Budget Committee June 02, 2025   6/2/2025

Discussion

• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:00:18
    Good afternoon.
  • 00:00:19
    Good afternoon.
  • 00:00:23
    My name is Aisha Chugtai and I'm the chair of the Budget Committee.
  • 00:00:27
    I am going to call to order the Budget Committee meeting for Monday, June 2nd, 2025.
  • 00:00:32
    Before we begin the meeting, I want to offer a friendly reminder to all members, staff, and the public that these meetings are broadcast live to enable greater public participation.
  • 00:00:43
    These broadcasts include real-time captioning as a further method to increase the accessibility of our proceedings to the community.
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    Therefore, all speakers need to be mindful of the rate of their speech so that our captioners can fully capture and transcribe all comments for the broadcast.
  • 00:01:00
    We ask all speakers to moderate the speed and clarity of their comments.
  • 00:01:04
    At this time, I will ask the Clerk to call the roll so we can verify the presence of a quorum.
  • 00:01:09
    Councilmember Payne.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:01:11
    Present.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:01:11
    Wonsley.
  • 00:01:12
    Present.
  • 00:01:13
    Rainville.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:01:14
    Present.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:01:15
    Vitau.
  • 00:01:15
    Present.
  • 00:01:17
    Ellison.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:01:17
    Here.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:01:19
    Osman is absent.
  • 00:01:20
    Cashman.
  • 00:01:21
    Present.
  • 00:01:22
    Jenkins.
• • Andrea Jenkins
  • 00:01:22
    Present.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:01:24
    Chavez.
• • Andrea Jenkins
  • 00:01:24
    Present.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:01:25
    Chaudhuri.
  • 00:01:26
    Present.
  • 00:01:27
    Palmesano.
  • 00:01:28
    Present.
  • 00:01:29
    Vice Chair Koski.
  • 00:01:30
    Present.
  • 00:01:31
    And Chair Choctaw.
  • 00:01:32
    Present.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:01:33
    There are 12 members present.
  • 00:01:35
    Let the record reflect that we have a quorum.
  • 00:01:37
    I'll also remind my colleagues that we're using speaker management today, so please make sure you sign in.
  • 00:01:43
    Before we proceed to our posted agenda today, I want to propose reordering the agenda and then I will see if there are any further amendments.
  • 00:01:56
    In the interest of time, I know that items 1, 2, and 3 on our agenda will take a substantial amount of time and so I would like for us to begin with the 2025 Local Board of Appeal and Equalization Report as the new item 1 and then proceed to the remainder of the agenda as listed.
  • 00:02:21
    Are there any objections to that course of action?
  • 00:02:25
    I'm not seeing any, so are there any further amendments to the agenda?
  • 00:02:31
    Council President Payne.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 00:02:33
    Thank you Vice President Chagtai.
  • 00:02:34
    I think we should add a discussion item for financial policies and use of contingency funds.
  • 00:02:40
    I've gotten a few questions about that and I think it would be worth a discussion.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:02:44
    Wonderful.
  • 00:02:46
    Council President Payne is proposing to add a new item number five just to have a discussion on financial policies and the use of contingency funds.
  • 00:02:59
    I know several colleagues have reached out about this as well over Friday and the weekend.
  • 00:03:05
    So understand that this is of interest to others.
  • 00:03:09
    Is there a second to the Council President's motion?
  • 00:03:11
    Second.
  • 00:03:16
    Any other discussion?
  • 00:03:17
    Not seeing any, all those in favor please signify by saying aye.
  • 00:03:21
    Aye.
  • 00:03:22
    Those opposed say nay.
  • 00:03:24
    The ayes have it and that motion carries.
  • 00:03:27
    The agenda for today's meeting is now before us and so I will invite our City Assessor Rebecca Malmquist to come and join us for the 2025 Local Board of Appeal and Equalization Report.
  • 00:03:41
    Welcome City Assessor.
• • Rebecca Malmquist
  • 00:03:45
    Good afternoon.
  • 00:03:46
    Again, my name is Rebecca Malmquist.
  • 00:03:49
    I have the honor of serving as the City of Minneapolis City Assessor and I'm here to report back to you on the results of the 2025 Local Board that occurred last month or in April.
  • 00:04:04
    So just some basics about our local boards.
  • 00:04:07
    It was conducted in person.
  • 00:04:08
    This is our, I believe our third year, second year back in person for these hearings and as always we work in partnership with the City Clerk's office and just appreciate that partnership.
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    This is the timeline that was established for the boards for this year.
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    The beginning of March is when I came to you and we established the special board where you approve all the policies and the procedures and then you appointed the three members that we had serve.
  • 00:04:37
    March 14th we mailed value notices and then March 24th I came back before you and presented the assessment report.
  • 00:04:44
    and the local board convened on April 15th and we actually met the next day and were able to adjourn after only meeting for two days.
  • 00:04:55
    So some of the statistics
  • 00:04:57
    We had 665 inquiries that were received prior to the local board and because there are so much statutory requirements around the local boards, the next item is they were resolved 10 days or more prior to the local board.
  • 00:05:13
    So state statute states that if our staff review a property and are able to
  • 00:05:19
    come up with a suggested new valuation.
  • 00:05:22
    As long as that happens more than 10 days before the local board convenes, our staff can make that change more administratively, and they do not have to be heard by the local board.
  • 00:05:32
    So we resolved 354 of those before we actually got to the board, so the board only had to deal with 311 cases.
  • 00:05:40
    this year and of those 311, 111 of those were value recommendations that we brought forward from my office to the local board for consideration.
  • 00:05:52
    They heard 79 oral appeals and reviewed 121 written appeals this year.
  • 00:06:01
    This is just for historical context.
  • 00:06:02
    You can see here that we received 311 applications, which matches the previous slide.
  • 00:06:08
    So up from last year, but definitely not the height.
  • 00:06:13
    If we break this down by property type, you can see the vast majority of our appeals are on the residential side, followed by apartments in blue and commercial.
  • 00:06:22
    So 85% of the appeals that we had this year were residential.
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    This just breaks it down by your wards so that you can see how much market value was appealed.
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    Those are the green bars.
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    And then the blue squares represent how many cases we had.
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    So for example, in Ward 1, we had $18 million under appeal, and that was 27 cases.
  • 00:06:55
    If we look at the outcome of the local board by ward, you can see here that each of these orange bars represents what happened within each of your wards during the local board process.
  • 00:07:07
    So you'll see it's a range of everything from the ward didn't change by anything to seeing the largest EMV decrease in Ward 5.
  • 00:07:18
    Happy to dig into these numbers at another time with each council member if you'd like to hear more about specifically what happened in each of your wards.
  • 00:07:26
    Happy to do that.
  • 00:07:27
    Then if we actually look at the cases that went to the board here, the top line, the appeal sustained.
  • 00:07:33
    So those are all the cases where the board heard those cases or
  • 00:07:40
    read their appeal and they didn't make any change.
  • 00:07:43
    The next line are those that the board did address.
  • 00:07:46
    So of the $135 million that the board considered, that total was reduced to $119 million, 595.
  • 00:07:55
    So that's about a decrease of 12% of just the amount that got decreased.
  • 00:08:02
    This is the most important one.
  • 00:08:04
    In statute, the local board cannot make a change to the
  • 00:08:09
    property value of the entire city by more than 1%.
  • 00:08:12
    So the total city market value before going into the boards was $64 billion.
  • 00:08:17
    And so we can't change that percentage by more than 1%, which would be very, very difficult for us to do.
  • 00:08:24
    But we do track it case by case.
  • 00:08:27
    And so this year the value change of $16 million was less than 1%, .0248%.
  • 00:08:38
    just moving on through the process because just because the local boards are done doesn't mean our staff are done because they still administer the county appeals to the county board and so that will be convening in two weeks and so our staff are working on those cases right now and you can just see here as of last week where our case counts were at we have 88 county board applications this year which is up again from last year which you will see last year we had 150 cases at the local level
  • 00:09:07
    and this year we had 311 and those numbers are pretty much the same like up by the same amount
  • 00:09:14
    on the county side.
  • 00:09:17
    And this is just more information about contacts and if you need to get a hold of us or if you wish, if somebody wishes to file in the tax court.
  • 00:09:25
    The filing deadline for 2024 has passed, but the filing deadline for your value on January 2nd, 2025 is actually then next year on April 30th of 2026 because property owners can file a tax court petition up until one year after their value.
  • 00:09:44
    And with that, that concludes my report of the local board appeal and equalization in 2025.
  • 00:09:50
    Thank you so much for your time and allowing me to add this to the agenda.
  • 00:09:54
    Thank you for that presentation.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:09:56
    Colleagues, are there any questions for the city assessor and this report?
  • 00:10:08
    I'm not seeing any.
  • 00:10:09
    Thank you for this presentation.
  • 00:10:12
    Thank you so much.
  • 00:10:13
    And I will with that I will ask to receive and file this report.
  • 00:10:22
    We will now continue to the new item number two which is reviewing our 2025 City Council budget priorities.
• • Casey CarlCity Clerk
  • 00:10:35
    Vice President, I'm sorry to interrupt.
  • 00:10:36
    There are two items associated with the Local Board of Appeal.
  • 00:10:39
    I apologize.
  • 00:10:40
    I probably didn't get this added to the script, but there is a resolution the council has to approve that actually sets the equalization of all the assessed valuations for the 2025 Local Board of Appeal and Equalization.
  • 00:10:51
    So although receiving and filing the report is step one, the second step is adopting this resolution.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:10:58
    Thank you.
  • 00:11:00
    I will move approval of that resolution as described by the City Clerk.
  • 00:11:06
    Is there a second to that?
  • 00:11:08
    Second.
  • 00:11:09
    Any discussion?
  • 00:11:12
    Seeing none, all those in favor please signify by saying aye.
• • Tim Sexton
  • 00:11:16
    Aye.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:11:16
    Those opposed say nay.
  • 00:11:18
    Any abstentions?
  • 00:11:20
    The ayes have it and that motion carries.
  • 00:11:22
    Now we will move to reviewing our 2025 City Council budget priorities.
  • 00:11:30
    And we've got a presentation for this item and the item after.
  • 00:11:39
    All right, so we'll start with some background information.
  • 00:11:44
    In November of 2021 Minneapolis voters approved a ballot measure restructuring the city's government into an executive mayor legislative council model.
  • 00:11:54
    This governance change clarified the mayor's role as the city's chief executive while codifying the city council's authority over legislation policy and oversight.
  • 00:12:06
    In response to this shift during the 2022-2023 council term or last term, the chair of the budget committee recognizing the need for more formalized council engagement in financial planning introduced the budget committee work plan.
  • 00:12:20
    The budget committee work plan is organized around five areas of responsibility which include budget committee planning, city council budget priorities, legislative department budget, financial oversight, and 2025-2026 biannual budget development.
  • 00:12:36
    Among these, the City Council budget priorities process represents one of the most substantial shifts in the City Council's role in the budget process.
  • 00:12:47
    Historically the Council's presentation in the budget was largely reactive, limited to reviewing and amending the Mayor's recommended budget after it was released in August.
  • 00:12:57
    Under the work plan, the council is now organized to develop and adopt shared priorities during the spring as well, well before the mayor finalizes a proposed budget.
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    This reform gives the legislative body a clear opportunity to shape the budget in its formative stages.
  • 00:13:19
    We'll move to the next slide.
  • 00:13:21
    Each spring, the Budget Committee initiates the City Council budget priorities process.
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    The structured effort begins with individual submissions from council members, which are then reviewed, consolidated, and refined by the committee.
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    The final result is a unified list of council priorities formally adopted and transmitted to the mayor early in the budget development cycle.
  • 00:13:48
    The timing of this process aligns with the city's official budget calendar, which begins in the first half of the year with departmental information gathering, base budget preparation, and capital planning.
  • 00:14:00
    By engaging early, the council is able to communicate its fiscal and policy priorities before the mayor finalizes the recommended budget, enhancing transparency, increasing alignment, and reinforcing the council's legislative budget authority under the new structure.
  • 00:14:19
    The 2025 cycle marked the first full year of implementing this framework.
  • 00:14:24
    That year council members submitted 61 total priority proposals through a process coordinated by my office and supported by Vice Chair Koski's office.
  • 00:14:38
    Members were invited to submit up to five priorities each, either in writing through one-on-one meetings.
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    All submissions were captured and included, whether submitted in writing or conveyed through meetings.
  • 00:14:51
    After consolidating and overlapping duplicate items, the committee endorsed and transmitted 51 unique priorities to the mayor in April of 2024.
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    These priorities reflected a broad cross-section of issues and concerns raised by residents across the city.
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    to serve the council's shared starting point for the fiscal year 2025 budget process.
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    Move to the next slide.
  • 00:15:14
    The 2025 City Council budget priorities post adoption review includes a post adoption review of the 25 council budget priorities.
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    It evaluates how many of the council's priorities were reflected in the recommended budget.
  • 00:15:32
    and how council members responded through budget amendments.
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    The purpose of this review is threefold.
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    The first is to assess how effectively the priorities were incorporated into the final adopted budget.
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    The second is to support transparency and accountability in fiscal decision making.
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    And the third is to inform the refinement of future budget planning and oversight practices.
  • 00:15:56
    By examining which priorities were addressed, this report provides insight into the dynamics of legislative executive collaboration and the effectiveness of the work plan in shaping the city's financial direction.
  • 00:16:09
    We'll move to the next slide.
  • 00:16:12
    The 2025 City Council budget priorities post adoption review is available in the LIMS file and includes a summary review, detailed review, and key findings and conclusions.
  • 00:16:24
    The Post Adoption Review which is a summary on page 7 presents a breakdown of City Council members submitted budget priorities for the 2025 budget along with whether each priority was included in the mayor's proposed budget and whether a corresponding budget amendment was submitted.
  • 00:16:46
    and the detailed post adoption review on page 12 presents a detailed word by word breakdown of each member's submitted priorities including the nature of the request, whether it was included in the recommended budget, any related amendments that were submitted later or adopted during our budget process.
  • 00:17:06
    This level of detail offers a more complete view of how each individual's policy goals were advanced or not in the final part of the process.
  • 00:17:16
    The numbers in the original column in the table shown reflect every priority submitted by individual members including instances where the same or similar priorities were submitted.
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    Those raw numbers
  • 00:17:32
    and totals provide a sense of the full volume of council input and amendment activity in the 2025 process.
  • 00:17:40
    To avoid inflating totals to repeated priorities submitted by multiple offices, we identified and adjusted for duplicates such as neighborhood traffic calming as you'll remember, small business support during construction of evil villages, maintaining or lowering property taxes and zero waste.
  • 00:17:59
    which were raised across multiple wards but represent the same fundamental priority.
  • 00:18:03
    For example, neighborhood traffic calming appeared five times but represents a single shared priority.
  • 00:18:11
    The numbers in the adjusted column in the table shown reflect the revisions to the original counts and the final unique count column reflects the revised tallies and unique priorities giving a clearer picture of overall council influence and follow through.
  • 00:18:29
    In total, the council submitted 51 unique budget priorities, 8 of which were included in the mayor's recommended budget, 44 of which were not.
  • 00:18:40
    In response, the council further pursued 20 of those through the markup process, 5 of which were included in some form but required modification, 16 of which were not included at all.
  • 00:18:54
    Move to the next slide.
  • 00:18:55
    Alright.
  • 00:18:57
    So, the following findings and conclusions summarize the City Council's influence in the final budget based on a review of all unique priorities, whether they were incorporated.
  • 00:19:10
    Together, these findings help us assess both the level of alignment between mayor and council and the effectiveness of council members' budget engagement during this phase of the budget cycle.
  • 00:19:23
    related to inclusion rate only 16% or 8 out of the 51 unique priorities were included in some form in the proposed budget.
  • 00:19:36
    This means that approximately 84% were not in the recommended budget.
  • 00:19:43
    Council response through amendments.
  • 00:19:48
    Council submitted amendments for about 45% or 20 out of 44 of its priorities that had not been included.
  • 00:19:56
    This shows that the council was actively working to influence the budget, proposing changes and additions after reviewing the mayor's recommended budget and addressing gaps where priorities had been left out or underfunded.
  • 00:20:12
    In terms of focus on priorities not included in the budget, of the 20 that were submitted, 80% were focused on priorities that had not been included in the recommended budget, which indicates the council's primary effort was to address gaps in the recommended budget, pushing for funding or attention to important issues that had been left out.
  • 00:20:37
    and then efforts to modify priorities that were included.
  • 00:20:43
    The remaining 20% or about 4 out of 20 of the council's amendments targeted priorities that were already included though in a more limited or partial form.
  • 00:20:53
    This suggests that the council's effort to modify, expand or better fund certain areas that were addressed in the mayor's budget but underfunded or needed further attention.
  • 00:21:05
    or improvement.
  • 00:21:07
    Overall, these patterns highlight a significant disconnect between council-submitted priorities and the initial direction set by the mayor's recommended budget.
  • 00:21:17
    Despite this, council members engage the amendment process with focus and persistence, especially in areas they felt had been left out or underfunded, which suggests that the council is responsible
  • 00:21:28
    responsive to constituent needs and willing to advocate for them through budget negotiations even when alignment with the administration is limited.
  • 00:21:38
    With that, that concludes the post adoption review presentations.
  • 00:21:44
    Are there any questions from the committee?
  • 00:21:52
    I'll recognize Council Member Palmisano.
• • Linea Palmisano
  • 00:21:56
    Madam Chair, I don't have any questions, but I do want to say a few words about this.
  • 00:22:01
    I don't understand the purpose of this specific exercise.
  • 00:22:08
    Per our city charter, the mayor presents a budget and then council, we as a body
  • 00:22:15
    to amend and adopt it.
  • 00:22:17
    The mayor has informal meetings with council members, that's how it's been since my first term here, to understand their concerns and priorities and they, the mayor, takes them into consideration when they work on a structurally balanced budget for the entire city enterprise.
  • 00:22:34
    Just because we have our own Budget Committee now and our own internal planning document of a work plan that says we will transmit our priorities to the mayor doesn't mean that the administration is bound to it.
  • 00:22:48
    There have been years and more prosperous times when the mayor has tried to make sure each council member had one or more of their priorities reflected in a budget.
  • 00:22:59
    That was great, but not required.
  • 00:23:03
    We are in less prosperous times, even a budget crisis, I would say.
  • 00:23:07
    I don't use that term lightly.
  • 00:23:09
    and taking the time to highlight what we wanted to add and did or did not get seems unproductive and that's the most generous way I can say that.
  • 00:23:21
    The purpose of the mayor proposing an enterprise-wide budget is to balance the widely varying needs of 22 administration departments, the legislative department, the city attorney's office, the office of community safety, and the office of public service.
  • 00:23:36
    Sometimes that can include individual priorities and sometimes it can.
  • 00:23:41
    We lack the clarity in all of the budget amendments that we made last year of the effect of pulling threads in the budget on the overall impact of the city.
  • 00:23:53
    We had a priority and ensuing amendment this year that is causing half a million dollars worth of streetlight repairs to be delayed across our city just for the benefit of one small area.
  • 00:24:06
    It took the mayor and city leadership, not city council leadership, to propose a plan to replace those funds from departmental contingency funds so that the rest of the city is not literally in the dark.
  • 00:24:19
    We had priorities in several amendments diverting a million dollars in non-profit gap financing to specific non-profits without any fair process or vetting, leaving other non-profits without the ability to even be considered.
  • 00:24:33
    I, for one, am not proud of those actions and I certainly don't want to highlight them.
  • 00:24:39
    Or maybe I do.
  • 00:24:40
    Maybe I want the residents of Minneapolis to see the folly of some of the decisions of this body.
  • 00:24:45
    I am constantly trying to explain how and why our current service level for this year's budget cycle starts at 10.8%.
  • 00:24:55
    If we're going to talk about all the pilot programs and one-time funding that we amended and added to this budget, I'd like this decision to include data around if those were good decisions or not down the line.
  • 00:25:07
    If we amended it, we own it.
  • 00:25:09
    So let's make sure it was a good use of our funds before we pat ourselves on the back.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:25:17
    noted.
  • 00:25:18
    I think the goal is always for the council to collaborate together and with the administration to approve a budget that reflects the needs and priorities of the residents that live in our community and
  • 00:25:38
    I hope that we are seeing in this report that we actually saw a pretty high degree of success in working together to align early around our priorities and to continue advancing those as the cycle progressed.
  • 00:25:55
    I'll recognize Council Member Wonsley.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 00:25:58
    Thank you, Chair Chuktai.
  • 00:26:00
    I actually do want to say thank you as well as to Vice Chair Koski for this presentation and for showing great leadership over the last few years in helping this body advance the priorities that we hear from our residents through our formal budget process.
  • 00:26:17
    And as the offices that are
  • 00:26:20
    Most often in communication with residents, we are on the front lines of defense on a daily basis in navigating and troubleshooting the crisis and needs of our residents.
  • 00:26:33
    That said, we are most equipped in understanding what our neighborhoods need most in order to be safe, healthy, and equitable and that information and being able to have a process like
  • 00:26:44
    you're about to talk about through the next item has allowed us a valuable framework for how we intentionally allocate the city's resources and while I felt it was clear through the budget markup last session in December
  • 00:27:03
    and as you highlighted many of the council members did not feel that the mayor's proposed budget addressed the needs that we were hearing from our residents as needing to be advanced and be responded to and that's affirmed in this presentation where we saw the mayor only included 16% of our requests and I just want to say thank you to my colleagues for actually taking the time to
  • 00:27:29
    have this priority and value that we will show up for our residents and that we will address the underlying issues because we all want to have wars that, again, are safe, that have the resources that they need so residents in those wars can lead quality and productive lives.
  • 00:27:49
    And to hear
  • 00:27:51
    a narrative be spent on that budget process or having some of our city leaders say that us doing that is actually engaging in advancing pet projects is actually also very unhelpful and this presentation actually breaks down what took place
  • 00:28:09
    I'm really looking forward
  • 00:28:27
    to the next presentation because I even just heard in the most recent comments inaccurate information about a budget item around lighting.
  • 00:28:36
    And while I, you know, expect this from maybe some council members who do not engage in the budget process, there was actually a deliberate process around that in which we connected with the administration and that there's actually no problem around it.
  • 00:28:53
    some colleagues are trying to create one.
  • 00:28:55
    So I really am hopeful that, again, we're creating a transparent democratic process for our residents to see, for the administration to see, for our colleagues to see what are our shared priorities and then use the budget process to work together to advance that.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:29:13
    Thank you, Council Member Palmisano.
• • Linea Palmisano
  • 00:29:16
    Madam Chair, during this last budget markup, we even had a council member state that one of their priorities was for an investment in a desperately needed enterprise resource platform project, ERP, who then turned around and authored an amendment that took it back out of the mayor's proposed budget while simultaneously adding in millions of dollars of new spending.
  • 00:29:39
    That isn't even recognized on page nine of this report.
  • 00:29:43
    This is about basic government operations.
  • 00:29:46
    That's not something that you're going to hear from our residents that we need a new ERP platform, but it's an internal, sorely needed piece of technology that's been talked about for 10 years of my participation on this council, and it gets us out of the dark ages of HR and into knowing things that we keep asking HR for.
  • 00:30:05
    Like, for example, Open FTE counts.
  • 00:30:07
    My whole point here is that it's fine to state our priorities, but it is not fine to cry foul about what we did or didn't get and have a presentation like this trying to take a victory lap on how we change the budget without consideration of how this impacts things down the line.
  • 00:30:26
    Councilmember Cashman.
• • Michael Cashman
  • 00:30:28
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
  • 00:30:28
    Just a question for Councilmember Palmisano.
  • 00:30:30
    When you mentioned earlier service level at 10.8%, what did you mean by that?
• • Linea Palmisano
  • 00:30:35
    Councilmember Cash if I may respond Councilmember Cashman the current service level to start this budget year doing no changes to the budget not cutting anything from our city enterprise for the next budget cycle would mean a Increase to the tax levy by ten point eight percent.
  • 00:30:52
    That is common knowledge Anticipated levy not current service level The current service level increases ten point eight percent to account for the changes made at the end of the last budget cycle
• • Michael Cashman
  • 00:31:05
    Okay, thanks for clarifying.
  • 00:31:07
    I think that reviewing the work that we did last year is a really good idea and I think our residents really appreciate that the council does its budget deliberations in public, you know, as opposed to the mayor's office's work which happens behind closed doors and so this is transparency and this is what our residents are asking for and I personally like having a single source to send people to as sending them to the budget amendments process from last year can be
  • 00:31:35
    quite difficult to navigate through LIMS and the budget book and so I think this is great work and appreciate the chair and vice chair and their offices for putting it together.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:31:46
    Councilmember Chavez.
• • Jason Chavez
  • 00:31:48
    Council Vice President Chair Shaktai, I want to thank you and Vice Chair Koski for bringing this item forward.
  • 00:31:54
    I think it's a part of transparent government.
  • 00:31:57
    It's practical.
  • 00:31:58
    And you know when I talk to many residents across Ward 9 and when I tell them that the mayor and I had a meeting every single year about the priorities that my residents advocate for through community budgeting sessions, engagement, conversations, and I tell them that the mayor rarely adds any of the priorities of Ward 9 to the budget, they get shocked.
  • 00:32:16
    So I think that this is really important to have this open forum where we go and review and figure out what priorities are included in the mayor's budget or not because residents deserve to know if the mayor is working for them or not.
  • 00:32:27
    Thank you.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:32:29
    Seeing no- Councilmember Vita.
  • 00:32:32
    Sorry, thank you so much.
• • Katie Cashman
  • 00:32:34
    Um, I I guess I want to just say I don't think it's the mayor's responsibility to add items to the budget that we know that our constituents are asking us for.
  • 00:32:45
    I think there is some level of adding for the mayor, but it's like I've brought money forward for the for the
  • 00:32:53
    the infrastructure for the railroad crossing, right?
  • 00:32:57
    Like, I did talk to the mayor about that, but I like bringing that forward myself as a council member because it's my ward.
  • 00:33:04
    I don't want the mayor to bring that item.
  • 00:33:06
    So I do think that there are some things that we can work together on.
  • 00:33:10
    I just find myself having a conversation with the mayor and saying, these are my priorities, but I'm going to work to bring an amendment forward.
  • 00:33:18
    I'm going to talk to my colleagues about
  • 00:33:20
    Council, these things and bring something forward myself.
  • 00:33:24
    And I think maybe that's a piece that could be missing from this also.
  • 00:33:29
    For me, the presentation just felt like somebody's salty.
  • 00:33:34
    Somebody's upset about the mayor not bringing something forward.
  • 00:33:38
    You did it on your own anyway, so I don't know why we're still talking about it and not moving forward with the budget because everybody brought forward what they wanted to bring forward in the budget without the mayor
  • 00:33:50
    Councilmember Rainville
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:34:11
    Thank you.
  • 00:34:12
    So very well spoken Councilmember Vitale.
  • 00:34:14
    This is a fight about nothing.
  • 00:34:16
    This is about election year politics, plain and simple.
  • 00:34:19
    And what can we, what can be done to make the mayor and his administration look bad.
  • 00:34:24
    We're here to do the work of the people.
  • 00:34:25
    We should focus on that.
  • 00:34:27
    Thank you.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:34:29
    Councilmember Chowdhury.
• • Aurin Chowdhury
  • 00:34:31
    Thank you so much, um, Chair Chugtai.
  • 00:34:36
    It's interesting how this is getting framed into a fight so quickly and it's interesting to see how that's showing up.
  • 00:34:43
    This is a discussion on our past budget process because we're going into a tough budget year.
  • 00:34:51
    People rely on us to discuss
  • 00:34:54
    how we are going to approach the city budget.
  • 00:34:57
    And no one is arguing that the job of the mayor isn't difficult.
  • 00:35:01
    It is an extremely difficult job.
  • 00:35:02
    I would argue one of the most difficult jobs, maybe after the governor of Minnesota.
  • 00:35:11
    What I found helpful through this presentation is a reflection of the experience that I've had as a council member in my first term.
  • 00:35:20
    It is really hard to see collaboration between the legislative body and the executive body.
  • 00:35:25
    Maybe it's the present mayor.
  • 00:35:28
    Maybe it's a part of government structure.
  • 00:35:30
    Maybe it's some of the work that we have to do as a city council, and maybe it's all a mix of both.
  • 00:35:36
    But that's something that Minneapolis residents are currently feeling.
  • 00:35:39
    And they question it when they see our city budget.
  • 00:35:42
    They wonder why there are 61 amendments.
  • 00:35:45
    And this is a part of answering it.
  • 00:35:47
    I only got 15 minutes with the mayor last time around to discuss what my priorities are.
  • 00:35:52
    And they weren't just Ward 12 priorities.
  • 00:35:54
    They were citywide priorities that affected everyone.
  • 00:35:58
    and I think the real electioneering, and I wish I didn't have to go there, but like digging up this issue around lighting and trying to get press around it and make it an issue pitting needs between constituents, that's just not it.
  • 00:36:11
    That's really not it.
  • 00:36:13
    All of us in different parts of award have experienced copper wire theft.
  • 00:36:16
    I have advocated until I was black and blue about copper wire theft on Hiawatha Avenue and around the lakes.
  • 00:36:22
    and I wish I had known that contingency funding could have been used a year and a half ago in order to address this pressing problem and I'm really glad that it's being taken on and I think that's actually something that Councilmember Wonsley's office brought forward as an idea to the administration but for projects like this, they don't need to go through the City Council when it comes to lighting through the Public Works Department but just going back to this presentation,
  • 00:36:50
    The thing that I'm really interested in is figuring out one, like, how do we actually evaluate how things are working in our current budget process and how we're spending money and where we're not spending money over years.
  • 00:37:03
    We've been promised this evaluation outcomes tool from the performance management and innovation department.
  • 00:37:11
    That's something that we sorely need.
  • 00:37:12
    I want to communicate that I want to see that here.
  • 00:37:15
    through our budget process.
  • 00:37:16
    I'm looking at our budget chair and vice chair and the rest of my colleagues because we're going to need to figure out where to make efficiencies.
  • 00:37:23
    And I also want to be clear to the residents of the city of Minneapolis, the budget amendments that your council members made this last year account for only maybe a few percentage of the total budget.
  • 00:37:35
    And I don't want people to get the idea that this 10%
  • 00:37:39
    levy increase for current service level is due to those amendments.
  • 00:37:45
    If someone would like to present the evidence for that, please do so, but my current understanding based off the information we've been presented over years does not show that.
  • 00:37:55
    There are many reasons why we're looking at a 10.8% increase, right?
  • 00:37:59
    We have understood that our tax base has shrunk downtown.
  • 00:38:03
    We have, as I think all 13 of us, have made great strides to try to figure out how we can revitalize downtown.
  • 00:38:10
    We're seeing cuts from the federal level.
  • 00:38:12
    We still have to see what's going to happen at the state legislative session and just
  • 00:38:19
    Times are tough and there's a number of other reasons why we're looking at a 10.8% increase that I think our budget chair and vice chair could better enumerate than I could.
  • 00:38:30
    But I appreciated the start of this discussion and I want to just say we should not be framing this as a fight because the real fight is going to be figuring out how we're going to work together to actually have a budget that works and for me personally make sure that none of the staff that we currently
  • 00:38:49
    our funding through our city budget have to face any layoffs and that's a starting point for me that I'm excited to communicate this time around.
  • 00:38:57
    I'll also say a lot of the projects that have come through this last budget process that we did together
  • 00:39:05
    community members have appreciated, whether it's safety resources into communities, the Rise Up Center, support for local businesses.
  • 00:39:14
    Those have been valuable tools and I'm grateful that we were able to do that last budget cycle because I think the picture is very, very different this time around.
  • 00:39:24
    Thank you.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:39:27
    Thank you.
  • 00:39:28
    Seeing no further discussion I will direct the clerk to file that report and with that we will move to item number three which is the 2026 yeah it's a receiving file the 2026 City Council budget priorities and
  • 00:39:58
    There we go.
  • 00:40:00
    All right.
  • 00:40:02
    This background section is the same as what I covered in the previous presentation.
  • 00:40:09
    So in the interest of time, we will move to the next slide.
  • 00:40:13
    And I will just share with you that the 2026 budget cycle marks the second full year of implementing this framework.
  • 00:40:27
    This year, my office and Vice Chair Koski's office launched a 2026 City Council Budget Priorities Survey as a means of collecting individual council members' input and feedback into the budget process.
  • 00:40:47
    The 2026 City Council Budget Priority Survey was structured around key areas to help shape budget direction, identify investment needs, and improve the shared budget process.
  • 00:40:59
    The key areas included budget goals and priority setting, levy decisions and trade-offs, city-wide budget priorities, neighborhood or region-specific budget priorities,
  • 00:41:12
    fiscal policy considerations, performance management considerations, and process improvements.
  • 00:41:19
    We'll move to the next slide.
  • 00:41:23
    Now that we've covered the background and process, we'll move on to reviewing the 2026 City Council budget priorities.
  • 00:41:32
    This report and the slide deck are available in the LIMS file.
  • 00:41:42
    This first section is the Budget Goals and Priorities section.
  • 00:41:46
    The section reflects council members' overarching goals and priorities and highlights where they believe current investments may need to shift to better align with said goals.
  • 00:41:59
    As part of our ongoing effort to align the city's budget with values-based investment and long-term planning, Council members were asked to rank strategic priorities in order of importance.
  • 00:42:10
    The priorities reflect a synthesis of existing city frameworks, including the mayor's budget priorities, the Minneapolis 2040 Comprehensive Plan, and the Strategic Racial Equity Action Plan, or SREEP.
  • 00:42:23
    The resulting strategic priorities ranked by importance, and this is a culmination of the feedback that was shared to us by everyone, are first affordable housing and homelessness, then community safety and police reform, then economic inclusion and living wage jobs, then racial equity and disparity reduction,
  • 00:42:47
    then Climate Action and Environmental Justice, then Public Health and Well-Being, then Effective Public Services and Public Service Access, then Transportation, Infrastructure, and Public Spaces, number 9 Good Governance and Civic Participation, and finally Arts, Culture, and Historical Preservation.
  • 00:43:14
    Council members were then asked to identify areas where the city over-invests, specifically where funding may be exceeding need, growing too quickly, or not delivering results that match the level of investment.
  • 00:43:29
    The results are
  • 00:43:34
    three key areas that we'll talk through.
  • 00:43:37
    The first is consultants and contractual services lacking evaluation and performance metrics.
  • 00:43:45
    Many council members identified consultants and contractual services, particularly those that lack
  • 00:43:52
    Those lacking proper procurement evaluation, performance metrics, or accountability as an area of overinvestment.
  • 00:44:00
    They noted that without clear evaluation processes and measurable outcomes, it's difficult to determine whether these investments are achieving their intended goals or providing value to residents.
  • 00:44:11
    Council members emphasize that all programs and projects, especially those involving external vendors should demonstrate how they meet need or exceed established standards, deliver meaningful results and remain accountable to their contractual commitments.
  • 00:44:28
    Second, top-level management and high-cost bureaucracy.
  • 00:44:32
    Some council members identified the growing number and cost of upper management and appointed officials as an area of over-investment.
  • 00:44:40
    They noted that many positions are compensated at levels exceeding top-level city and state elected officials, resulting in significant administrative overhead.
  • 00:44:50
    Council members emphasized the need for equitable pay across departments and staff.
  • 00:44:57
    and finally related to the police department.
  • 00:45:02
    Here what we heard from some council members is identifying specific areas within the police department including traditional law enforcement, certain sub programs, resources and related expenses as areas of over-investment.
  • 00:45:19
    They noted concerns about the return on investment of traditional law enforcement strategies compared to preventative public safety approaches, as well as spending on the chief's detail, mounted patrol, police technology and software, and legal settlement payouts.
  • 00:45:37
    Council members emphasized the need to evaluate whether current MPD investments are delivering intended outcomes and whether resources are being allocated in ways that reflect community values, priorities, and long-term planning.
  • 00:45:57
    will go over four more areas of overinvestment starting with vacant positions and staffing plans.
  • 00:46:07
    A council member identified the significant number of vacant full-time equivalent positions and unrealistic
  • 00:46:15
    Unrealistic staffing plans as an area of over-investment.
  • 00:46:20
    Noting that budget vacancies remain unfilled and cannot be filled leads to inflated budgets and increased tax burdens.
  • 00:46:32
    Jurisdictional overlap.
  • 00:46:35
    A council member identified jurisdictional overlap between the city, county, and state as an area of overinvestment.
  • 00:46:43
    A council member identified pilot projects and hyperlocal or narrowly focused spending as an area of overinvestment, noting the importance of prioritizing funding for established initiatives and programs with citywide impact.
  • 00:47:00
    and a council member identified unused city owned buildings and properties as an area of overinvestment, noting that they could be sold to reduce costs and generate revenue.
  • 00:47:09
    Now these four are all ones where you see that these were raised by an individual council member whereas in the previous slide they were brought up multiple times or in different ways.
  • 00:47:22
    With that, council members were then asked to identify areas where the city under-invests, where funding may be falling short of need, of impact, or urgency.
  • 00:47:35
    The resulting under-investment areas include affordable housing and homelessness, and you'll note this was the number one priority cumulatively when we asked about ranking strategic priorities as well.
  • 00:47:49
    Many council members identified affordable housing and homelessness as an area of underinvestment, noting concerns regarding insufficient funding for affordable housing and homelessness in general, and lifting up specifically the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, the NOAA Preservation Fund, Affordable Housing Preservation and Maintenance, multi-generational family housing options, senior housing, wheelbarrier shelters, supportive housing projects specifically.
  • 00:48:16
    Council members emphasized the need for sustained investment to keep residents stably housed and to stay on track towards long-term housing goals.
  • 00:48:26
    Next, many council members identified neighborhood traffic calming, you'll be shocked to learn, as an area of under-investment.
  • 00:48:33
    They noted that despite high demands, increased driver, pedestrian, and cyclist injuries, and the city's commitment through the Vision Zero Action Plan
  • 00:48:45
    current funding remains insufficient to meet the needs and public safety goals.
  • 00:48:52
    Next, um, climate programs and initiatives.
  • 00:48:56
    Some council members identified, um, participation in these programs remains low, particularly in low income and renter communities and emphasized the need for targeted, well-funded efforts to expand accessibility awareness and engagement.
  • 00:49:14
    Next is proactive enforcement where council members noted proactive enforcement's role in advancing housing and tenant protections, workers' rights, public health, climate action, environmental justice, and community safety, and noted the need for increased housing inspector and stronger code enforcement to uphold tenants' rights.
  • 00:49:39
    And then
  • 00:49:40
    street lighting noted significant service gaps backlogs and extended response times all of which contribute to ongoing safety concerns in neighborhoods across the city.
  • 00:49:56
    Continued
  • 00:49:59
    additional areas of underinvestment.
  • 00:50:01
    So a council member identified basic services and 311 response as an area of underinvestment with noting delays in response time, basic service delivery and negative constituent and resident experience.
  • 00:50:16
    A council member identified ADA compliance in particular public spaces like sidewalks and crosswalks that don't comply with standards.
  • 00:50:29
    A council member identified the health department and the withdrawal of federal funding and its impact on our ability to implement public health approaches on several issues.
  • 00:50:40
    A council member identified public bathrooms, noting that peer cities provide these types of facilities.
  • 00:50:46
    Council member noted violence prevention funding noting GVI group violence intervention youth group violence intervention next step community trauma response safety ambassadors and other specific initiatives.
  • 00:51:03
    A council member identified the ownership and opportunity fund as an area of economic development under investment.
  • 00:51:17
    And a council member identified frontline employees and the need for strengthening staffing compensation and retention.
  • 00:51:26
    for critical services.
  • 00:51:28
    A council member identified youth as an area of underinvestment, a council member identified immigration services, and a council member identified zero waste, noting in particular the city's
  • 00:51:46
    public stance on the closure of the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center that lacks the investment at the scale necessary to divert waste effectively.
  • 00:51:59
    In the next slide, we asked for council members' perspectives on how the city should fund its priorities and inform its approaches to the tax levy in this upcoming year and where reductions may be appropriate.
  • 00:52:17
    as part of the council's responsibility to ensure financial stewardship, budget, burden mitigation,
  • 00:52:26
    and overall budget responsibility.
  • 00:52:30
    Council members were asked to indicate what range of property tax increase they would be comfortable supporting.
  • 00:52:36
    The adopted levy for 2025 was 6.8% and the projected increase for 2026 is 10.8%.
  • 00:52:44
    Council members' responses range from 0 to 8% with no respondents supporting a levy increase above 10%.
  • 00:52:54
    The most commonly selected ranges were 2-4%, 4-6%, and 6-8%, indicating general support for a moderate increase.
  • 00:53:08
    Next slide.
  • 00:53:10
    Council members were then asked which priority areas they would support for increased investment even if it meant a higher property tax levy.
  • 00:53:18
    Council member responses indicated strong support from increased investment in affordable housing and homelessness even if it resulted in a higher tax increase.
  • 00:53:28
    Some council members indicated willingness to raise the levy for increased spending on other priorities.
  • 00:53:36
    In the next slide we asked where council members were asked to provide additional context
  • 00:53:46
    for their previous questions.
  • 00:53:49
    So on affordable housing and homelessness, they emphasized the urgency of addressing a multi-million dollar funding cliff, the risk of losing state and federal funds, and the impacts of housing on public safety, public health, and economic vitality.
  • 00:54:06
    They cited programs and projects such as the MPHA, stable homes, stable schools.
  • 00:54:13
    Shelter and Transitional Housing Affordable Housing Preservation and Maintenance
  • 00:54:18
    Council members identified transportation infrastructure and public spaces and emphasized the need for increased and scaled investments in neighborhood traffic calming, improved public transit access, and enhanced public amenities like benches, public restrooms, etc.
  • 00:54:38
    Council members emphasized on effective public space and service access, the need for maintaining essential city services,
  • 00:54:48
    A council member identified climate action and environmental justice and emphasized the need to expand green programs and projects including weatherization, building retrofits, and the expansion of recycling and composting.
  • 00:55:06
    Council members cited financial considerations as informing their property tax
  • 00:55:14
    levy increase range choices including cost of living, inflation and rising costs and compounding economic pressures.
  • 00:55:25
    Next we asked which areas council members would support for decrease investment if it meant a lower property tax levy.
  • 00:55:36
    The general themes here were good governance and civic participation, racial equity and disparity reduction, and arts, culture, and historical preservation.
  • 00:55:45
    And some council members indicated a willingness to reduce spending in other priority areas to lower the levy.
  • 00:55:54
    When asked for additional context on strategic prioritization and reduction, many council members emphasize the need for a more intentional approach to budget reductions, prioritizing essential services such as public safety, housing, and basic city services while identifying lower priority areas for potential cuts.
  • 00:56:16
    they noted the importance of aligning spending with clearly defined core priorities, especially a high levy environment where trade-offs are unavoidable.
  • 00:56:25
    We heard performance management and data-driven budgeting pointing to areas like consultants and contractual services where there's a lack of metrics.
  • 00:56:38
    We saw fiscal discipline and levy concerns
  • 00:56:47
    generally there was an emphasis that a 10.8 property tax levy and the direction that that represents is one that's unsustainable and noted the importance of making reductions in low priority areas and that council members would not support a higher levy increase without first seeing spending reductions on accountability and oversight a council member emphasized
  • 00:57:15
    emphasized.
  • 00:57:19
    Public safety and budget challenges stem from weak governance and lack of accountability, not just funding levels called for clear expectations, stronger oversight, and more strategic alignment across departments and leadership.
  • 00:57:33
    And then finally, a council member emphasized that racial equity and disparity reduction is something that should be embedded into all priority areas and not just as a standalone line item.
  • 00:57:48
    This next section is citywide budget priorities.
  • 00:57:50
    This section summarizes council members' citywide budget priorities, providing insight into where members see the most urgent needs as opportunities of investment.
  • 00:58:01
    As part of our role in shaping the supplemental budget, council members were invited to share up to three citywide budget priorities.
  • 00:58:14
    and these were considered separate from ward priorities or region specific priorities.
  • 00:58:21
    In total, there were 27 identified citywide priorities and 14 of those are unique citywide budget priorities, which represents a lot of alignment.
  • 00:58:37
    So, this table shows the citywide budget priorities from individual council members.
  • 00:58:46
    In appendix E of the report, you'll find individual submissions for just these specific priorities.
  • 00:58:54
    I'm going to pause here instead of reading these off and see if any council member would like to take this opportunity to speak to any of their citywide budget priorities.
  • 00:59:08
    that they submitted.
  • 00:59:14
    Not seeing any, we will continue.
  • 00:59:23
    Oh, I see Councilmember Palmisano.
• • Linea Palmisano
  • 00:59:29
    Madam Chair, I'll go ahead and share.
  • 00:59:30
    I actually had a lot of things to share about every one of these categories, but I said it in my
  • 00:59:39
    question response thing, the 84 questions that you asked us and I'll say it again.
  • 00:59:46
    My only stated priority is to reduce spending and limit any increase to the property tax levy.
  • 00:59:53
    I understand that a small increase to the levy might be inevitable just to continue our current service levels but
  • 01:00:01
    This is why I didn't have any additional or new asks because you can't do that and decrease the budget to the level that we need.
  • 01:00:10
    So I'll just put that out there.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 01:00:12
    Thank you all.
  • 01:00:13
    I'll recognize Council Member Wonsley.
  • 01:00:17
    Thank you, Chair Chucks.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 01:00:19
    Hi, I think it's also important to name because I've heard this come up a couple of times with the conflation of new spending and reappropriation of existing dollars which many of us looked at also using as funding sources for budget amendments even last year.
  • 01:00:36
    So just in your prior slide when you said we're going to take a look hopefully with the mayor's administration providing performance
  • 01:00:45
    metrics around their programs and not just at the department level so we can see the full roster of what are we funding, how are they actually meeting the needs of our residents and overall enterprise functions.
  • 01:01:00
    Then we can look at where can we use those dollars to support key priorities as you know what's illustrated on this slide.
  • 01:01:07
    So I just need to make it clear new spending is not the same as using
  • 01:01:11
    Councilmember Ellison
• • Jeremiah Ellison
  • 01:01:23
    Just chiming in, we have a tough task ahead of us with this budget this year and maybe tougher than, I've been here eight years and this might be one of the toughest situations we're going to be in as a council and I think that it is really important that we highlight
  • 01:01:42
    a lot of what Councilmember Palmisano is saying in terms of being mindful and being aware of how spending and how we're moving forward in that way.
  • 01:01:51
    I also think it's really important to talk about the downsides of austerity measures and how they affect the most vulnerable populations and exacerbate problems like homelessness, you know, like unemployment.
  • 01:02:06
    Sometimes when we are not taking active measures, when we, you know, when we sort of lean into austerity
  • 01:02:12
    we can prolong episodes of economic downturn, we can prolong people toiling through the very systems we're trying to support them out of and so I just think it's really important for us to highlight that because we have to hold both because we can't just increase the levy endlessly to solve those problems but we can't, in my mind, lean so hard into austerity that we
  • 01:02:38
    uh... basically leave people in the dust and so that's you know that sort of the the the the thing we have a before us and uh... and just wanted to highlight that it it it really isn't uh... as clean and clear the direction we need to go as a council uh... because both austerity uh... and increase spending
  • 01:02:59
    Council Member Chowdhury
• • Aurin Chowdhury
  • 01:03:21
    Thank you so much, Chair Chugtai.
  • 01:03:23
    For me, I put down affordable housing production and thinking about deeply affordable, that whole bucket of types of housing that you listed out in the presentation.
  • 01:03:34
    And for me, I think this is about making sure that we're not cutting into the investments that we've made in prior years or finding creative ways to continue making investments, whether it's
  • 01:03:49
    finding ways to add additional funding to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund or if there are things that would support policy to incentivize more affordable housing creation.
  • 01:04:05
    We oftentimes talk about the
  • 01:04:09
    the Build More strategy kind of coming to a halt across the nation and in our Biz Committee talking about not seeing as many cranes in the sky and the real people impact of that is
  • 01:04:24
    in a time where we're about 100,000 units behind statewide.
  • 01:04:29
    There are individuals that are looking for housing that need supportive housing that are trying to age with dignity in our city and so that felt like a big priority for me.
  • 01:04:42
    And then I also put neighborhood traffic calming because that's something that I hear from community members all the time.
  • 01:04:50
    I feel positive that we can get increased support from the state legislature this time around so we might be able to take that funding and put it right into our budget which is exciting and also hopefully if we didn't spend down the funding from last year just continue to move forward in these projects especially as we're looking at municipal state aid road pilots that have often been missing or have been missing
  • 01:05:16
    from traffic calming.
  • 01:05:17
    And the last thing that I'll just note in speaking to the tension that we're feeling and I shared this earlier but I think I want to continue to kind of harp on it is we don't have an evaluation tool to determine how things are working to understand the efficiencies
  • 01:05:31
    Department heads are given the task of coming to present to us and they're going to give us their best presentation so that they can get the funding they need.
  • 01:05:40
    They are not the right people to ask where we should cut and they shouldn't be.
  • 01:05:46
    We need some independent evaluation of this.
  • 01:05:49
    I know that there's work that's going to happen in performance management and innovation.
  • 01:05:53
    I would really like to see that work soon here before we start getting into the meat and potatoes of this budget process.
  • 01:05:59
    But I also think this is a place where our auditor can lean in.
  • 01:06:05
    We need independent evaluation separate from
  • 01:06:08
    the executive branch separate from the legislative branch to give us the information that we need and I don't think Minneapolis residents realize that we don't have this tool in our back pocket to kind of make these decisions and we were really really fortunate for a number of years to not have to think about spending cuts but unfortunately that's the place that we are in as are many cities and jurisdictions across the board.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 01:06:37
    Thank you.
  • 01:06:37
    Thank you.
  • 01:06:38
    Next I'll identify, or I'll recognize Councilmember Vita.
  • 01:06:45
    Thank you, Chair.
• • Katie Cashman
  • 01:06:46
    I did not fill out the form.
  • 01:06:51
    It was a lot to do.
  • 01:06:54
    I guess my question is when are we going to adopt the process of a biennial budget and actually have time to go through budget items and do the work that
  • 01:07:10
    When we voted on the biennial budget, we said we would give ourselves the year off to go through budget items and actually look through the things that you asked in that questionnaire and figure those out for ourselves and how that matches up with the needs of our wards and our priorities.
  • 01:07:26
    it we have not had a chance to do that yet and so i'm looking for the opportunity to do that we we adopted a biennial budget so we could have time off the the example that was always used was like maybe mayor sharon sales belton put something into play that is still
  • 01:07:43
    um not there but it's like we just keep going through the cycle over and over again we haven't really had time to pause look through the budget and then the budget season is closing in tighter and tighter it seems every year we started kind of in october now we're what is this april may may like it's getting it's it's closing in more and more every year versus like stretching out over this long period of time so i'm really um
  • 01:08:12
    asking for colleagues to give us a chance to look through the actual budget and do things and prioritize in that way.
  • 01:08:22
    My priority for the city is the lowest possible tax levy.
  • 01:08:27
    I don't know what that means.
  • 01:08:28
    I would not commit to anything without knowing what's going to happen at the federal level.
  • 01:08:33
    I'm hearing from Public Works that we could lose $250 million in infrastructure projects.
  • 01:08:40
    My budget priorities will be completely different if that is the case.
  • 01:08:45
    The Federal Administration is doing a whole lot of things that will be made aware of in every coming day that is going to potentially negatively reflect
  • 01:08:57
    our budget here at the city of Minneapolis.
  • 01:08:59
    There are other departments like the health department, which is a huge priority for me, that is going to take big hits because the federal government is closing, you know, they're shutting down their own jobs at the federal level and it's going to trickle down to us.
  • 01:09:15
    So this kind of feels like we're jumping out too soon.
  • 01:09:20
    Not that you can't, I think people can share their priorities, it's fine, but like making commitments
  • 01:09:26
    at a level of like what we're going to do feels too soon when we don't even know what we're going to have to react to if we're even going to have money in our budget for just basic services for us to keep the jobs of the folks who are employed here at the City of Minneapolis.
  • 01:09:42
    we don't know and so this just feels too soon for me it feels like we just finished up December's budget process and we're already talking about budget priorities for something we don't for finances that we don't even know if we have access to and we're actually looking at cutting more than we've ever done in the history of
  • 01:10:03
    of Minneapolis potentially.
  • 01:10:04
    So I wish we would be having more conversations about what is happening at the federal level, how that's affecting us, and what we can do to make sure that people keep their jobs instead of planning for next year and we don't know what resources we have.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 01:10:23
    Councilmember Palmisano.
• • Linea Palmisano
  • 01:10:27
    Thank you, that was well said.
  • 01:10:28
    I also wanted to start by saying that was a very fair comment by Councilmember Ellison earlier.
  • 01:10:35
    I appreciate that and I wasn't able to say that exactly as well as he did.
  • 01:10:40
    And the other way to think about it is that budget levy increases impact low-income residents the most acutely.
  • 01:10:48
    So it is possible to both be wary of an austere budget but also
  • 01:10:54
    We're going to need to recognize the need that levy impacts are not filled evenly.
  • 01:10:59
    In theory, I agree with the concept that we are under-investing in affordable housing.
  • 01:11:05
    In reality, we are doing as much as we can as quickly as we can.
  • 01:11:11
    I don't by any means think we should back off on the level that we're currently working, but we also have really important other city programs and services that are going to need our attention, particularly some that may have been disinvested in by the federal government.
  • 01:11:26
    I will say this over and over again.
  • 01:11:28
    Our residents cannot withstand another huge property tax increase.
  • 01:11:33
    If we want to increase funding for something, we have to decrease funding for something else.
  • 01:11:37
    And it's none of this cute short shrifting of adding in one-time money to backfill absolutely essential positions.
  • 01:11:46
    Those are the things that increase our tax levy year after year.
  • 01:11:51
    We need to live within our means.
  • 01:11:53
    If our residents receive a cost of living increase to their wage, and many don't even receive that, this body even withheld 160 of them, then we need to live within that same range and we still need to allow for their increased costs of utilities, of food, and etc.
  • 01:12:10
    Changes at the federal level are already greatly impacting our residents and their ability to keep up with their monthly expenses and their rent and etc.
  • 01:12:19
    And I think we have an obligation to not compound that with a large levy increase.
  • 01:12:25
    There is nothing that should warrant a higher levy.
  • 01:12:29
    We need to learn to reduce our spending and or cut programs or services.
  • 01:12:37
    Thinking about a nearly 11% levy increase just to maintain our level of government is a total non-starter for me.
  • 01:12:46
    We need to think about public safety and core city services as the starting point.
  • 01:12:51
    To get a lower levy, I'm open to ideas.
  • 01:12:54
    We need department heads to honestly review their services and make some hard recommendations about what they can live with and without.
  • 01:13:02
    And we as a council, I think, and this is why I keep getting into Q here, we need to temper our expectations.
  • 01:13:12
    Councilmember Wonsley.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 01:13:13
    Thank you, Chair Chiu-Chi.
  • 01:13:15
    Something else that I know colleagues and I have been discussing, and actually Councilmember Choudry brought this up, is this is
  • 01:13:24
    also a really prime opportunity for us to lean into our intergovernmental relationships and partnerships and also by us making investments in areas like public safety that doesn't just center traditional policing outcomes but also even traffic calming because the City of Minneapolis made significant investments in those measures
  • 01:13:47
    now we have the opportunities and have had the opportunities where the state has actually also provided significant investments in that that's how we got 19 million dollars in public safety aid to support a lot of the public safety work um that's already being rolled out that's helping keep our community safe but also it's spearheading a lot of recommendations that I'm seeing even on the slides saying with traffic calming I don't think any of us imagine a rural
  • 01:14:12
    where the few hundred thousand dollars that we were pouring into a program that has been severely underfunded would now put us in a predicament where there's going to be a statewide program.
  • 01:14:24
    So there are also key opportunities from us taking leadership and investing in significant priorities that have been identified by our residents that have allowed us to tap into other intergovernmental resources.
  • 01:14:36
    And I see that as a prime opportunity that's highlighted here.
  • 01:14:39
    same with immigration resources.
  • 01:14:41
    I think everyone recognizes that's going to be a key need and I think as some of our colleagues are balancing this dynamic of cuts being made at the federal level and how that's harming some of our most vulnerable communities, many of us are also thinking, okay, how do we leverage the resources that we have here to show up for those communities like our immigrant residents.
  • 01:15:01
    and undocumented residents and leaning into austerity doesn't get us there too for those key constituencies.
  • 01:15:09
    And I would name this for actually our staff memo follow-up because I asked this also in my meeting with the mayor's team around budgeting was around actually what is this evaluation plan that they're going to be leading with
  • 01:15:27
    as he's considering his budget proposal ahead of the August presentation so that we can also understand how his team went and looked at the hundreds of programs that are operating now and what metrics are they using to evaluate either
  • 01:15:46
    the reduction or removal of services prior to it even getting to us having to do that.
  • 01:15:52
    So I will note that for a staff memo if they can share with us the evaluation plan that they are using and when the results of that can be shared with council because I have not received follow-up on that piece because I think that is the the biggest component.
  • 01:16:08
    None of us want to make arbitrary cuts to programs especially programs that
  • 01:16:13
    in recent years.
  • 01:16:14
    That's what we've seen or at least what I've seen during my tenure on this council.
  • 01:16:18
    Most of the programs that have been targeted for cuts are the ones that we have recently initiated from sidewalk plowing to other housing proposals or programs.
  • 01:16:30
    Safety Ambassadors programs were also on the chopping block.
  • 01:16:34
    Transit Safety Services were on the chopping block at one point.
  • 01:16:39
    These are all recent programs that now we're celebrating, now our residents are benefiting from, but without evidence-based or performance-based
  • 01:16:48
    I think that is how we want to go into this budget season and making decisions.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 01:17:12
    All right, I'm not seeing any further discussion from council members looking to speak to specific city-wide budget priorities, so we'll continue with this presentation.
  • 01:17:21
    So over these next two slides, we will narrow down or conduct like a thematic analysis on what we saw.
  • 01:17:35
    from the 27 submissions.
  • 01:17:39
    When we line up the citywide budget priorities with our strategic priorities, the top three areas of focus that council members saw was one, transportation, infrastructure, and public space, two, community safety and police reform, and three, affordable housing and homelessness.
  • 01:18:05
    Next slide.
  • 01:18:06
    Now, narrowing from 27 individual submissions down to 14 unique priorities and the top three themes,
  • 01:18:20
    top five areas where we saw shared priorities come in were affordable housing and homelessness and everything from affordable housing production to preservation and maintenance to shelter, funding, and homelessness response.
  • 01:18:38
    neighborhood traffic calming, minimal increase maintenance or lowering of the property tax levy, the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs and their capacity, and geographically even redistribution of neighborhood safety department resources.
  • 01:19:01
    Those were the top five areas of shared interest.
  • 01:19:05
    in this next section which is we're going to go over the neighborhood or region specific budget priority submissions as the areas of most urgent needs and opportunities of investment in
  • 01:19:24
    Council members were asked to identify up to three neighborhood or region specific priorities and these are anything from say this specific ward to this is a priority that's going to benefit downtown which overlaps multiple wards or the south side which overlaps multiple wards or the north side which again overlaps multiple wards
  • 01:19:50
    This section summarizes the full set of responses and highlights the crosscutting themes that emerged here in total.
  • 01:20:01
    We received 20 neighborhood or region specific priorities and of those 17 unique neighborhood or region specific priorities.
  • 01:20:14
    This table highlights the summary of the neighborhood or region specific priorities that were submitted.
  • 01:20:27
    Appendix F of the report has the coinciding submissions.
  • 01:20:33
    and here again I will pause and see if council members would like to speak to any of the neighborhood or region specific priorities that they submitted.
  • 01:20:47
    Going once, going twice.
  • 01:20:57
    And yes, we can go to the next slide as well.
  • 01:20:59
    There we go.
• • Aurin Chowdhury
  • 01:21:04
    I'll just quick speak to mine The first so all of the items that I put forward are things that we have previously funded It's just I want to lay out that these are things that I believe we should see fully through into the second year
  • 01:21:28
    So the South Minneapolis Community Safety Center, many residents in the third precinct and across the city, uh, want to see the South Minneapolis Community Safety Center become reality.
  • 01:21:39
    There is this, uh, timeline of second quarter of 2026.
  • 01:21:44
    Um, I don't want to find it.
  • 01:21:48
    I don't want a financial barrier for that to happen in order for, um, the safety services to be in place with our third precinct officers at this location.
  • 01:21:58
    The second is a transportation safety coordination program Just an update that I've gotten from the neighborhood safety department This was an allocation that I made when I first got on to the City Council in 2023.
  • 01:22:10
    They're currently in the design phase of this transportation safety coordination programming.
  • 01:22:17
    It might be called something entirely different, but it will be related to transportation safety but
  • 01:22:24
    And then, um
  • 01:22:34
    Last budget cycle me and council vice president led on a budget allocation for small business construction hardship loan if you go over to head of an avenue or If you have been on East Lake Street Particularly the farther eastern part when there was beeline construction.
  • 01:22:53
    Those are areas that struggled I believe we have another corridor that's listed might be Lowry I know that CPED is having current discussions about how they want to get this program out
  • 01:23:04
    up and so that money has not been spent yet.
  • 01:23:07
    It's kind of in the hands of our experts in that department and so I just want to be able to see that through.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 01:23:13
    Thank you and next I'll recognize Councilmember Jenkins.
• • Andrea Jenkins
  • 01:23:20
    Thank you Chair and you know I don't have a priority listed here but you know I certainly have been trying to foreshadow what I'm
  • 01:23:33
    hoping doesn't occur but we've already heard that you know there's some 200 plus million dollars that are being pulled back from infrastructure projects and it has the potential to impact the
  • 01:23:51
    infrastructure project at 38th and Chicago or George Floyd Square and you know I really hope that we can revisit this issue so we can make sure that those funds are being expended to create the kind of infrastructure that that intersection deserves
  • 01:24:14
    and needs in order to improve the public safety, the livability and economic improvements at George Floyd Square.
  • 01:24:24
    So I just wanted to make that comment.
  • 01:24:26
    Thank you.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 01:24:26
    Thank you and next I'll recognize Councilmember Cashman.
• • Michael Cashman
  • 01:24:33
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
  • 01:24:35
    I just wanted to comment on this 250 million dollars.
  • 01:24:38
    I think that was perhaps like speculation or if Councilman Evita has the actual like numbers on that, if you could please share it with me that'd be great.
  • 01:24:48
    I don't want like the community and our media to be picking up this number and to be hearing that as fact if we don't necessarily know.
• • Katie Cashman
  • 01:24:55
    Well, I did not say it was fact.
  • 01:24:57
    I said that I was told by Public Works that that could possibly be the number.
  • 01:25:02
    And so, um, you should listen.
  • 01:25:05
    I didn't say that 250, so if the media picked it up, they would pick me up saying exactly what I said.
  • 01:25:11
    And I was told that by Public Works.
  • 01:25:13
    As the Chair, you probably should get the number from them.
• • Michael Cashman
  • 01:25:18
    Thank you.
  • 01:25:19
    So what I wanted to reiterate was, like, let's not speculate on funds that we haven't necessarily lost.
  • 01:25:25
    I do know that we are at risk of losing funds, and I can try to find out an exact number on that.
  • 01:25:33
    But just wanted to note a reflection here that in the beginning of the presentation, infrastructure, transportation, and public space was listed seventh in the list of priorities by council members, but then was the top
  • 01:25:46
    of the list for citywide budget priorities that council members listed.
  • 01:25:51
    So it shows me that maybe the survey
  • 01:25:56
    like people got through the survey and realized oh yeah that actually is a very important priority for our awards and I think it's very important that we don't let our infrastructure crumble and that we continue to make investments in this and so just reiterating that it's an important place for us all to make sure that Public Works has what they need in the years to come.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 01:26:19
    Yeah, I mean, thank you for that additional piece of context, or for your comments, Council Member.
  • 01:26:26
    You know, I think I'm just going to have Melissa just add some additional pieces of context that help distinguish between those list of top ten priorities and what we saw from, emerge as themes.
  • 01:26:44
    Go ahead.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 01:26:47
    There we go.
  • 01:26:48
    Melissa Hill, Senior Policy Aide for Councilmember Koski, Vice Chair Koski.
  • 01:26:52
    So Councilmember Cashman to just further contextualize that a little bit.
  • 01:26:55
    In reviewing the responses it did emerge in the overall lower on the list, but the reason it arose later was because there was such a significant amount of council members raising specifically
  • 01:27:05
    the neighborhood traffic calming program as a budget priority.
  • 01:27:09
    So with that it then rose to the top of the list.
  • 01:27:11
    I think in the previous slide it showed that there were nine individuals who had raised that.
  • 01:27:15
    So that brought it to the top of the list as that was a significantly higher number of individuals.
  • 01:27:20
    So despite that it was lower as an overall priority.
  • 01:27:23
    That one specific program was the reason in this section it rose higher.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 01:27:31
    Wonderful.
  • 01:27:32
    If there are any, I'm not seeing any further questions or anyone else in queue so we can continue here.
  • 01:27:37
    With the presentation, now doing the same thing again where we line up each of these submissions with the
  • 01:27:51
    With strategic priorities, the top three areas where council members see the greatest need for neighborhood or region-specific focus are one, community safety and police reform, two, transportation infrastructure and public space, and three, economic inclusion and living wage jobs.
  • 01:28:11
    so here we went from 20 submissions to 17 unique priorities down to these top three areas and so we will in the next slide cover the areas of shared priorities.
  • 01:28:29
    The three that emerged here were the South Minneapolis Community Safety Center and in particular here
  • 01:28:38
    implementing proper programming at the facility as a priority.
  • 01:28:44
    Safety ambassadors and making sure that these are expanded upon in this upcoming year.
  • 01:28:53
    And then finally, construction hardship fund and loan program
  • 01:28:59
    as one that was important to members.
  • 01:29:04
    A theme that I think is important to note is just, you know, in something that I see that's a little bit different this year than what we saw last year.
  • 01:29:16
    We saw far more city-wide priorities come in than we did individual and neighborhood ones, or neighborhood or region-specific ones.
  • 01:29:26
    I think that's really
  • 01:29:27
    I think it's clear between this and the levy discussion that council members really are thinking about the constraint that comes along with this year's budget and are really thinking about how best to serve not just the residents that they represent but how to make sure initiatives are benefiting other communities as well.
  • 01:29:53
    So with that,
  • 01:29:56
    We're ready to move to the next slide, which is financial policy considerations or fiscal policy considerations.
  • 01:30:02
    I apologize.
  • 01:30:05
    So here we asked for perspectives on financial policies and aspects of what's working well and where there are improvements needed.
  • 01:30:15
    The results from here, and the goal was to understand what's working well, where improvements are needed, whether new financial strategies or approaches should be considered to better align all of our work.
  • 01:30:31
    The Vice Chair and I intend to use the feedback to inform future report and presentation requests and policy work on financial policies as that continues.
  • 01:30:44
    The results include
  • 01:30:50
    and the City Council.
  • 01:31:07
    allowing just the legal level of budgetary control that the council has and the amount of flexibility departments have to reallocate resources without council input, at times, council knowledge.
  • 01:31:27
    and how that creates opportunities for misalignment, waste, and decisions that lack public trust or oversight.
  • 01:31:37
    Status quo bias in current service level budgeting and that model relying on current service level budgeting reinforces the status quo even when it is underperforming or not performing.
  • 01:31:50
    And as that's a part of the budget that we don't dig into,
  • 01:31:57
    procurement and contracts, transparency and accountability.
  • 01:32:00
    This has emerged as a theme kind of from the beginning all the way to here with how low we saw good governance rank to areas of overspending to now fiscal policy considerations.
  • 01:32:15
    and inconsistent evaluation practices, limited transparency, inefficient accountability and oversight were key areas that we saw lifted up.
  • 01:32:25
    Vacancy savings and how there are very few, if any, guardrails around this.
  • 01:32:33
    as an area that requires comprehensive review and reform.
  • 01:32:39
    And then finally the need for deliberate values-based reform and more deliberate clear guidance and flexibility here.
  • 01:32:57
    In terms of, in this next, this is going to be I think the last of where we go over fiscal policy considerations, so budgetary control at the program or line item.
  • 01:33:12
    to enable greater transparency and accountability outcome based budget model.
  • 01:33:18
    So both of these are really talking about budgeting models.
  • 01:33:21
    And so, you know, the third time that we really see this as an issue that's referenced in the feedback we picked up.
  • 01:33:28
    procurement policy and contract
  • 01:33:44
    and equity scoring in budget planning.
  • 01:33:47
    This one was around considering environmental public health and equity impacts, especially for historically overburdened communities.
  • 01:33:59
    So I think think about the introduction of the RIA into how we review legislative items.
  • 01:34:06
    This is a really interesting consideration.
  • 01:34:08
    and municipal income tax as something that was brought up.
  • 01:34:13
    And again, this is something that would require both consent and state legislative authorization along with charter based changes that would need to be made.
  • 01:34:29
    But wanted to uplift that.
  • 01:34:31
    Again, folks are thinking about the impact of property taxes on residents and other ways to alleviate that.
  • 01:34:38
    With that, performance management considerations are next.
  • 01:34:45
    And should be, oh, Councilmember Palmisano, I see that you may have a question here.
  • 01:34:53
    I do, Madam Chair.
• • Linea Palmisano
  • 01:34:56
    Is it correct that budget chairs might have a report back on our financial policies?
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 01:35:03
    It's undergoing review by our attorneys and we have a meeting on Friday with the clerk and the attorneys to go over the attorney review of those policies.
• • Linea Palmisano
  • 01:35:22
    But haven't we had it since like December?
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 01:35:24
    The attorneys have had it since December, but I presume things take as long as they take.
• • Linea Palmisano
  • 01:35:33
    So I just think that we should all be able to see that report before we have any discussion about our fiscal policies.
  • 01:35:39
    I think that fiscal policies is a really good and important discussion to have, but I'd like to have it with that review that the city paid for in mind.
  • 01:35:49
    I did make that comment in my survey responses but it feels weird to be trying to have this discussion without it but you know when you think of general fiscal policy one of the things that was said a little earlier
  • 01:36:06
    is that many council members identified consultants and contractual services, particularly those that are lacking proper procurement evaluation performance metrics or accountability as an area of over-investment.
  • 01:36:20
    I think it would be valuable in the go-forward nature of this budget priorities exercise, so thank you for that instead of the retroactive look.
  • 01:36:30
    does this mean that this body, here's what I would hope for fiscal policies, I would hope that this body will stop proposing budget items or amendments that do not have proper procurement evaluation and accountability as part of them.
  • 01:36:45
    Like non-profits that circumvent the RFP process
  • 01:36:49
    Councilmember Wonsley
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 01:37:18
    Thank you, Chair.
  • 01:37:19
    I actually also want to say I'm full and supporting some of the points made by Council Member Palmisano here, and I know there's an ordinance that I'm bringing forward to address that, especially in light of contractual issues
  • 01:37:36
    I reference I think in my surveys such as our rescue and that somehow also circumventing the process that seemed to be facilitated by a council member and also staff so we don't have other issues like that going forward.
  • 01:37:51
    So I'm absolutely in favor of putting guardrails in place so that contracts are moving through a standardized process as well and look forward to working with my colleagues on ordinance efforts to make sure things like that don't happen again.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 01:38:04
    Thank you Councilmember Chavez.
• • Jason Chavez
  • 01:38:06
    Chair Choctaw, I guess two other points made by my colleagues I'd like to see that information provided to the City Council when the mayor proposes his budget in August as a starting point.
  • 01:38:17
    I think that would help bring more transparency into the budget proposals making sure that what the mayor is proposing which includes a lot of non-profit funding comes to light and ensures that we know how money is being used so to my colleagues points I hope that that starts
  • 01:38:31
    and that it starts when the mayor proposes his budget in August.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 01:38:38
    All right, now continuing with the presentation, next with a summary of performance management considerations.
  • 01:38:53
    The results from this section included expectations for performance data and budget integration.
  • 01:39:04
    Department and program level data, council members wanting to see performance management frameworks and metrics presented both at the department and at the program level to support deeper understanding.
  • 01:39:20
    ensure rigorous and transparent decision making, a focus on outcomes, not just internal processes, disaggregated data by race, geography, income, and other demographics to support equity-focused analysis and identification of underperforming programs with context and space for course correction or reallocation.
  • 01:39:47
    accessible and comprehensive reporting, tracking year-over-year changes and the need to clearly identify the need to identify
  • 01:40:12
    wanted to see a review of previous years and new items to understand trade-offs and impacts.
  • 01:40:28
    and the need for independent oversight and stronger capacity.
  • 01:40:34
    Council members emphasize the need to strengthen the city's performance management systems and introduce independent analysis with their budget decisions.
  • 01:40:44
    And we'll go to the next slide.
  • 01:40:48
    And the one after.
  • 01:40:49
    Yep, one more.
  • 01:40:55
    All right.
  • 01:40:56
    And this is the last section, which is process improvement, capturing suggestions for improving the structure, timing, and workflow of the annual budget process.
  • 01:41:08
    Our goal was to identify what aspects of the process currently support clear, collaborative, and informed decision making, and where adjustments could strengthen the process and outcomes.
  • 01:41:24
    and we plan to share this feedback with the budget director along with performance management and innovation to help make sure this feedback continues to be captured.
  • 01:41:36
    Next slide.
  • 01:41:39
    I'm going to run through these really quickly and in terms of the feedback here, the budget, the major themes, and there are actually several here.
  • 01:41:56
    budget address as a positive example, seeing the mayor's budget address, telling a cohesive story that links financial decisions to resident impact, and that council members found this to be a helpful approach and would like to see it more so reflected in formal budget materials.
  • 01:42:17
    the lack of alignment with strategic plans and that the budget book and the recommended budget do not clearly reference or align with adopted strategic plans and it makes it harder to assess whether proposed investments are serving long-term goals.
  • 01:42:38
    Next we heard no retrospective or long-term outlook that materials
  • 01:42:45
    lack reflection on prior year outcomes and offer very little forward-looking context beyond the biennium and that this gap limits the ability to assess the trajectory or sustainability of proposed investments.
  • 01:43:00
    Insufficient context and narrative around budget changes
  • 01:43:04
    again this comes up especially in the year-over-year context and makes it hard to understand where and why cuts are happening and how those trade-offs shaped changes.
  • 01:43:20
    Insufficient program level and line item detail
  • 01:43:27
    you know this has come up over and over throughout different sections here, improved online tools but finding that navigating them is still a barrier so the use of open gov and online budget tools is something that council members find benefit in and that usability and user-friendliness remains a challenge.
  • 01:43:50
    and then compressed timeline limits review and just that departmental hearings and when they wrap up and when those next steps in the budget process take place compresses the timeline and places a tremendous amount of pressure on council offices.
  • 01:44:12
    We'll move to the next slide.
  • 01:44:15
    Overly technical and lacking analysis presentations are really technical and do not explain
  • 01:44:31
    Foundational budget items and terms clearly Limited strategic and historical context really missing and I think this this in particular speaks to the amount of council members that have that are new here Or at least have started since 2020 So I think that that is really clearly reflected here unclear drivers of the levee Clarifying the cost of current service levels.
  • 01:44:57
    I think this was a lot of
  • 01:44:59
    often connected to insufficient detail, insufficient context, and then the need to have more time to review.
  • 01:45:06
    We saw in the next slide
  • 01:45:14
    feedback on departmental presentations.
  • 01:45:19
    The big pieces of feedback here are centering the need to center performance management systems and metrics, including clear program level performance data, and including outcomes, successes and failures, and highlighting those, requiring honest assessment and
  • 01:45:43
    reduction recommendations clearly show and explain budget reductions and improve timing and engagement.
  • 01:45:53
    In the next slide, this is feedback on public hearings and community engagement, so holding public hearings in the community.
  • 01:46:02
    I think this is something that we should strongly consider and can happen.
  • 01:46:08
    improving timing and early access and in particular how late that Truth in Taxation hearing happens and that it's too late for us to incorporate the feedback that we receive.
  • 01:46:20
    I know there's some statutory considerations here but this is really a salient argument or point.
  • 01:46:28
    Better promote early hearings
  • 01:46:31
    because some of those early hearings are often not that well attended or are dominated by organized interests in our city and maintaining evening scheduling and making sure that hearings are evaluated as a part of our process and then next slide and this is feedback on the markup process
  • 01:47:00
    The themes that emerged here were strengthening amendment submission standards, setting and enforcing hard deadlines, limiting the volume of amendments, supporting council-led amendment development, increasing administrative collaboration during markup, and improving the quality and objectivity of department response.
  • 01:47:25
    And with that, we'll move to the next slide and that concludes this presentation.
  • 01:47:30
    Are there any final comments or questions before we move to our last two items?
  • 01:47:38
    All right, Council President Payne.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 01:47:40
    Thank you Vice President.
  • 01:47:42
    This was an extremely thorough report and I'm even looking at this as you know how might future councils look at this report in future budget years.
  • 01:47:53
    I think this was like a really helpful iteration on how we're going to refine the council orientation and responsibility to the budget and so I just want to thank you for all the thoroughness of putting this together and vice chair and team.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 01:48:09
    Councilmember Rainville.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 01:48:13
    Thank you.
  • 01:48:13
    I have to excuse myself because I have an emergency meeting with park officials about the mass shooting on the riverfront and ironically because of the council amendments that have moved so much of the safety ambassador money around last year probably won't have the dollars this year to help on the riverfront so we'll see all that checks out but that's why I said in my statement we should be more evenly distributed with that citywide resource for the safety ambassadors because I really can't see a path
  • 01:48:42
    where I'm going to get those on the roof front or downtown this year and it's very disheartening.
  • 01:48:47
    Thank you.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 01:48:52
    Thank you Councilmember Chavez followed by Vice Chair Koski.
• • Jason Chavez
  • 01:48:56
    I just wanted to make some clarifications on that part.
  • 01:48:59
    So in fact the mayor had actually proposed cutting those safety ambassadors by I think half and as council some of us decided to save funding of that program.
  • 01:49:09
    so if we wouldn't have done that there actually would be less resources for the safety ambassadors.
  • 01:49:14
    I think for us many in this body have been very clear that we want to support the safety ambassadors in all cultural districts including downtown which is why we worked with council member Rainville to include his area as a place that we want to see these programs expand but I did actually want to clarify to the public
  • 01:49:31
    we put in three million dollars for safety ambassadors including the area that Mr. Councilmember Rainville is talking about I believe but it needs to be said those were on the chopping block when the mayor proposed cutting half of that funding last year and some of us in this body were able to find the money to save that program it wasn't a decision the council made to defund the safety ambassadors in fact it's about implementation
  • 01:49:55
    There is money there to implement the programs.
  • 01:49:58
    We want these on Lake Street and East Franklin Avenue.
  • 01:50:00
    They're there as of this month.
  • 01:50:01
    That is great.
  • 01:50:02
    We're excited.
  • 01:50:03
    And other areas in our cities deserve that.
  • 01:50:05
    And that means the Office of Community Safety needs to implement the programs now.
• • Emily Koski
  • 01:50:11
    Vice Chair Koski.
  • 01:50:12
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
  • 01:50:13
    I just want to thank you, Chair, for helping to make sure that we continue this robust process, you know, as we started this last year and we've evolved in this process.
  • 01:50:27
    I've appreciated just the continued
  • 01:50:30
    additions.
  • 01:50:31
    You know I think it's great that we're getting more feedback from colleagues about how we can make this process better and that feedback and of course we're always open to it all the time but thank you so much to all the colleagues who participated in this and gave us this information and I just want to shout out to Melissa Hill who is the individual who put all of the information together after everyone gave it to you.
  • 01:50:56
    and just really thank you for continuing to move through this process.
  • 01:51:03
    We're learning and we're doing it together and we're working on this together to make sure we have transparency and collaboration and connectivity with the community and I'm grateful that we've continued on that path so thank you.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 01:51:18
    Thank you.
  • 01:51:19
    With that,
  • 01:51:22
    That concludes the discussion on this item.
  • 01:51:27
    I am going to move approval of the item to transmit the authorization to the Council President and myself to transmit to the Mayor the City Council's 2026 budget priorities for inclusion in the supplemental budget.
  • 01:51:45
    Do I have a second on that?
• • 01:51:48
    Second.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 01:51:48
    All those in favor, please signify by saying aye.
  • 01:51:52
    Aye.
  • 01:51:53
    Those opposed say nay.
  • 01:51:56
    Any abstentions?
  • 01:51:57
    The ayes have it and that motion carries.
  • 01:52:00
    And with that, we're ready to now move to the next item, which was continued in our last meeting for further discussion and collaboration between staff.
  • 01:52:17
    This is a proposal for employee reallocations to the Office of City Auditor.
  • 01:52:21
    This will be presented both by City Clerk Casey Carl and City Auditor Robert Timmerman.
  • 01:52:28
    Welcome, Mr.
  • 01:52:29
    Clerk.
• • Casey CarlCity Clerk
  • 01:52:29
    Good afternoon, Madam Vice President, Committee Members.
  • 01:52:32
    As you indicated, my name is Casey Carl.
  • 01:52:34
    I have the privilege of serving as City Clerk for the City of Minneapolis, and in that capacity, I'm the head of the Legislative Department, and as such,
  • 01:52:41
    I am requesting your consideration of a resource request for the Office of City Auditor.
  • 01:52:46
    The City Auditor's Office, as you know, is a separate and independent unit in the Legislative Department that's under the general oversight of our Independent Audit Committee and the direct supervision of the City Auditor.
  • 01:52:58
    In February, Robert Timmerman was appointed City Auditor.
  • 01:53:02
    I'll remind the committee that the City Auditor is the only new position that was created by the voter-approved government structure charter amendment.
  • 01:53:10
    The intent of that provision, as expressed by the charter commission, was to elevate the city auditor as a means of giving the council and its committees independent review and evaluatory services that enhance its capacity to check the administration and conduct meaningful oversight of the city's performance against established goals.
  • 01:53:30
    This is a direct quote taken from the Charter Commission's report entitled Government Structure, Form and Function, a Proposal for a Legislative Council and Executive Mayoral Model for the City of Minneapolis.
  • 01:53:41
    During his recruitment and his onboarding, Mr. Timmerman has shared with Council and with the Audit Committee his vision for the Auditor's Office.
  • 01:53:48
    It's a vision that expands on the existing audit and assurance functions that have been the core of the Auditor's Office over the past many years.
  • 01:53:55
    that expanded vision includes bringing in-house capacity and expertise for programmatic reviews and evaluations.
  • 01:54:03
    This would complement the core audit functions by assessing the effectiveness and efficiency of enterprise operations to validate if departments are achieving established goals and objectives.
  • 01:54:14
    It would ensure accountability for service delivery and the efficient use of resources, and it would increase capacity to provide recommendations for improvement.
  • 01:54:23
    In short, this proposed expansion to the Auditor's Office would provide that independent check on the Administration's performance for the Council, for the Independent Audit Committee, and most importantly, for the public.
  • 01:54:36
    Building on the last presentation, you identified several Council priorities that have been discussed at length.
  • 01:54:42
    Some of those included fiscal accountability, performance efficiency and effectiveness, transparency, and good governance.
  • 01:54:49
    I would submit that this proposal hits all of those priorities.
  • 01:54:53
    For reference, the model that's being proposed is one that does exist at the State Legislative Auditor's Office.
  • 01:54:59
    So this isn't something completely new that hasn't been tested.
  • 01:55:02
    The State Legislative Auditor is tasked with conducting evaluations to determine the degree to which state programs and activities are accomplishing their goals and utilizing government resources efficiently.
  • 01:55:14
    So you can see by this example how this would enhance the functions of our City Auditor's Office in a similar way.
  • 01:55:20
    and these are functions that have a natural affinity with the core work of the auditor's office under the city charter which means it is a proper function of the authority vested by charter in the independent office of city auditor and I believe it's important to note this given recent discussions about what is and what is not appropriate to be placed under the auditor's office.
  • 01:55:41
    Mr. Timmerman and I have both had discussions about his vision for this new program review and evaluation division in with the city attorney
  • 01:55:48
    and the City Attorney has concurred that these envisioned functions are in fact within the charter defined jurisdiction of the City Auditor.
  • 01:55:55
    Council leadership supports that vision for the Auditor's Office and directed me to work with the administration to find means of some initial mid-year investments so that we can begin to achieve some results in the current year.
  • 01:56:07
    Recently, this committee received a presentation on existing vacancies across the enterprise.
  • 01:56:13
    These are positions that are vacant for any number of reasons.
  • 01:56:16
    Our goal was to identify a limited number of existing but vacant positions that might be transferred to the auditor's office to enable the creation of this new division for program review and evaluation.
  • 01:56:27
    In considering which vacant positions might be used, we set the following parameters.
  • 01:56:33
    First, no sworn officer positions in the police department were to be considered.
  • 01:56:38
    This reflects the fact that there is a charter-imposed minimum number of sworn positions that must be maintained by the administration in our police department, and this is also a key factor in the settlement agreement with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights.
  • 01:56:51
    Second, the positions considered had to have been vacant for at least a minimum of 12 months or longer.
  • 01:56:58
    This was to reflect the premise that a position that had been vacant for at least a full year likely was not going to present as significant an impact on the day-to-day operations of a department in terms of its personnel.
  • 01:57:09
    We recognize that many departments use vacant positions for operational purposes, including the legislative department.
  • 01:57:18
    Third, in respect for those departments, we focused only on lower level vacant positions and we deliberately avoided any vacant positions that were at the supervisory, management, or director level.
  • 01:57:30
    This was our best effort to further minimize disruptions to the administration to the greatest extent possible.
  • 01:57:36
    and fourth we looked for positions that are financed through the general fund in order to secure an apples to apples transfer.
  • 01:57:43
    So by choosing existing vacant positions at lower levels we attempted to minimize the disruption of this proposed resource reallocation.
  • 01:57:51
    By doing so we've attempted to provide a budget neutral option that carries forward on an ongoing basis to accommodate the fiscal challenges that the mayor and administration have shared will be confronting the city in the short term.
  • 01:58:04
    I want to thank my team, especially our Director of Administration, Destiny Zhang, for the work to bring this proposal forward.
  • 01:58:10
    It is not an easy task to take from one department in order to build up another.
  • 01:58:15
    That challenge is compounded during tough budget times.
  • 01:58:19
    Despite this, we are confronted with the challenge of pursuing a new vision for the Auditor's Office.
  • 01:58:23
    and I will restate that this investment aims to improve performance monitoring and evaluation, accountability, and transparency across all enterprise operations.
  • 01:58:33
    It's truly an investment in good governance and effective and efficient operations, and I will remind the committee the Auditor is the only independent and objective evaluatory arm of the entire city government, charged with monitoring and evaluating and reporting publicly on how the city is performing, whether it is doing well and where it can improve.
  • 01:58:53
    This transfer would invest in this critical office and its core functions.
  • 01:58:58
    With that context, Madam Chair, I'd like to invite our auditor, Mr. Timmerman, up to share just a bit more about the details of his vision for this new division.
  • 01:59:06
    And after he's completed his remarks, of course, we're happy to respond to questions that the committee might have.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 01:59:12
    Thank you.
  • 01:59:13
    Next, we'll welcome our city auditor, Robert Timmerman, to continue this presentation.
• • Robert TimmermanCity Auditor
  • 01:59:21
    Thank you.
  • 01:59:22
    Thank you, Vice President Chug Tye and Budget Committee members.
  • 01:59:24
    I'm sorry if I say the same thing that Clerk Carl said because we wrote these separately and I think I heard a lot of the the same arguments that I have for the vision of this office.
  • 01:59:39
    I'm City Auditor Robert Timmerman and I appreciate this opportunity to outline my vision for the Office of City Auditor.
  • 01:59:45
    The investments you deliberate today will benefit the city and protect my office's duty to provide independent and objective oversight of city operations.
  • 01:59:56
    If you recall, when Minneapolis' government structure was reorganized through a voter approved charter amendment in 2021, just one position was created.
  • 02:00:04
    The city auditor.
  • 02:00:06
    Along with this came a requisite responsibility of the City Auditor, Audit Committee, and City Council to effectively fund the oversight functions of my office.
  • 02:00:18
    As Clerk Carl mentioned, the Office of City Auditor is the only independent and objective office to provide city leadership with assurance and advisory audit services and report publicly on the city's compliance and performance.
  • 02:00:32
    Recently, we discussed with you the importance of protecting the office's independence and objectivity, and now we must transition into how the Office of the City Auditor can best provide assurance and advisory services.
  • 02:00:46
    The City Auditor is a role of great importance to this organization and residents of Minneapolis, and I'm honored to be in this position.
  • 02:00:55
    When most people think of audit, they think of financial oversight.
  • 02:00:59
    While financial oversight is an important component of the work we do, internal audit has evolved over the years.
  • 02:01:07
    And it includes now performance auditing, which could be considered the primary function of my office.
  • 02:01:14
    On an annual basis, we perform a risk assessment to evaluate organizational risks to the city.
  • 02:01:20
    This assessment considers real and perceived risks across all administrative and legislative departments,
  • 02:01:26
    as well as the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board.
  • 02:01:30
    We developed this enterprise wide risk assessment collaboratively with input from department heads and executive leaders to inform our risk-based annual audit plan.
  • 02:01:41
    This year we presented 29 topics to the Audit Committee and we have six auditors.
  • 02:01:49
    My vision is to ensure we have the staffing complement and competency to perform these audits, but to also offer advisory services, which is a key function of a chief audit executive's position.
  • 02:02:04
    Advisory services come in many shapes and sizes, and I will quickly list six examples to give you a sense of that variety.
  • 02:02:13
    One, we assess contract compliance and we educate departments on risk to the city.
  • 02:02:20
    For example, our advisory review of a contract with Helix Health and Housing Services that we presented just this morning to the Audit Committee identified over $175,000 in unallowable overpayments.
  • 02:02:36
    Two,
  • 02:02:37
    we triage fraud, waste, abuse, and other wrongdoing complaints and investigate those that fall within our purview.
  • 02:02:47
    Three, we collaborate with prosecuting agencies when indicators of fraud have been identified.
  • 02:02:54
    Four, we develop informal and formal recommendations as well as trainings related to the city's enterprise risk management structure.
  • 02:03:04
    Five, we develop training for the Audit Committee and City Council to highlight professional auditing standards, independence, and available services.
  • 02:03:14
    And six, we consider, and if resources allow, we accept and perform after action reviews.
  • 02:03:23
    These after action reviews look for deficiencies in MPD's response to highly sensitive instances of violence in our community.
  • 02:03:33
    All of these examples are advisory services that we've provided in the first three months that I've been in this role.
  • 02:03:43
    These advisory services currently reduce our capacity to concentrate efforts on our risk-based annual audit plan.
  • 02:03:50
    As I've mentioned to several of you, I never want to say no just because we have limited resources.
  • 02:03:57
    Audits' role is significantly important in all organizations, but especially in a municipal government our size
  • 02:04:04
    with such variety of services and risks.
  • 02:04:08
    With an updated structure, we will continue to perform risk-based audits in our internal audit division under the leadership of Director Pudyo.
  • 02:04:17
    We will expand our offering and more realistically, better manage our existing demand for services by creating a special review and advisory services division.
  • 02:04:27
    This special review and advisory services division will be responsible for creating a parallel annual audit plan that considers legislative interest in individual programs.
  • 02:04:40
    This work is analogous to the program evaluation work performed by the state's Office of the Legislative Auditor.
  • 02:04:48
    As mentioned, this division will focus on program evaluations, as well as community safety audits, fraud, waste, and abuse investigations, special reviews including after-action reviews, and other advisory service requests that come from the administration and the City Council throughout the year.
  • 02:05:07
    These services will be conducted with the same level of rigor as the work performed in our internal audit division.
  • 02:05:13
    This realignment will ensure that the Office of City Auditor continues to provide meaningful insights into government performance while adhering to best practices in public sector auditing.
  • 02:05:26
    I will quickly transition to a few slides just to visually demonstrate this right sizing of the office.
  • 02:05:35
    Grab the mouse.
  • 02:05:39
    All right, as I mentioned, the approved charter amendment provided for just one position, recognizing the importance of it.
  • 02:05:48
    The city charter, in tandem with city code, has provided me a duty to plan, direct, organize, and supervise the office, and hire staff to carry out the required duties of the office.
  • 02:06:05
    City Code also prescribes a duty to the City Council to provide for staffing and other resources needed for the effective performance of the city auditor's work.
  • 02:06:18
    Here's a representation of what the new division will look like, Special Reviews and Advisory Services.
  • 02:06:24
    As I mentioned, it will focus on these items.
  • 02:06:27
    And these services will be conducted with the same level of independence and rigor as our other audits that you've come
  • 02:06:36
    Now, requests for program evaluations, as I mentioned, will be reviewed and selected by the Audit Committee on an annual basis.
  • 02:06:50
    So we will poll City Council members, we will poll Audit Committee members, and then we will strategically select a handful of program evaluations to perform throughout the year.
  • 02:07:02
    Alright, getting into the positions needed to meet the demand of the office.
  • 02:07:07
    We are looking this year in 2025 to add four positions, two of which are internal auditors to or higher, and that would be positions in the new division.
  • 02:07:20
    A quality assurance and training manager.
  • 02:07:22
    This is a position that helps us meet requirements of audit standards.
  • 02:07:28
    Currently the IIA as well as the GAO audit standards require certain functions of a quality review of our own work and we don't currently have anybody functionally to do this work.
  • 02:07:42
    And also an administrative assistant to help with some of the administration of the office.
  • 02:07:49
    Moving into 2026, we'll be back probably in a couple weeks talking about the remaining positions.
  • 02:07:56
    That is the director of the new division as well as a lead for that division which we need to create.
  • 02:08:04
    There's currently no classification for an internal auditor for.
  • 02:08:08
    but that is a position I am working on creating and then finally the code allows for a deputy city auditor which is something that once these positions are in place we will need that administrative support to help prop up the divisions.
  • 02:08:26
    So this investment demonstrates a commitment to the core purpose of internal audit, which is to provide the City Council and administration with independent risk base and objective assurance, advice, insight, and foresight.
  • 02:08:42
    Getting into the dollars and cents of the positions, again, on this screen, this is going to be broken up with two of these positions for 2025, one of them for 2026.
  • 02:08:54
    They are based off of I believe step one This has been iterative because we've looked at step one.
  • 02:09:03
    We've looked at mid-range But roughly the estimate is a hundred and twenty nine thousand seven hundred ninety seven more than anything we need the FTE for continuing in perpetuity with these positions and then in 2026 we will be looking for the third and
  • 02:09:23
    As I mentioned, we need the Quality Assurance and Training Manager.
  • 02:09:26
    This will allow us to meet Institute of Internal Audit and GAO standards.
  • 02:09:32
    And this is coming in at about $121,570.
  • 02:09:36
    Again, this is step one for FTE.
  • 02:09:42
    and then for this year the last position is the Administrative Assistant.
  • 02:09:46
    This is necessary based on the significant and confidential support that's needed.
  • 02:09:52
    We are scheduling many sensitive meetings at the highest level of the organization.
  • 02:09:57
    We have an increasing demand with confidential meetings outside of the organization.
  • 02:10:03
    It's to provide administrative support in preparing reports, presentations, as you can imagine, or if you
  • 02:10:11
    have two and a half hours and want to watch the audit committee meeting from this morning.
  • 02:10:14
    There's a lot that needs to be prepared for those meetings.
  • 02:10:18
    And then also assisting in project planning, documentation, and record keeping.
  • 02:10:26
    Moving into next year, it would be filling the role of the director for the new division.
  • 02:10:31
    This will be dollars that we put together for the budget proposal for 2026.
  • 02:10:37
    And the same would be true for the deputy city auditor.
  • 02:10:43
    Alright, so I do want to recognize that the details in making this investment do impact other departments and I am grateful for Council's leadership in considering this.
  • 02:10:57
    I do believe that from the conversations I've had with you individually, each of you want to see an investment in audit and have a
  • 02:11:06
    and understanding of what oversight in a tone at the top of a control environment looks like.
  • 02:11:13
    So I do think that this investment demonstrates that tone at the top and that is something when, if you do, again, go back two and a half hours this morning, take a look at agenda item number five or six and we talk about enterprise risk management.
  • 02:11:31
    and one of the things that is really important in enterprise risk management structure and in governance structure is tone at the top.
  • 02:11:39
    So I just want to mention that considering this to meet the current demands does demonstrate a really strong control environment.
  • 02:11:48
    So I want to mention that but also stand for any questions that you may have and Clerk Carl is on hand as well if you have any questions as is Ms. John.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 02:11:59
    Thank you both for your presentation.
  • 02:12:04
    Colleagues, are there any questions related to this presentation, either for the City Clerk or the City Auditor?
  • 02:12:11
    I'll recognize Councilmember Cashman.
• • Michael Cashman
  • 02:12:14
    Thank you Madam Chair.
  • 02:12:16
    Thank you for the presentation and for outlining the two year vision and fulfilling the duties of the charter as well as making, you know, staffing up in the audit department and I'm wondering if either one of you, either Clerk Carla or Mr. Timmerman can explain where the office support specialist and training and quality manager fit into that vision or if they're not in the audit department.
• • Robert TimmermanCity Auditor
  • 02:12:38
    So the office support specialist and quality manager would both report directly to me and so they would be administrative.
  • 02:12:52
    to an extent, but again the quality position is required.
  • 02:12:57
    I can't say the position is required.
  • 02:12:59
    The work that that position does is required that we currently aren't doing.
  • 02:13:04
    And then the four positions would be what's in the new division.
• • Michael Cashman
  • 02:13:11
    Okay, thank you.
  • 02:13:12
    And can you explain where the policy research and oversight staff transitions are at right now in the context of this change?
• • Casey CarlCity Clerk
  • 02:13:26
    Madam Chair, Council Member Cashman, the policy research oversight and evaluation teams as you know were moved by council from the auditor to the clerk's office and as mentioned at that time we are undergoing an evaluation right now led by our new chief assistant City Clerk Kelly Giesler to look at how those two teams perform their duties, their functions that were transferred into us and what we think will be the new vision in aligning with how those
  • 02:13:55
    to support council and council committees and their legislative policy making and oversight functions.
  • 02:14:03
    So a plan for that transition and merger yet to be announced or shared with council, but certainly already underway.
• • Michael Cashman
  • 02:14:09
    Okay, thank you for that update.
  • 02:14:11
    I'll just note on that topic and I know we're coming to another topic after this which is about
  • 02:14:16
    budget contingency availability and analysis.
  • 02:14:20
    So it's really important for me that the council has a budget analyst of some type so that we can make decisions such as addressing needs in our community that arise halfway through the year and be able to access different contingency funds and make those changes as well.
  • 02:14:36
    So how do you see that role being fulfilled in this restructure?
• • Casey CarlCity Clerk
  • 02:14:40
    Through the Chair, Council Member Cashman, thank you for the opportunity to say we've heard loud and clear from Council members that a top priority to come out of this merger of those two divisions in the Clerk's Office is a dedicated budgetary fiscal analysis capacity to support Council, particularly in its role as the Budget Committee.
  • 02:15:00
    And so it is a top priority of ours as we look at how we realign the existing
  • 02:15:06
    functions and personnel in that division to secure dedicated resources that have that type of expertise to support council.
• • Michael Cashman
  • 02:15:14
    Okay thanks and if I might just make one more comment.
  • 02:15:17
    A little unrelated from this conversation but also a priority for me is this communications role that was budgeted for and I say this because we've done so many press conferences this year and last year and done a lot of media relations that our policy staff have had to organize themselves without support from
  • 02:15:37
    the city's communications department and media relations staff and so I think it's important for council to be able to do that as well as to correct misinformation in the media and do that work of helping our residents stay educated on the work of the city.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 02:15:54
    Thank you.
• • Michael Cashman
  • 02:15:55
    Thanks.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 02:15:56
    Noted.
  • 02:15:59
    Council Member, I'm not sure if this part of your question was addressed directly, but Mr.
  • 02:16:05
    Clerk, if you'll just come back briefly.
  • 02:16:08
    Right now, today, as you're working on completing an evaluation of the two divisions that were moved by council action to the Office of the City Clerk,
  • 02:16:19
    The day-to-day management supervision of those two divisions is not happening in the Office of City Auditor.
  • 02:16:30
    It is happening in the Office of City Clerk currently.
• • Casey CarlCity Clerk
  • 02:16:34
    Madam Chair, that's correct.
  • 02:16:35
    The Chief Assistant City Clerk supervises both of those divisions directly, so those have been moved out of the City Auditor's Office.
  • 02:16:42
    Excellent, yeah.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 02:16:43
    Awesome.
  • 02:16:45
    Not seeing any further discussion, but I'll hold, maybe going once, going twice, three times.
  • 02:16:53
    Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on this item?
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 02:17:03
    Councilmember Payne?
• • Andrea Jenkins
  • 02:17:05
    Aye.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 02:17:06
    Lonsley?
• • Andrea Jenkins
  • 02:17:07
    Aye.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 02:17:08
    Rainville is absent.
  • 02:17:10
    Vitor?
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 02:17:10
    No.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 02:17:12
    Ellison is absent.
  • 02:17:14
    Osman is absent.
  • 02:17:15
    Cashman?
  • 02:17:16
    Aye.
  • 02:17:18
    Jenkins is absent.
  • 02:17:19
    Chavez?
• • Jason Chavez
  • 02:17:20
    Aye.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 02:17:22
    Chaudry?
  • 02:17:23
    Aye.
  • 02:17:25
    Palmesano?
• • Linea Palmisano
  • 02:17:26
    No.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 02:17:27
    Vyshirkowski?
  • 02:17:28
    Aye.
  • 02:17:30
    There are seven ayes and two nays.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 02:17:34
    That item carries and now we'll move to our and we'll send this item forward to Thursday's council meeting for final action.
  • 02:17:44
    Now we'll move to our final item.
  • 02:17:46
    I understand there isn't a formal action for us to consider or approve here today but
  • 02:17:54
    Mr. President, I'll recognize you to just give some context as to why you brought this item forward today.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 02:18:04
    Thank you, Madam Vice President.
  • 02:18:05
    Yeah, there were some questions over the weekend.
  • 02:18:07
    The mayor had announced an investment in contingency funds for our street lighting program and it was a question I had of whether or not that would require three
  • 02:18:21
    for allocating contingency.
  • 02:18:25
    It's not clear to me what the basis of that is and so if I don't know that we have administrative staff here that can answer this question but I think I'd like us to have a better understanding of what this process is that the mayor is announcing.
  • 02:18:40
    The use of contingency funds unilaterally without council approval and whether or not there's a policy on the books that allows for that
  • 02:18:49
    should it be allowed and what are going to be the consequences of making a million dollars of investments outside of the budget process and I don't know if there's actually anybody here that can speak to that or if anybody on the dais has any further knowledge.
  • 02:19:06
    Oh, it looks like we have some staff here.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 02:19:09
    Yeah, I see that we have the CFO here, so we'll welcome you up, Madam CFO, and I think the question is, can you speak to where contingency resources are held in our city and policies that guide the use of contingency, and then we'll go to the city attorney to talk to us about what the charter says about authorizing the use of unplanned expenditures
  • 02:19:39
    and the use of contingency.
  • 02:19:41
    So we'll start with you, Madam CFO.
• • Dushani Dai
  • 02:19:44
    Chair Chuk Tai, my name is Dushani Dai.
  • 02:19:46
    I'm the CFO for the city.
  • 02:19:49
    I believe you're referring to the press conference the mayor had regarding use of the contingency funds for street light repair.
  • 02:19:58
    So there is no contingency fund.
  • 02:20:01
    There is a contingency account that's within the general fund.
  • 02:20:08
    Finance Policy 5.1 requires the city to budget 1% of our general fund budget in a contingency account for unplanned use of the funds, expenditures.
  • 02:20:25
    Primarily, it's Public Works that use the contingency funding.
  • 02:20:31
    It's not really a transfer from contingency account to the Public Works Department.
  • 02:20:37
    it's really at the end of the year it's a way to balance our general fund so for example if we have a heavy snow year there might be extra potholes that need to be repaired and the Public Works Department will just overspend their pothole repair budget or snow clearing or buying salt
  • 02:20:59
    so there was a need identified to repair street lighting so the advice or recommendation that finance gave to public works is to go over their street lighting repair budget they may or may not need it depending on the rate of spend by year end so if they do go over budget at year end we look at their overall public works budget to see if they stayed within their overall public works budget if it doesn't
  • 02:21:29
    then the finance department just balances the general fund when we close out the books at year end.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 02:21:37
    So what's the consequence of those overages on future budgets?
  • 02:21:43
    I mean, there's a hole somewhere that needs to be filled, correct?
• • Dushani Dai
  • 02:21:47
    So if it's for a planned expenditure like street repair or street light repair, for example, it's a planned expenditure, but we don't know how much we're going to spend for weather-related incidents.
  • 02:22:04
    So for street light repairs, I think the theft of copper wires, I think that was unexpected, or the rate of theft was unexpected, I should say.
  • 02:22:15
    So it's really hard to plan for that in a regular budget process, so that's why we have contingencies.
  • 02:22:22
    And I should say the contingencies available for any other department that for whatever reason goes over budget for unplanned expenditures.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 02:22:33
    So then would this result in an increase of a property tax levy by a million dollars in the next budget year?
• • Dushani Dai
  • 02:22:40
    No.
  • 02:22:41
    No, it does not because the 1% is required by our finance policies to be budgeted within the appropriations.
  • 02:22:48
    So when the City Council adopts the budget at year end, there's an account that's called the contingency as part of the adopted budget, which is 1% of our overall general fund.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 02:23:03
    I recall we wanted to make an investment in an unplanned shutting down of a homeless shelter and we needed to secure 10 votes in that scenario.
  • 02:23:16
    How is this different?
• • Dushani Dai
  • 02:23:18
    This is different because the street light repair is a program that the city currently has with the budget.
  • 02:23:26
    Pothole repair is also a line item within the Public Works budget.
  • 02:23:33
    Shutting down an encampment, it may be part of a department budget, but I'm not familiar with that process.
  • 02:23:40
    But usually it's for a department that has an existing program that goes over budget.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 02:23:46
    So, you know, I'm just looking at a million dollars.
  • 02:23:49
    It's a significant amount of money.
  • 02:23:51
    Is there guardrails or parameters on when you would actually need a council approval to go over budget in these cases?
  • 02:23:59
    Is it over, you know, a certain percentage of the budgeted amount?
  • 02:24:03
    Is it an absolute dollar amount of the budgeted amount?
  • 02:24:05
    Or is there no instance where a council action would be required in these scenarios?
• • Dushani Dai
  • 02:24:09
    If the Public Works Department uses the entire contingency, which is 1% of the general fund budget, and they need more than that, then there would be a need for council action.
  • 02:24:23
    We would need to dip into the fund balance.
  • 02:24:25
    Fund balance is not appropriated, contingency is appropriated.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 02:24:30
    Do you have a sense of what the percentage is in this scenario?
• • Dushani Dai
  • 02:24:35
    It's 1% of the general fund, so it would be $6 million.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 02:24:40
    of the public works general fund allocation?
• • Dushani Dai
  • 02:24:44
    No, that's the contingency account is six million dollars for the general fund.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 02:24:52
    So that's shared across all departments?
  • 02:24:53
    All departments, yes.
  • 02:24:56
    Should it be department specific from a control perspective?
• • Dushani Dai
  • 02:24:59
    No, no, it should not be because it's a safeguard for the general fund so we do not have to shut down operations of the
  • 02:25:07
    the city for any unplanned expenditures that are already part of the budget process.
  • 02:25:15
    So overtime would be another example.
  • 02:25:17
    I mean, the departments are responsible for managing within their overtime budget, but if there's an incident where we need to set up incident command system and we need to pay police officers or emergency management to hold an emergency operation system and we have to pay overtime,
  • 02:25:37
    that would be automatically absorbed into the general fund.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 02:25:42
    And then do we have clean reporting in OpenGov that's indicating when we're getting close to that $6 million cutoff point?
• • Dushani Dai
  • 02:25:51
    So as I said, contingency is not used.
  • 02:25:55
    It's a way to balance the budget at year end.
  • 02:25:58
    So when we close the books, if a department is over budget, the contingency is like a safeguard to make sure that the
  • 02:26:06
    general fund budget doesn't go over budget.
  • 02:26:09
    It's not dedicated to any department specifically.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 02:26:13
    So we may use a million dollars to do street light repair but we may end up over budget and overtime for the police department and at some point if we're not tracking that wouldn't we be at risk of going over that one percent contingency?
• • Dushani Dai
  • 02:26:26
    Oh absolutely, yeah that's why we do the quarterly reporting and we come to council with our quarterly
• • Elliott Payne
  • 02:26:31
    Budget status reports, so Yeah, you would know if we're going over budget in the general fund at that time So I guess that's my question if in the quarterly report, which is a point-in-time Retrospective look if we're over that 1% spending we would have violated our policy by then.
  • 02:26:51
    I
  • 02:26:51
    It feels like Council is kind of out of the loop of this entire process.
  • 02:26:56
    I'm trying to understand what are the controls in place to make sure that there's some transparency and accountability to make sure that we don't accidentally go over our allocated 1% contingency and that we have some sort of corrective action if that is the case.
• • Dushani Dai
  • 02:27:10
    Absolutely.
  • 02:27:11
    Council Member Payne, the quarterly reports, they do have a projection, so it's a snapshot in time, but they do have a projection for year end.
  • 02:27:23
    So in this case, we will monitor the streetlight repair budget for Public Works, and if it looks like they're going over budget or we can estimate what that overage might be, we will be monitoring that usage
  • 02:27:39
    to make sure that we don't go over budget in the finance department of the $6 million.
  • 02:27:45
    I should also note that the $1 million is an estimate.
  • 02:27:50
    Public Works has done some work to make that recommendation, but I'm not sure if the rate of spend will be exactly $1 million by year-end.
  • 02:28:02
    It could be less, it could be a little bit over.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 02:28:06
    Okay, that was all my questions.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 02:28:09
    Thank you.
  • 02:28:09
    I see that we have a few council members in queue but just just noting here that you know the the 1% of the general fund that we keep in our in our contingency account is is one that that requires authorization of the council to use and this was you know this is something that has been discussed actually several times throughout my almost three and a half years on on the council but has come up
  • 02:28:38
    just in the last year a couple of times.
  • 02:28:41
    And specifically, I'll note that the last year, I think, when we were discussing
  • 02:28:57
    I can't even remember exactly when, oh, agate, and the use of contingency to prevent 130 shelter beds from permanently closing in downtown Minneapolis.
  • 02:29:19
    I pulled up the email chain because I wanted to make sure that I had not forgotten or made up this back and forth with the city attorney, but the city attorney was
  • 02:29:35
    very clearly states here that any use of contingency which inherently is an unplanned expense otherwise it is not an appropriate use of contingency in the first place requires a three-fourths vote of the council by charter which is ten members of this body have to vote to authorize a use of contingency
  • 02:30:02
    and contingency is not we came up with this new idea and we want to fund it it is we could not have seen this coming and so now we need to use we need your authorization to use this money for this thing that we could not have expected for the last three years we've known about copper wire thefts in it as it relates to street lights like right before the budget
  • 02:30:24
    back when, I think it was our first year, my first year on the council, back when the current COO was the Public Works Director, she sent us this long email detailing all the things that Public Works was doing to address copper wire thefts as it related to street lights and street light repair.
  • 02:30:45
    So I guess I just would
  • 02:30:52
    would challenge that there is never really an appropriate use of contingency without council approval.
  • 02:31:03
    I see, I'm gonna just go to the queue, I apologize.
  • 02:31:08
    Council Member Chavez, then Cashman, then Vice Chair Koski.
• • Jason Chavez
  • 02:31:11
    Thank you Council Vice President Chuck Tai.
  • 02:31:14
    I do support, you know, making sure that we can get more of these street lights fixed across the city of Minneapolis.
  • 02:31:22
    That obviously means more funding to make sure that we address this issue that is impacting many of our residents across the city.
  • 02:31:27
    And at the same time, this conversation is becoming a little difficult because somehow we want to use this funding for housing, which is a human right, which is an emergency which is impacting our city residents, somehow
  • 02:31:39
    in this body.
  • 02:31:39
    It became so controversial that we had to find a different pathway.
  • 02:31:43
    But now somehow here through executive action without a vote of the City Council, money is just moving.
  • 02:31:48
    A million dollars is just moving.
  • 02:31:50
    That's confusing.
  • 02:31:50
    So I'd like a memo.
  • 02:31:52
    I'd like a memo from a city attorney's office to see how that is even possible.
  • 02:31:56
    Why is it that when we want to move funding for homelessness, it required a three-fourths vote on the City Council, but now when the Mayor sees an issue that we've known we've been having lights out for years in the City of Minneapolis, for years, this should have been dealt with a long time ago, we only thought we could just move like that.
  • 02:32:15
    That's, I don't know how that happens.
  • 02:32:19
    I'd like to get a memo on that.
  • 02:32:21
    I'd like to know what the guardrails are.
  • 02:32:23
    I'd like to see us diving deeper into our financial policies to figure out if there's something in there that is allowing for this to happen.
  • 02:32:30
    Because if you can move a million dollars just like that, what else can you move a million dollars for?
  • 02:32:34
    And then I'd like a report on how we have used a contingency fund since 2017 till now.
  • 02:32:42
    So if our clerks can please help me write that down.
  • 02:32:45
    Since 2017, how have you used a contingency fund?
  • 02:32:48
    And I'd like a report back on that.
  • 02:32:50
    Thank you.
• • Dushani Dai
  • 02:32:52
    Chair Chuktai, may I address one of the statements that was made.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 02:32:58
    Which one?
• • Dushani Dai
  • 02:32:59
    No funds will be moved to Public Works.
  • 02:33:02
    So I just want to make- Contingency dollars are still moving.
  • 02:33:05
    They're not moving.
  • 02:33:06
    Were they being used?
  • 02:33:10
    So I just want to clarify.
  • 02:33:11
    So we're not moving funds out of the contingency account into Public Works, right?
  • 02:33:19
    So there is no transfer of funds.
  • 02:33:22
    So, in the Agate example, Councilmember Chavez, we would have had to move funds out of the contingency because it would have been, you know, going into a contract that we would need to move funds out of that would have taken Council action.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 02:33:39
    Isn't that what the public community, what the press conference was, which was use city channels to communicate we're using a million dollars of contingency funding for streetlight repair when there's no, are you calling dibs on a million dollars?
• • Dushani Dai
  • 02:33:52
    Like is that what happened?
  • 02:33:53
    So I was not at the press conference so I can't speak to what was said there but there will not be movement of funds out of the contingency account into public works.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 02:34:03
    I appreciate it.
  • 02:34:04
    I am sorry.
  • 02:34:04
    I know you weren't at the press conference.
  • 02:34:05
    I see the Director of Public Works, Tim Sexton, sitting in the back.
  • 02:34:08
    Can you come and tell us what's going on?
  • 02:34:12
    I know for sure there was a press conference late last week in which
  • 02:34:19
    You and the Mayor and several others communicated to the press and to the public using city channels that you would be using one million dollars of contingency money to figure out the street light repair problem.
  • 02:34:30
    Is that not what's happening?
  • 02:34:32
    That's not the CFO's understanding of what's happening.
• • Tim Sexton
  • 02:34:36
    So Council Vice President Tim Sexton, Public Works Director.
  • 02:34:40
    Just to clarify one minor details, I was not actually present at the press conference, but the fact is that the communication was meant to say that yes, we were going to be spending, re-upping our efforts for streetlight repairs and spending you know as much as a million dollars to make those repairs throughout the city.
  • 02:34:59
    I will say that the
  • 02:35:01
    you know the street light issue in many ways is similar I think to the snow plowing where yes it has been an issue for a number of years at the same time the degree and the severity of those impacts have been really hard to forecast and so the thought was that this really is a public safety issue
  • 02:35:18
    and so I believe the intent was to reinforce that need.
  • 02:35:22
    As the CFO mentioned, our understanding is that this is really about the potential to do an overage in that account and I'm not exactly sure what the term of art should be or is, but whether it's contingency, overage or something else,
  • 02:35:45
    We have right now about 17 miles of streetlights that are currently out throughout the city.
  • 02:35:52
    The cost to repair those is approximately a million dollars and this was meant to reinforce the intent to make those repairs this year.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 02:36:01
    Great.
  • 02:36:02
    I mean, I'm just now I'm looking at the press release right now and it says today.
  • 02:36:07
    Mayor Frey and City of Minneapolis leaders announced they will direct, that's the word direct, 1 million dollars from the city's contingency funds to address street light outages caused by copper wire theft.
  • 02:36:21
    Just, those were the words that were used.
  • 02:36:29
    Councilmember Chavez, any further questions?
• • Jason Chavez
  • 02:36:32
    Yes, I was finishing off the last part, which also said, with $1 million from our contingency fund, we're ramping up repairs on the 450 damaged street lights, and it was in the press release as well.
  • 02:36:41
    So continuing to use the word contingency fund that we are moving, the mayor is moving, using $1 million from contingency fund.
  • 02:36:49
    Again, it does not make sense when we're told that we have to take a 10 votes, three-fourth majority on the City Council to use contingency funding and somehow it's not needed here.
  • 02:36:58
    I will be clear, I support the use
  • 02:37:01
    of funding for these street lights.
  • 02:37:03
    It is important to keep the lights on for our residents in the City of Minneapolis, but we need to make sure that we are explaining these policies equitably and making sure we're hiring, making sure we have every elected official held to the same regard.
  • 02:37:16
    Thank you.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 02:37:19
    Thank you, Councilmember Cashman.
• • Michael Cashman
  • 02:37:21
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
  • 02:37:22
    I just wanted to ask a couple of questions about this as the chair of climate infrastructure.
  • 02:37:27
    No Vice Chair Koski and I have been talking about streetlight outages with the director for a long time and so I'm really glad that a solution was found here.
  • 02:37:36
    It sounds like
  • 02:37:39
    the department is overspending their budget and it will come out at the end of the year so what I'm asking the CFO would be how does the council request the department to overspend their budget for an issue because for example you know Director Sexton and I talked a couple of weeks ago Public Works has no more money where can we find the money for the streetlight budget and now we know that we can just overspend and so how can the council request overspending for things like this in the future
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 02:38:13
    to the City Attorney.
  • 02:38:14
    Mr. Attorney, if you would please address that.
• • SPEAKER_14
  • 02:38:18
    Council Member Kasher, I may have to get back to you on part of that piece.
  • 02:38:22
    I think one distinction here, and this is based on my understanding, is that Public Works is currently using its existing fiscal year 2025 budget, so there's not a transfer of contingency funds.
  • 02:38:37
    Certainly the council can transfer contingency funds using the supermajority that we talked about, the three-quarters vote.
  • 02:38:47
    Other than that, I think I would have to get back to you on the request to overspend a budget.
• • Michael Cashman
  • 02:38:55
    Yeah, because we have had a really hard time accessing contingency funds for various things in the last year, and while I'm really glad that the funding is being used for this, it is a need that we're all experiencing, it was a unilateral decision to overspend, which is not good governance.
  • 02:39:13
    and we as the oversight body are tasked with figuring out how do these decisions get made in transparent ways and so if the mayor has the ability to ask a department to overspend on their budget to fill a need all of a sudden that we all know is there, then how can the council have the same authority and process to do the same?
• • SPEAKER_14
  • 02:39:35
    One thing I did think about is of course the council can amend the budget without a supermajority if it wanted to direct more money to a department for something specific.
• • Michael Cashman
  • 02:39:49
    Yes, and I was told by the director that there was clear directive for no mid-year budget amendments and that that was off the table, which is why we didn't go down that route.
  • 02:40:00
    So I think the mayor then, you know,
  • 02:40:02
    created a mid-year budget amendment of his own accord without our approval.
  • 02:40:07
    And so I would like to know, Councilmember Chavez's memo is how in the future the council could request the department to overspend would be another question.
  • 02:40:17
    And then at what point will we learn the extent of that overspending?
  • 02:40:23
    And this might be a question for you, CFO Dai, because I know last year at the end of the year when we did departmental budget presentations, many departments said they overspent.
  • 02:40:31
    I remember the city assessor's office overspent by a million dollars because they did salary, wage increases, and so how are we going to be able to track how many departments are overspending by a million and when we're getting to that $6 million threshold?
• • Dushani Dai
  • 02:40:48
    Hi Councilmember Cashman.
  • 02:40:50
    So our next quarterly report will be the second quarterly report.
  • 02:40:56
    probably coming to Budget Committee sometime in September, August-September timeline.
  • 02:41:04
    Then you can see the rate of spend for each of the departments, the control that we'll be presenting for all of the departments, and then you may focus on the general fund to see if the overall spend is going over the
• • Michael Cashman
  • 02:41:19
    All right.
  • 02:41:31
    At what point will that be in Q3, will be our last one, or will it be near the end of the year?
• • Dushani Dai
  • 02:41:37
    So Councilmember Chuktai, Councilmember Cashman, the quarterly reports are done second quarter, third quarter, and fourth quarter.
  • 02:41:48
    And the fourth quarter report is presented sometime in March the following year.
  • 02:41:53
    So you can see the year-end balances at that time once the books are closed.
• • Michael Cashman
  • 02:42:01
    I'd just like to say overspending is not necessarily a bad thing if it indicates that there's a need that needed to be met.
  • 02:42:08
    I think underspending is also something to take note of so that we can adjust the budget at the end of the year accordingly to fit the reality, what was actually needed and what was spent.
  • 02:42:19
    And I just don't think there should be a double standard in terms of mid-year budget amendments.
  • 02:42:24
    We should all have the ability to make those changes and be flexible with our budgets throughout the year.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 02:42:29
    Thank you.
  • 02:42:30
    So we've got the Planning Commission meeting this afternoon as well, so we need to wrap up here in the next couple of minutes.
  • 02:42:38
    What I can do is make sure to send an email to all committee members and make sure to note any questions you may have.
  • 02:42:49
    which will then go to the clerks to be included in this response memo from the city attorney and the CFO and the director of public works to respond to and if needed we can assess additional things we need to do here
  • 02:43:04
    to track this issue and anything from perhaps it looks like us holding a hearing to really assess what happened here and what types of misuses of contingency which I think is concerning to all of us can be used in the future.
  • 02:43:26
    With that we've concluded all business to come before the committee today and without objection we stand adjourned.
  • 02:43:31
    Thank you all.