looked back at storms in the past, and the larger storms have cost that much.

Um so I think the one million mark would be for a large storm, but just to have that funding available if there was storm damage.

We've also had a few storms.

I think since I've been here where um it was a large enough storm that the city decided that we needed to expedite tree planting, for instance, um, for those areas that were hit hardest, or to I know of at least one storm where we did haul all private brush along with the public brush, which is a lot because people do take advantage of that, and we'll have every tree on their property pruned and put it on the boulevard for us to haul.

So um it varies, I think, by storm, but that's kind of what it would assist with.

Thank you.

All right, so for tree planting, let's see.

So our objectives now for planting are increasing diversity, incorporating climate adapted species, increasing canopy in underrepresented area areas, and utilizing volunteers for is for work with that.

I mentioned grants earlier, and that we have two uh three, but two of them are planting related grants.

Um they prioritize plantings in underrepresented areas.

Our DNR grant is a one-time funding, which will support around 560 trees being planted this fall.

And then the Forest Service Grant that we have is a five-year program.

It includes a job training component, so we are still working with tree trust.

We had been for the five years before that to do a job training program, and um the job that they do is tree planting.

Um that also supports a bit of stump removal work.

Um, these and like I said earlier, they um oh no, this is something different.

Sorry.

Uh these grants typically also have requirements for diversity and climate adaptive species, and like I said, those are all things that we're already doing, but they typically work pretty well for the planting that we're doing to supplement those programs.

And Miss uh Joan Ward.

Is it John Ward?

You got it.

I saw um before we get too far into the tree planting.

I just want to go back to council member Kemp's question.

I appreciate it.

They're like not connected questions but connected to different slides.

So, um, my first question is around the last slide around increasing canopy and underrepresented areas, and so how it can connects to your pruning schedule.

So you said each area is about 2,500 trees, and some are areas are larger than others.

So, for example, like uh looks like uh like zone 10, right?

Is quite large in comparison to like zone two, right?

Like north northwest Como, and I just sort of wonder like is another way to look at this map, is it also an indicator of the cut like the tree canopy coverage as well?

Like given the fact that like zone 10 is so much larger than other zones, and if every zone has 2500 trees, are we to then like infer that in that area the tree canopy is lower?

Like, does that kind of connect to our tree equity score canopy scores across the city, or am I thinking just like way too deep into it?

Maybe a little too deep, but we and you know, in terms of canopy, um, we don't know what our canopy percentages are in neighborhoods right now.

I know that there are like national calculators out there, but we do one of the grants that I um mentioned is for the it's through the DNR, and um I should have the contract back hopefully today, and that will support a new urban tree canopy assessment, which is really needed.

We did one in 2010, and so the goal would be to do one yet this year, um, and that would go down to the neighborhood and even the individual property to show the canopy percentages, and then to develop an urban forest management plan.

So we would look at that.

I think the size of the area um more is an indicator of you know, if there's properties, um, there's some more industrial areas, right?

Like in down in um district three, you'll see a really large area, and that's because it's the airports down there and it's more industrialized, and there's larger lots and not as many boulevard trees.

So it's not necessarily the the size of the tree or the amount of canopy in an area.

Okay.

Um the reason that we split it into 50 small areas into those crews is that then we are working throughout the city every year.

We're not focusing on, you know, prune zone one through five is all on this side of the city.

So we're working kind of all over the place every every year.

Yeah, that makes sense.

I appreciate it.

Yeah, because the tree assessment, the canopy study was something that I have a reference to, but now it sounds like it's outdated, so be good to update it.

The other question that I had was sort of related to like the staffing question, but also recognizing like your staff have gone through like EAB, and you're like fighting against this like massive tree disease, and um while also trying to increase the biodiversity of the canopy and the existing like forestry that we have and all the stumping, and it sounds like not even within our parks, so it sounds like maybe even in our parks department, there are forestry staff as well.

So it's just trees on trees on trees.

So my question is really related to staffing.

So even recognizing like when a surge of a storm happens, like the one that we saw very recently in the one that we had in Como last year.

Like entire trees were like chopped in half or split apart.

That amount of work is incredibly cumbersome.

I'm wondering, and this doesn't have to be a today question, but I am sort of interested in sort of the like turnover or like attrition of your staff given the demands.

Like what I'm hearing this entire time is that you're understaffed, sort of not as well equipped as you'd like to be to respond to like storms.

What does that look like for your staff numbers?

How have they been um changing year over year?

Um, and then the other thought, um, so that doesn't have to be answered now, and the other thought for my colleagues, which I think we're all on the same page on is if we plan for a certain number of snow emergencies every single year in the public sports department, what would it look like for us to plan for a certain number of major storms for a forestry department?

So we'll just be sort of interested in having that discussion with my colleagues.

But um, feel free to follow up on the staffing question another time, but thank you.

I I can now I think um, you know, for like I said, the professional side, there's not a lot of turnover.

I think that we have if we post a position for a technician or a forester, we have at least 50 candidates and a strong candidate pool, and people in general, I think in that group really do love working here.

Um I you know, we've had like one forester leave in the last 10 years, so um the the labor side, I think it is a little bit, it does it's more in flux.

Um, we had when I started in this position in 2018, we had a pretty large group of people who had been here for a long time, and um they slowly a lot of retirements happened over the first few years, and then COVID, and so we have had a bit more turnover in that group, but it's honestly been you know, maybe a couple of people per year, and they have left for various reasons.

So it I haven't heard from anyone in that group that it's because they hate their job and they feel like they're overworked.

In general, I would say the opposite people typically will come here from the private sector where they might be working 12 hour days all summer, and then in the winter they might not have as much work, so it's it's a more consistent schedule.

Um, and there is we we do make it very clear during the hiring process that um storms happen, and when they do, the expectation is that staff are available.

So that answer that question?

Okay, great.

All right, so with a little bit with our planting numbers and where we are with those, um, the port funding again, it was an opportunity for us to kind of close the gap on on some backlogs that were created by EAB management.

I I think a few years ago we probably had um close to 10,000 vacant sites.

Um we're moving into 2027 with about 4300 vacant sites.

So we have um had the capacity to reduce that backlog pretty significantly over the last few years.

Um, 2023 through 25, we averaged about 4,700 trees planted per year.

Um, this year it will be a bit less, and that's including grant funding.

And what we're looking at for 2007 or 2027, excuse me, is um planting roughly 2,000 trees.

So that is um, you know, anticipating that our funding would support planting less than half the the number of trees that we would like to in order to close that gap.

Um the chart that is up there um basically shows those numbers.

The yellow is annual planting numbers under current funding, um, green is planting under optimal funding, and so you see the the large green bar for 2027, and that is really trying to close that gap as much as possible, and then the it fluctuates a little bit um year by year based on the current grant funds that we do have both for this year and then for a few years with the Forest Service, but it generally would level out in 2028, planting roughly 1,800 trees per year, and that would again be on that getting us onto that three year cycle of removal one-year stump grinding and then planting.

So budget need there.

Um, I see a hand from uh, president maker.

I might answer it here, but indeed.

Well, I think you I'm just trying to figure out why our numbers have been going down since 2023.

Is it are we investing less every year?

We have your partnerships, yeah.

So 2023 we um had port funding, so that kind of allowed us to use a fair amount of our general fund to supplement our planting program, and that was through we really had those funds through 2025.

Um then 2026, you know, we're we're looking at 3,500 this year, and that's really putting all of our budgets, all the money that we have anywhere together to get to that 3,500 number.

And so then why so many fewer in 27?

Because 2026, we did um have some funding from 25 that we used for spring planting this year.

Just sort of a general question.

Have we have we ever been caught up?

I mean, so like I asked us, and I think that's not a flippant question, but in general, um, because I think when I started on the council, we were in the midst of EAB, and the the understanding I had was that it was because of EAB that all of our resources were going there, so they were sucking up all the time and attention from everything else, and sort of underneath that was the implication that like once that therefore if that went away, we would be able to do everything else.

I'm just curious, like, has it ever been the case in time that we have been on the right tree planting cycle, pruning cycle, stumping cycle?

And if so, how was that possible?

Yeah, and if not, doesn't make me feel any better, but I'm just wondering.

No, I I understand.

Um, I don't think we have so for planting.

I think the best we've done is a five-year cycle.

So, and the cycle really being that um not necessarily that ear tree was removed five years ago and we're gonna replant it, but we would we do a lot most of our work by planning district, right?

So we just to efficiency-wise, we're going into a district um every five years.

So that's the the best that I know of that we stayed on for planting.

Stump grinding.

Um, and I I will hit on it a little bit, but we there wasn't a stump program when I started working here.

It had I they had stopped it probably around 2000-ish, and then I think we started it back up in 2011, and so we started grinding all of the stumps from the previous 10 years, and like I talked about with pruning.

We've we really haven't had a pruning cycle before, um, you know, it largely has been complaint-based.

It might have they might have had one, you know, back when I was in college, so I don't really know the numbers, but um if they did, it was it was a long, it was over 20 years ago, so it's valid.

Um so and to your question of have we been on track with planting.

I think where we've gotten off of track really is that the CIB budget hasn't changed from that $330,000.

Um, what has changed is the average cost of a tree being planted when I was here back in 2006 is an in turn the cost of a tree planted with a one-year warranty was 175 dollars, and now it's 450 dollars.

So where you were getting you know 1900 trees maybe annually, we're now getting around 700 out of that budget.

Um, like I talked about a little bit, general fund has really been the bulk of our planting program over the last few years, but um, with it going back basically to pre-EAB levels, there's not a lot in the general fund to go towards planting, and that's why that number next year goes down.

So the optimal budget again includes um a 1.5 million dollar increase in CIB, which is really what's needed to sustain a planting program.

It's probably worth pointing out on the the graph here, the chart that if if it's remains at the the level that we are at right now, so if we have the 4300 um ish kind of vacant sites, we would reduce that a little bit over the next couple of years with what we have and with the the grant funds, but then it would pretty quickly go back up to the same number.

So we would be looking at um planting at a deficit.

So for tree and stump removal, um we mark trees throughout the year.

Uh we do the bulk of them are marked in the summer during our annual citywide survey.

Um our goal for tree removal is always to get them removed by the end of the year if they're marked in 2026.

We'll get the majority of them down in 2026.

There might be a couple of stragglers that we need assistance from a crane um company on, um, but it is primarily in-house work that is done that way.

And I looked back at our average uh removal numbers over the last 10 years, and it's roughly 1800 trees per year.

Um for stumps, like I mentioned, we we were able to, um, or maybe I didn't, we were able to get caught up on stumps last year on the backlog that we had.

That was um due to the assistance of the port funding and the forest service funding that we have.

Um so all right-of-way and park stumps that we had in the system were removed in 2025, regardless of what tree or what year they were removed.

I think we we did a lot of stumps for trees that we had removed in 2025 as well, just to try to get ahead.

Um this year we're removing stumps from 2025 removals, and we would continue to do the same.

Um, this work is primarily accomplished through contractors.

We have multiple contracts for stump grinding, just to keep up on them and to increase capacity there, so the the budget need for that, you know, for tree removal, um questions.

We have like three.

So I'm like going through, I'm like, okay.

Um I saw uh Vice Chair Yang and then we'll go Council Member Coleman, Councilmember Bowie.

Thank you, Chair Johnson.

I wanted to ask questions just on the slide about tree and tree and stump removal.

Um in and then also it sort of overlaps with the slides you have about the budget.

I I don't I know in the past we had that partnership with the port and between the port and the and St.

Paul Parks and REC to do, I believe the stump removals.

I'm not sure if pruning was a part of that, so can you clarify if if pruning was indeed a part of the responsibilities there?

Um, and I know the there are in terms of the budget slides here, it doesn't have that partnership continued.

And I'm wondering if you believe that as a department, you all believe that that partnership or extending or you know, starting up that partnership again would be uh helpful in this, trying to get on track with our work.

Sure.

So for the question of pruning, um I believe with port funding, it has to be a capital expense, and pruning is maintenance, so it's not included in that.

Um and as far as the continuation of port funding, I might defer to our OFS uh director on that question.

Okay, great, thank you.

And I I just wanted to share too, I'm very supportive of the partnership I've asked, um, or mentioned to Director Rodriguez that I would love to see us continue it, and yeah, thank you for the clarification about the pruning.

Uh Chair Johnson, Councilmember Yang, uh Joe Harney, director of the Office of Financial Services.

If the council and the city would like to pursue further additional partnership with the port, I think it's worth talking about two phases that we would need to go through.

The first would be understanding the capacity for the general obligation levy, and the second would be sort of the legislative mechanics that would need to be adopted for that to occur after that analysis.

That would start with a declaration of intent from the port board of commissioners that would require an ordinance chain uh change authorizing the bond sale.

We had a joint powers agreement for this in 2021.

It's my opinion that we should do a new joint powers agreement if we pursue this further since it's been five years.

And then last would be a budget amendment um that would be required to go through uh be presented to CIB.

So those are just to avail you of some of the mechanics that inform that partnership to know that it takes time, probably is the punchline there.

Yeah.

Thank you.

And then just a last question for me.

I'm wondering if you can explain it the role that tree trust played and in any of the the work here around pruning or tree, the stump removals.

At one point they were here and presented to us.

Um, and so I I really love the the their work.

I was a part of tree trust when I was younger too, and so um I would love to to hear uh an update about that if you have any.

Sure.

Um, so the project that they're working on for us, and this is a continuation of of what was done during the port authority funding is um that they are planting trees.

So the the primary project is planting trees, um, and then there's just general tree maintenance included in that, such as, and it's really going back to those trees that they've planted if if there's any needs as far as staking the tree goes, um watering, mulching, those types of things.

They aren't doing any pruning for us, they are not doing stump grinding.

Um so it's it's basically tree planting.

Thank you.

All right, uh Councilmember Coleman, and then just for a time check, we're at about 10 53.

We will wrap at 11.

And so I want to leave the rooms for the presentation, but before we go to uh Council Member Coleman and Bowie, let's finish our last two slides.

Okay.

Um, so stump removal um basically it's including uh the optimal budget is including roughly point or a half a million dollars annually to support the the stump grinding program.

Um if there weren't additional funds, um, stump grinding numbers would drop in 2029 based on you know the funding available and the um exhaustion of the port or not port authority, sorry, forest service funds, and we would um start having a backlog of of stumps.

Sorry, that was I was on the wrong side because I went back one.

So what does this all mean?

I think to wrap it up.

Um, for pruning, you know, I went through that we could have a better a better pruning program, both in terms of cycle hitting parks, reducing that first um that first cycle going through the city, and um better resources for our young trees to get those pruned structurally in the first 10 years.

Um I think a continuation of complaints would be expected if we stay on the cycle that we're on.

I know there's thousands of very low trees throughout the city right now, and I know that you all get a lot of those complaints, and um I just know we're we're doing the best we can with it to get on track.

Um for planting, you know, we could be on it.

I think we could really achieve the three year cycle with the if funding was available.

So I would love to get on that.

I think that a lot of people that I that we hear from expect that if a tree was removed one day that the stump would either come out that same day or the next, and that a tree be planted you know the next season, and that's not going to be accomplished, and I don't I don't feel that it's a real realistic expectation for a city of our size to be on that type of a program, but I think that a three-year recycle uh replacement program would be beneficial.

Um for stump removal, um, you know, we could do the same.

We stay on that program and get everything done within that three years.

Um I think for all of the other important work that we do that I didn't really get a chance to talk about.

Um our group is really good at doing what we can with what we have and the resources we have available, and and we make the most of it, and we have a great group that is you know really proud of the resource that we manage and proud of the work that they do, and I think we could just do more with more.

So with that, I would just like to say thank you for having me, and I can take some of the last questions that you have.

Okay, yeah, we'll wrap with uh councilmember Coleman and then Councilmember Bowie's questions, and as a follow-up for folks that have additional questions, um, please feel free to reach out as well.

And I saw some folks already have, so you'll have some additional follow-up questions and thoughts too from council members, but thank you for being here too.

Echoing thanks.

Um, really quickly, just to understand that it is not realistic for our city of size of our size to do tree removal one day, stump grinding the next day, new tree on the third day.

Are there reasons other than budgetary that we wouldn't do that?

Like, is that could that be something we did if we had an unlimited budget?

Or would want to do uh I don't know.

I you know, I would have to think about that one and how you would do that.

It really um it's entirely different equipment.

It does take time on our end after a removal is done.

Um, we actually go out, we do measure all of the stumps that are out there because that is how the contractors bill us, and we're not relying on them to tell us the size of the stump that they're grinding.

So there is work involved in that.

And you know, you can only do stump removal um from May to November, so you're never really gonna be able to do it all in that same time frame because you have six months out of the year where you can't grind stumps.

Same with planting, we only we have two seasons that are pretty quick for Minnesota.

And Councilmember Bowie.

Thank you, Chair Johnson.

Um, thank you so much.

I just wanted to ask particularly more so just um uh focus on like more of like the workflow management in terms of like volumes of cause that comes through for complaints.

Um, as you can imagine, like council members, especially ward one.

I get a lot of flagging of complaints that's been sent to um forestry where people have shared that you know they've been told that there's a backlog of nearly a decade, or you know, their their tree stump in their boulevard, you know, it's been years and just hasn't been like they've escalated, but it has not been confirmed in terms of like removal.

So I'm just curious to know just like what is the volume of complaints that comes in versus the volume of like work orders that go out, if we could have like some type of like um, you know, like tracking of that, uh, just because I think you know, as we're talking about just like the budget, I really would want to know just in terms of like staff capacity, like what is the return of our investment in terms of like increasing this budget will help us accomplish getting more trees removed or accomplish um solving you know some of these complaints that are coming in.

Sure.

I think um I would I'll have to look at the the numbers, but I I do know we because we did meet with the the mayor's office or constituent services group, I think earlier this year.

So we did put some numbers together for volume of calls that we receive.

I think um in the summer months, which is you know, we we do get more calls in the summer, um it was definitely in the hundreds per month.

Um it tails off during the the dead of winter.

Um I think in terms of our capacity um it a lot of the complaints that you're likely getting are from the folks who have been told, you know, your your tree was removed last year and we're going to be removing the stump next year, and they're the ones who might want it removed that you know, expect that it would be removed within a month of the tree removal, for instance, or the the planting cycle at this time is that we don't we aren't going to be with the the funding that we'll have in 2027, we won't have much of a planting cycle at best.

It's going to be um maybe a five-year rotation, partially planting planting districts, right?

So I think those are the types of continued complaints as well as the the pruning cycle that you would continue to get.

Um, and it's not that we're not logging those, it's that we again don't have the capacity to do everything in a given year or season.

I just got a follow-up question.

I appreciate um that context.

I uh wanted to just focus more on like trees that are actually like nuisance um type of trees, like very dangerous trees, like we have limbs that's like falling on like houses are like a tree that just you know dudes for the storm, it has fell over, and um I'm just curious to know like is there a policy or because our ordinance um you know requires us to attend to those trees within a time frame because those are some of the complaints that I've been receiving.

I'm not to treat this as a cut you know, ward one complaint um constituent service, but I'm just really curious because that's some of the feedback that I get is that it has to go into the inventory, um, just to hear that there is like a a one-year survey of those trees.

Um is there a different type of response when there are like more emergency-based you know uh trees, like particularly around, you know, like weather, or if we see a tree that's may not have, you know, been called in, but it has like visible like risks to the neighborhood.

I think I understand.

So, for storm-related work, um, you know, I I don't think that there's a good way of anticipating what tree will have storm damage, right?

If there's 80 mile to 90 mile to 100 mile an hour winds, we don't know which trees are going to fail.

Um, a lot of them don't have any exterior signs of decay, right?

It's just the wind hit it and it got taken down.

Um, I think for complaints related to um hazardous trees, the evaluation of a tree to to deem it hazardous is really something that I think I would leave up to our professional forestry staff who do have training in risk assessment with uh with trees and evaluating a tree for risk, versus you know, we get we do get calls all the time from people saying, Well, this tree is a hazard because it did drop a limb in a storm, that doesn't necessarily make the tree a hazard.

A large storm may have gone through and broken hundreds of branches off of healthy trees, and that's something that does happen during storm events.

Um so we do evaluate trees if someone does call in for an inspection of a given tree or trees.

We do that is part of the urban foresters' jobs is to go out and and evaluate a tree.

Um, I think oftentimes property owners may just not like our resulting inspection details, which is that it's not necessarily that the tree is a hazard, um, you know, it may need pruning.

But again, I think uh we understand as much as anyone else, every tree in the city does need to be pruned, and that's what we're trying to be more proactive about, is to get on a cycle where we can accomplish some of that work so that those types of things don't happen in the future.

I appreciate that too, and I think just really as we think about the work that the forest forestry team does.

I just you know want to share that we we have talked on the council um, you know, and for a few years since I've been here, um, tree canopy and the tree planting, the pruning piece, the you know, just overall volume of our tree canopy has continued to be a priority on the council, and so it's one of the reasons why we asked you to to be here today, and I think it's been really helpful.

I think there'll be probably follow-ups that we are um we may reach out to, and would that be for your for you that we reach out to the follow-up questions if folks have more in-depth questions, like what Caltimar Bouish was asking, or if there's certain things on the slides that we didn't see, but we want to know more about.

Would that be for a question for you?

Um that is a good question.

I'm not sure how the department would want that routed.

What do you?

I'm looking at you, Erica, since you're I would say um to director Rodriguez, and um you can uh include Rachel as well.

Yeah, we'll send it to the both of you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

We're gonna pivot over to the right track team.

Just um one of the things that really prompted bringing them forward was more so to hear about, you know, we've had a lot of conversations, especially regarding youth wages and um also just hearing more about the workforce that you have, and wanted to be able to give at the time that it was due.

So thank you, um, Nardos, and thank you, Carlo, for both being here.

Thank you for having us both here.

Uh we'll try to be as quickly as possible or move as quickly as possible.

I know we are short on time.

Um, so as you all know, right track to the city of St.

Paul's youth employment and training program really targeted at uh creating career exposure opportunities for St.

Paul youth of barriers to employment.

Uh we uh the program is designed around four key outcomes.

So first is to develop workplace readiness skills such as communication, teamwork, and problem solving.

Second is to expose youth to careers and industries that may not otherwise be accessible, third, to build relationships with caring adults and to develop that network, and the fourth, uh to earn uh income while developing their financial capabilities.

Really quick, I'm going to show you all the right track team.

So this is a team that carries forward all of the work, ranging from the youth recruitment, employer engagement, trainings, and program management.

We're especially proud of the five five team members of Asterix Nagular Names because they are all program alumni.

And their presence reflects the long-term impact of the program and demonstrates how investing in young people today can lead to future leaders in our community.

With that foundation, I'll just quickly give an overview of our key programs.

So one of right track strengths is we know it's not a one-size-fits-all experience and youth force readiness, workforce readiness experiences.

So we ensure that we have different levels of experiences and different opportunities for a young person to engage.

The first being our YJ1 program, which really focuses on foundational skills for youth who are often entering the workforce for the first time through subsidized physicians with libraries, parks, small businesses, and nonprofits.

The second program being our YJT program, which expands on those foundational skills for young folks slightly older, so 16 to 21.

And in this program, we partner with partners across the industries, so public-private nonprofit.

And these support young folks do a deeper dive into specific career paths they may be interested in.

And then next we have our public pathways push.

So as you all know, the public sector is the largest employer in St.

Paul, but often that workforce doesn't reflect the residents it serves.

So we put a really intentional push behind this work the last few years.

So we have YJ2 internships in most city departments.

Some of you in this room also host interns, which we are greatly appreciative for.

And we also have our Right Track Scholars Program, which is in its second year.

That's a college internship program.

And our scholars here today, Kong, he is supporting our team with some data support evaluation and some of our training facilitation this summer, which we're really excited about.

He's studying education at the U of M.

Alright, so together these opportunities create a progression of experiences from first jobs to career exploration to credential attainment, and ultimately a career pathway allowing us to support young people throughout their workforce journey.

And I will pass it to Carlo quickly who'll share some of our 2025 program highlights.

Great.

Yeah, before we kind of continue into 2026 and what that's bringing, we wanted to share just a little bit about some of our results from this past year.

So during 2025, we have the opportunity to serve 1,024 young people throughout the city of St.

Paul in 1,138 different internship experiences with a hundred and forty-four employers throughout our city.

Our city, and then a few internships that existed in like Maplewood or kind of those surrounding suburbs.

So every young person that's a part of our program has what the state would consider a barrier to employment, majority of them coming from a cost-burdened household, so meeting some level of income requirements, although many other young people meet the program eligibility by having a disability, being behind in grade level speaking English as a second language, being justice impacted in foster care, and several other opportunities that qualify them for being a part of the right track program.

One of the things that I just really want to highlight on here is we of course provide a zip code kind of breakdown of where young people are working or where they're coming from, and I think one of the things that we are really intentional about is really making sure that we're reaching out and making sure young people have access for primarily young people from most marginalized uh backgrounds and in our city.

And one other piece that I just really want to highlight before we move to the next slide is uh 2.3, a little over 2.3 million dollars in wages and stipends were earned by our young people in 2025, which is a significant number for our young people.

I'm gonna hold questions and let them go through the presentation for it just so we can get through it before 11 30.

Sorry, Council President.

Oh, we're scrolling, great.

Um, so just some additional highlights, and I'm not gonna read through these, but I just want to be clear that our program collects significant amounts of data.

So we collect data on youth experience, so hearing young people what their experience was, and they get to tell us information about how they experienced our program, but also program outcomes, and so hearing from supervisors about how they interacted and what their supports of the program interns were and continue to be.

And um, as you can see here, uh, these are these are numbers that I would say we certainly compare to other local um workforce programs and uh take pride in knowing that our young people are leaving with skills that they are um leaving, feeling a part of a team that they were uh a part of for the summer, and they are are learning and they're feeling as if things are useful in their kind of forward progression within these programs.

And of course, just before we move to the next slide, that they are truly contributing, learning and contributing um to meaningful work experiences at each site that they're a part of.

Thank you.

All right, so next we'll do we'll jump into our budget overview.

So when we look at how Right Track invests in its resources, the overwhelming majority of funding goes directly towards creating opportunities for young people.

Uh, 59% of all program expenses support youth wages.

Um, I definitely skipped the slide, backtracking a little bit.

Um, but so our total budget is comprised of city um foundation and other government supports.

Um, so right track operates with a total budget of approximately 2.9 million uh supported through a combination of funding sources.

Um, one key takeaway from the slide is while Right Track is a city program, majority of our funding does not come directly from the city.

Just over 12% of the budget comes from uh the city through direct general fund allocations and uh transfer from parks general fund.

Approximately 7% comes from foundation and partnership support, including investments from St.

Paul and Minnesota Foundation, the NBA Foundation, St.

Paul Public Schools.

Um the remaining 80% comes from other government sources, including ARPA funding, uh state deed grants, community CDVG and HRA resources, as well as Ramsey County workforce solutions.

Uh this diversified funding approach has allowed us to grow and serve more young people, but also creates challenges.

Much of the funding is time-limited, competitive, or tied to specific grant opportunities.

So as we think about the future of youth employment in St.

Paul, this slide highlights the importance of just uh the importance of developing sustainable funding strategies to reduce reliance on temporary sources and having consistent opportunities for young people.

This is what I was talking about before the breakdown of how we spend our funding.

Um so again, majority does go get allocated directly to young people.

Oh, it's 59% of all program expenses supporting youth wages, uh, ensuring participants are compensated for all of their work, whether it's an internship or a training experience, all experience are paid through Right Track.

Uh, nearly 30% supports full-time staff who recruit youth, develop employer partnership, provide training, and manage program operations year long.

Uh 9% support seasonal job coaches.

Our largest program component does take place during the summer.

Uh so the summer with um 500 interns, we have about 10 job coaches joining us.

Uh, and just over 2% is allocated to other services and materials.

Uh so the most important takeaway for this is the majority of our funding again is invested directly into youth through earned and income through earned income and work-based learning experiences.

So already in 2026, $320,000 in wages have been earned by St.

Paul Youth through Right Track experiences.

And this is our spring experiences and our school year experiences.

Most of our summer experiences are launching uh next week.

A couple have already started.

And through our employer partnerships, we anticipate levering leveraging about $500,000 in employer paid experiences this year.

And so it really demonstrates the opportunities.

Well, it demonstrates that city investment not only creates opportunities directly, but also attracts uh additional private and public investments for young people.

Next, we'll discuss some of our challenges and budget risks that we're currently facing.

Um, so this slide highlights some of the difficult decisions we've made this year and are making moving forward due to declining funding.

So there are several key factors that have contributed to some of our some of these challenges or some of these changes.

We're currently navigating about 100,000 less in D at work funding.

For state fiscal year 2026 and 2027.

Rising minimum minimum wage requirements continue to be challenging to offer the same amount of experiences.

And ARPA funding is ending, leaving about 6.3 full-time positions unfunded after 2026.

So these positions support critical functions, including youth services, program administration, employer engagement, and more.

So at the same time, the demand for our opportunities continues to rise.

So the funding challenges that the funding challenges that we've already had to make decisions on this year included ending our school year programming a month earlier.

We reduced weekly hours for young people throughout this past school year.

And we've also made the decision to eliminate the 2026-27 school year program.

So these experiences also include internships with parks and libraries.

And these experiences help young people build connections with trusted adults, develop a sense of belonging and strengthened and sorry, develop a sense of belonging and strengthen public trust.

Youth employment is not only a workforce strategy, it's often a public safety strategy that provides positive opportunities and earned income to young people in St.

Paul.

Additional decisions that have been made as we will not be offering a 2026 EMS program.

Overall, between uh the summer and school year, it will be 300 fewer experiences for St.

Paul youth.

All right, now, real briefly discuss that the importance of the training wage.

So right track internships are intentionally designed as a training experience, not traditional employment.

So important to note when we talk about the youth wages.

Right track does not use the 30-day youth wage.

We exclusively use the training wage, similar to many programs around the country that operate in similar ways as us that Carla will talk about shortly.

So the YJ1 program serves young people 14 to 19 and utilizes this training wage.

These are entry-level learning experiences.

Unlike traditional jobs, they include significant training and support.

Youth receive workforce readiness and financial empowerment training and ongoing mentorship from job coaches.

And it's important to note that these roles are not meant to replace that staff supplement operations or pay youth less for doing the same work.

They're intentionally structured as learning opportunities.

So the bottom line is that youth wages makes it possible to create supported high-quality experiences that would not otherwise exist.

Preserving them expands access and ensures young people can participate in structured workforce learning opportunities.

Next, Carlo is going to talk a little bit about some other programs similar to us.

Great.

So we have the opportunity to partner with a national cohort through the Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund that operates summer jobs programs across the US.

Really looking to integrate banking access, but also kind of best practices for youth employment programming.

I currently serve on a kind of a sub-work group right now with Little Rock, Arkansas, Miami, Virginia Beach, and Detroit.

And of this kind of small sample, each of them have a dedicated predictable revenue source that has been funding their program for years and years and years.

And Little Rock, Arkansas, for an example, since 1980, they have been receiving funding from their violence reduction or violence prevention work through the state legislature and through their city.

So, but on uh comparable programs here, um, what you can see is that, and I mean, we've talked about our our program.

So, St.

Paul serving uh over 1,100 youth with a budget of about $3 million.

Um, within that, we also have relied heavily on one-time limited funding sources, as Nardo's mentioned, um, including ARPA in competitive grants.

Um, what you can see here additionally is the city of Minneapolis, right?

We know they're about a hundred thousand um population uh greater than St.

Paul, um, that they're uh served about 659 youth in traditional internship opernship opportunities, and um they also provide about 700 additional paid training opportunities.

So they participate in some online professional development for a stipend at the end of that program.

Um let's see.

So Boston, Boston, we see we know that that is a larger city than St.

Paul or Minneapolis, but um what we see there is that they're serving uh over 10,000 young people per year with a 33 uh over 33 million dollar investment.

What we also know is that um about 20, almost 24 million of that comes from their city's general fund.

Um, and then they have another 10 million or so that is leveraged from external kind of private partners.

Um what we've seen, and we've actually had several conversations with Boston about their model, but they uh the way that they're executing on that additional 10 million is really the by public uh public figures or elected officials that are really leveraging those relationships to really tell the need um about how the summer jobs program is that critical for our city.

Um, and so I guess what I just want to emphasize is related to this program and some of the other examples I've provided about Little Rock or Miami or whatever, is that um again just emphasizing that the these programs uh for the most part are operating off of predictable, sustainable revenue sources that they can predict year over year and don't necessarily shift and just I think underscores a demonstrated need um for continuing working together as a city to really find out how we can dedicate additional dollars to youth workforce programming uh in the near future.

So how can we do this and why should we kind of consider this?

And so there is this is truly about investing in St.

Paul's future, right?

Our young people are currently part of our workforce, but they are going to be the ones to take care of all of us when we are no longer able to continue doing this work and they're working in partnership with us as we uh as we work today, and so there's kind of three key priorities or three key items that we want to call attention to.

One being just workforce development.

So we are right track is really building the direct pipeline of um of young people building those foundational work experiences.

They're building their own individual skills, um, and we're providing uh a level of career exposure to young folks in our city that they may have never accessed independently, um and so this really uh is how we're gonna continue to build and prepare the workforce and making sure that our young people are competitive as they're seeking out these type of opportunities and really kind of bridging those workforce gaps now as young folks.

So the other one is another item here is economic mobility.

So what we know about um our program, and and I say our program, but this is actually like more so commonly understood is in in regards to youth workforce programming in general, um, but this is really giving and putting money in young people's hands today, right?

2.3 million dollars earned last year.

That is money that's going back into our young people's pockets, and uh truthfully it's kind of a catalyst into kind of growing our local economy because our families are then expending those dollars in our city at local um businesses that are accessible to them in their in their neighborhood, and so um, but this is also again a proven strategy of increasing their long-term earning potential, and so kind of setting themselves up on a career path that will continue to expand as we as we move forward, and lastly, um this is uh in in cities across the country, uh a strong public safety strategy.

What we see um is that young people um participating with strong mentorship, that they're engaged and busy during the summer, they're earning money in paid employment opportunities.

What we see traditionally is about a 40% reduction in crime that studies would tell us nationally when there are strong workforce programs in the ecosystem.

And then lastly, really really briefly, the opportunity exists.

Like we have a strong interest from young people in St.

Paul.

We had more than 3,000 youth applications that have applied for about 700 opportunities that we have this summer.

And though there's continued interest since our application closed, we've had about 700 additional young people attempt to create an account in our application system, but again, not accepting additional applications at this time.

And then lastly, I just want to highlight on here.

We've done some data digging around and kind of comparing that to our income eligibility criteria.

And what we know is that there's an estimated about 9100 young people in our city that are income eligible for this program.

What we also know, and I mean, well, and that's of about 16,000 high school age young people in our city.

What we also know is that based on barriers to employment and other program qualifiers, we would have about 11,000 young people out of the 16,000 in our city that would be eligible for the program.

And in 2024, we were able to serve about 13% of income eligible youth in St.

Paul.

Alright, we will close this out real quick with our four strategies for sustainability.

The first is increased public sector engagement.

This means all city departments are hosting interns and budgeting to host those interns.

This looks like increased city dedicated city funding, prioritizing our college internship program, the scholars program for existing internship pipelines that exist across the city.

We need to leverage existing city relationships to bring in more employers.

So this includes setting clear expectations for city affiliated businesses to engage and expanding partnerships with major institutions.

For example, sports and intertainment venues downtown.

So we'd love to develop a sponsorship model in which employers, local businesses can invest in internship experiences, can invest in training experiences, and still be tied to that work without hosting interns.

And then, of course, uh sustainable funding strategy with diversifies our funding sources.

So the program is more stable long term and less reliant on changing funding and bringing more public and private funders to elevate youth workforce development.

So we will wrap it up there, additional opportunities to engage, and uh we appreciate you all having us here today and are happy to answer questions.

Actually, before they wrap up, I just have a few more things to say.

Erica Prosser, deputy director of uh parks and recreation.

Um I just I just wanted to quickly say um there these two are they're extremely humble about the work that they do and the work that our that our teams do, but I wanted to point out um that in many cases we have been nationally recognized for the work that our um that our uh program does.

Um for example, uh Carlo mentioned the cohort that he's working on um for financial empowerment.

Um that we we are extremely honored um to have Carl serve in that capacity, but also to be asked to participate with these programs around the country that are doing such impactful um impactful work.

So I I want to thank you guys for that.

Um, they mentioned it um a few times um in the course of the presentation, but I want to make a particular emphasis on the violence prevention work.

Um the public health model for addressing um uh youth violence.

Um, you know, it relies heavily on um uh it relies heavily on that intervention work and um reintegration work um if if you're talking to your constituents about what can we what can we do about these kids you know these kids in our neighborhood um we can get them we can get them jobs that's a big that's a big piece of it and it's not just a job it is a meaningful work experience um we have you know you have small businesses in all of your wards that are willing to um that are willing to uh host intern you know to to have youth work at their um businesses um but they may not have the infrastructure to host uh you know to host those interns we we can do payroll we can um we can onboard them and then we also provide this um very important um professional development that comes along with it how do you fill out your you know how do you fill out that paperwork what you know what does that mean um the uh financial um empowerment strategies that go along with it you know what do you do with your you know savings account how do you set up a bank all you know all those things um so that that is um that is such a uh key um strategy for violence prevention in our community and the more we can invest um in it um you know the better um I also want to say you guys play such an important role in how we can expand this program um we will always have limited resources um in the city and you have to make very difficult decisions about where you're investing those um but we have employers that can pay the wages and you can be recruiters we will provide you with the information that you need to hand you know every community meeting that you go to every business that you're meeting with you know you should have we think that you should have uh right track information be able to talk about our program just like you're you know part of our team um and we we would be grateful for for that support um yeah I I think given the time um given the time that's kind of what I wanted to say but um thank you guys and thank you to this team well thank you deputy director appreciate you and also to Carlo and Nerd's thank you for working with the time that you were given um and just kind of going through the slides this has been a constant topic um folks are really interested like throughout the presentation there actually were several hands that we're not gonna get through today so I expect to actually have several follow-ups I've all two will have follow-up questions for you all just really around um you know the amounts I think one of the things that we are interested in is like getting them the getting a clear view picture of the financial impacts of the program so when you share like these are the changes you know that we have made it's really understanding the dollar amounts affiliated with them the breakdowns of the funding you know the funding is great by percentage but numbers are better um and I think just being able to get a clear view picture of the program especially when it comes to the tough decisions that we all have to make I think it's gonna be really important to understand that clearly and dollar amounts and what funding you have what funding you don't have what funding we would need to sustain the numbers that we have you know who makes decisions on what is not continued um what is changed like just those pieces I think we're um those will be really helpful I think in the coming uh weeks ahead for those conversations as well because quite a few of the sources you know are either at term expiration or they are one-time funding or they're ongoing so just we'll have some follow-ups for you because yes throughout the presentation I saw several hands um and so we'll be able to follow up with you all too with just kind of what we've heard, too, from our colleagues and um you'll probably get that email from Kamud.

Thank you.

Thank you guys so much.

I didn't realize that tree canopy was going to be such a hot topic with a bunch of questions through it.

So we wanted to make time for that, but it's not to signify that this isn't just as important for reminder both it's something that like we are just starting to have these, you'll see budget topics that have related to our budget retreat that received five or more council members and support.

So that's kind of what the next few what the next couple budget committee presentations will be.

With that, I'm apologize for going over a little bit.