Budget Committee - September 17, 2025   9/17/2025

Roll Call

• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:01:40
    Good morning, everyone.
  • 00:01:42
    We are calling the St Paul City Council Finance and Budget Committee to order.
  • 00:01:46
    Today we've got two really large presentations from two of our largest departments.
  • 00:01:51
    And we are starting with one of the best, of course, with an overview of our St Paul Police Department proposed budget.
  • 00:01:58
    Our presenter today is our one and only Chief Axel Henry.
  • 00:02:02
    Would you like to take it away?
  • 00:02:04
    The floor is yours.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:02:05
    thank you so much council vice president and council members so I believe you guys can all see the presentation you have obviously today we're here for the budget presentation we appreciate it I recognize that I do speak fast sometimes so if there's something that I'm shooting over that you have a question for please obviously don't hesitate to ask our agenda is listed there we have the executive summary obviously all the other issues listed I'm just gonna go ahead and get right back into it if that's okay
  • 00:02:35
    So, Executive Summary.
  • 00:02:38
    I think everyone here knows that our priorities have been to reduce gun violence and violent crime as a whole.
  • 00:02:42
    A lot of good news on that front.
  • 00:02:45
    Every major felony crime category in the city is dropping and it is dropping in consecutive years.
  • 00:02:52
    Very happy there.
  • 00:02:52
    Recruitment, development,
  • 00:02:54
    and the City Council.
  • 00:03:15
    for the Workforce that's positive as a place to work as well as a place our city to work for.
  • 00:03:21
    And then increasing community collaborations.
  • 00:03:24
    So as a budget overall look, just a reminder, 92.5% of our entire budget is salaries, wages, and so obviously as we start to go into when we start to see cuts or reductions or areas where we need to kind of shrink things, that is
  • 00:03:43
    of the
  • 00:04:01
    we are bringing in new funding to pay for that but that's of course going right out the door and you're going to see all this reflected in later slides also there's been a shift in the city where some of the funding from the UAZI grant which the emergency management group has is shifting some of those dollars somewhere else and then they're using some of that to supplant some of the wages that we have here does that make sense to folks or is that okay to move on?
  • 00:04:27
    This next slide is probably one of the most important, and I know it encapsulates a lot of the conversations that the Council wants to know more about.
  • 00:04:37
    2025 General Fund overtime is down 30%.
  • 00:04:40
    I know we have a scheduled meeting to do a just focus on overtime with you folks next week.
  • 00:04:46
    But year to date for the first six months, we would have liked to have given you a right up till today number, but with the recent DSI that the city experienced,
  • 00:04:55
    that obviously we're still trying
  • 00:05:12
    Those grants, which we had in the previous years, are not being renewed for next year, so that's impacting us a little bit.
  • 00:05:20
    I would like to just take a quick moment to recognize our community engagement folks and our recruiting folks.
  • 00:05:27
    Some of you know this, but previous, when the I.C.
  • 00:05:30
    Polk program started two years ago, they were allocated around the state.
  • 00:05:33
    This is state funding.
  • 00:05:35
    And we were allotted two slots.
  • 00:05:37
    we had more interested applicants that wanted to be IC pull candidates for St. Paul than any other place in the state and they in essence increased doubled our number of slots and then added even an additional one later on.
  • 00:05:47
    I think that's a reflection of the city and the police department and how we operate here that people said if I was going to do a scholarship program like that I would like to do it here in St. Paul so I think that's very very impressive.
  • 00:05:59
    Academy funding
  • 00:06:00
    not renewed for 2026.
  • 00:06:02
    Obviously, we're going to need to keep doing that, but that's just an issue that we want to flag.
  • 00:06:06
    Downtown safety investments, funding for body-worn cameras and cloud-based storage.
  • 00:06:11
    Again, in 2025, we saw those things added into the budget.
  • 00:06:17
    There are things that we are paying for either way, so that's just a reflection of that.
  • 00:06:22
    and that's 1.3 million added there.
  • 00:06:25
    CCTV for the city remains unfunded.
  • 00:06:28
    That is a program that historically back 10-15 years ago was run through the police department.
  • 00:06:33
    That's something the city has decided to try to push out into more of a like a ONS function, the Office of Neighborhood Safety, but again that's something that just simply isn't funded.
  • 00:06:43
    also we're seeing the added forensic scientist positions that were in there in relation to our prevention intervention to be clear I think this is a really good area to show how the budget sometimes works we initially asked for two slots that was reduced to one
  • 00:07:00
    That doesn't mean that we're adding a new person.
  • 00:07:03
    There isn't a new employee you can go meet.
  • 00:07:05
    That one slot that we added, that person, the grant that we had for them initially is gone.
  • 00:07:10
    So they are now coming off of the grant dollars and just going into that.
  • 00:07:13
    So it isn't like you can go down and meet a new person.
  • 00:07:15
    It's just they're being funded by a different source.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:07:17
    And then- And then I'm going to just pause you really quickly.
  • 00:07:20
    Why don't you finish your role and then Council President Aker has a question.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:07:24
    okay and then the final thing is I know there's been a lot of questions about this recently about PEO positions PEO positions are probably a really good way to illustrate some of the issues with our budget and our staffing so to put it in context we have enough work for probably 24 PEOs we would have an afternoon and a day shift we do not have that many the budget does not allow for that money but we have that work
  • 00:07:46
    we were at 12 at one point in the last year that number was reduced to 10 with three of it and then in 2025 it stayed at 10 with three of those positions being funded by public works who we support in many facets with our parking enforcement.
  • 00:08:02
    In 2026 that number will be reduced to eight three of which will still be funded by public works
  • 00:08:07
    and then the remainder will be in our budget.
  • 00:08:11
    We would like to see those obviously stay up but it's understandable that when we're doing budget crunches we have to.
  • 00:08:16
    The PEO position I think also illustrates the challenges that we face in that.
  • 00:08:21
    Parking enforcement is super important for the city and they do all kinds of different functions but if we can't get someone to check on a parking violation
  • 00:08:29
    Committee.
  • 00:08:46
    when we don't have those employees we just simply don't make that as big a priority we don't have that luxury or I would argue we should never try to make that a luxury when it comes to our sworn staff doing work other places in the country have done that and their crime rates reflect that so just as kind of an exemplar for other issues within the budget I bring that up
  • 00:09:05
    I appreciate that and I think I'll just offer two two offerings of maybe expoundment I don't know what even that means but I see poet program was one where if you weren't sort of like
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:09:34
    not formally educated and maybe it was like a major that would potentially apply to go into law enforcement.
  • 00:09:42
    Let's say you're maybe art history, maybe that does apply to law enforcement.
  • 00:09:46
    It helps you kind of train and get sort of the credentials to be able to go into the academy and have the correct credentials.
  • 00:09:53
    So I found that to be very interesting and again we're not receiving that and to lift up the fact that this application was open across the state and St Paul was the one that not only got applicants but also got to receive additional funding that was supposed to be dispersed to the state because we had such an interest in that program.
  • 00:10:08
    and the other one, and then we'll go to Council President, is the PEOs for Public Works help us when we have street cleaning or trees that we need to take down and we need to reserve parking around that area.
  • 00:10:19
    That's what that is funding, so thank you so much.
  • 00:10:22
    And then we'll go to Council President for the question.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 00:10:25
    Chief, a couple of things.
  • 00:10:27
    First of all, thanks for highlighting the parking enforcement officers and the need for 24 and the fact that we were at 12, we're at 10 now, and we're proposed to be at 8 next year.
  • 00:10:37
    I think it's of course hard to dispute the fact that parking enforcement falls below things like homicide investigation or violent crime response.
  • 00:10:46
    and at the same time it is one of those basic services that I think we're continuing to hear from people just feels like we are and not just your department but as a city not fulfilling our contract with folks on when you when you call because there's a car illegally parked in front of your driveway or in your residential permit parking area that you're paying for and you don't see a response to that that's a big deal so
  • 00:11:07
    and that also I think to my colleagues we've been talking about what is actually the 42 positions that are being reduced in this year's budget, how many of them are true vacancies in terms of not being filled at all, how many of them are proposed to become vacant and not be back filled.
  • 00:11:20
    I think with the PEOs this is an example where parking enforcement officers are a great pipeline to your department which means that
  • 00:11:26
    they're frequently moving out of those positions into the department hopefully, which means those are positions that are about to become vacant and will not be back filled.
  • 00:11:36
    So I think this points to the importance that we've been talking about of really understanding what's happening with those 42 positions and who they are.
  • 00:11:42
    And I will be the first to say that I think we need more parking enforcement officers, not less.
  • 00:11:47
    Ten is not enough and eight is certainly not enough.
  • 00:11:49
    My questions though were, first of all, academy funding not renewing in 2026, and you said we'll figure that out.
  • 00:11:55
    How are we figuring?
  • 00:11:56
    and the City Council.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:12:10
    Yeah, so I'll start with the last one first.
  • 00:12:12
    We're seeing this, of course, not just in the downtown area, but also areas like Dalen University and other places in the city where we're seeing these collection points that are creating issues for the city.
  • 00:12:21
    So we have made that a focus and a primary issue for us.
  • 00:12:25
    And so what individual groups are doing is pushing that to a priority point and basically focusing a lot of attention on it.
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    People are shifting hours.
  • 00:12:32
    of the City of
  • 00:12:55
    is forbidden by
  • 00:13:12
    Obviously the goal would be that we do something in prevention.
  • 00:13:15
    No one wants to arrest our way out of the opioid crisis.
  • 00:13:18
    But we also know in the short term, one of the ways that we can compel people to seek the treatment they're going to get is to arrest them for the lower level crimes that they're committing and then say, hey, you have a choice.
  • 00:13:28
    You can face the consequences of that crime.
  • 00:13:29
    Or maybe we can alter you to alternative number two, which is you go to drug court and you basically go seek treatment and then the charges just go away.
  • 00:13:37
    So we're pushing those up to make it a focus point.
  • 00:13:40
    When it comes to the issues that aren't funded, we know that we have to figure out ways to do it.
  • 00:13:44
    And this happens in people's personal lives as much as it happens in other places, is that your water heater goes out.
  • 00:13:51
    you got to find the money.
  • 00:13:53
    We are every group probably in the city but I know for us in the police department for sure that happens every year but we also know there is no part of the money that we get for the savings of having the emptiness we use to fund the academy
  • 00:14:08
    to do the work as though to
  • 00:14:28
    we are we are trying to offset that and make that happen and we're just you know it's one of those every year there's a challenge in the budget for something that's unfunded or something that they just haven't they haven't we have we don't have a source for but to be frank there are things that our community would expect out of their police department uh that we just simply have to provide we have to to fund so that's a big long way of saying we're just gonna have to be we're gonna be digging the couch cushions we're gonna be doing everything we can to figure out ways to fund those things just as a follow-up
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 00:14:55
    thanks chair so just to be super clear chief because I think we all agree that having academies is critical to hiring those officers and then getting out of our shortage which saves us on overtime so we want to be investing there so with the current budget will you be able to have two academies in 26 or that's uncertain we will find a way all right we have those posted we have intended we have people in the pipeline and we are recruiting we will have those academies one way or the other
• • Cheniqua Johnson
  • 00:15:24
    Chair Johnson, thank you so much and thank you, Chief, for being here in relation to the academies.
  • 00:15:33
    I know on Monday when we were able to kind of see just some of the pre-PowerPoint perks, I did ask about just the follow-ups on the academies for this year.
  • 00:15:42
    Could you share some of the things that you're seeing from the increased academy that's supposed to happen in the fall and then also the numbers you're seeing from the academies as we've had this year?
  • 00:15:53
    I'm glad to hear that you'll try to make a way for the 2026 academies.
  • 00:15:58
    I think I echoed the same sentiments as the council president as well as we should be really being able to point a light at the fact that we need to continue to recruit new officers here in St. Paul.
  • 00:16:11
    And so I just wanted to know how the 2025 academies are going and with the addition which you anticipate in the fall.
  • 00:16:17
    And then just kind of what your projection numbers might be for next year if you have them.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:16:22
    Councilmember I really appreciate that question I think it lies at the heart of what we're dealing with so I know that one of the things we've been asked about and I'm just gonna kind of jump ahead to one of my notes here in 2022 which was the at the end of that year is when I became the chief we netted negative 18 as some of us have discussed already we are in the middle of a retirement boom so we are basically seeing two things happening simultaneously that are negatively impacting law enforcement all over the country
  • 00:16:48
    a lot of
  • 00:17:08
    that left, or 53 people that left and 35 people retired.
  • 00:17:13
    In 23, that number dropped to negative one.
  • 00:17:15
    Part of that was that a number of folks that had left came back, so that was something that worked out very much to our benefit.
  • 00:17:22
    In 2024, we netted negative 12, so with all the people we hired, we still lost a certain amount of folks.
  • 00:17:28
    I'm happy to report that this year, year to date, and this is without
  • 00:17:32
    our fall academy which we're hopeful will be 30 or maybe a little more than that we're at positive 16.
  • 00:17:39
    So we're you know a lot of these things as you can imagine you don't just flip on a light switch change a program or fund something and then five minutes later you have the result of that there are things that take 12 to 24 months to realize so those efforts are starting to bear fruit.
  • 00:17:53
    In relation to that we are looking for probably in the next
  • 00:17:56
    3 months, we are looking at about 90 to 100 employees who will be eligible to retire.
  • 00:18:04
    So what that means is that they've worked here for long enough to retire mathematically for themselves, but they're at the age of 55 or older.
  • 00:18:11
    Now keep in mind I'm 56.
  • 00:18:13
    so people don't automatically leave at 55 but for most folks that's typically when they get there and especially if you're hired in your early 20s by the time you get to 55 you've got plus 30 years in that's that's the norm so we although we're not allowed to ask an employee when they intend to leave
  • 00:18:29
    Most of them do tell us and they say hey at the end of January I'm going and those types of things.
  • 00:18:34
    We haven't asked all these employees but for age and eligibility we're at around 90 or 100 in the next three years so I think that just helps to illustrate the point that I'm making that hiring and recruiting folks to come here has to continue to be you know a real priority and our foot has to stay on the gas pedal there.
• • Cheniqua Johnson
  • 00:18:52
    Thank you.
• • Nelsie Yang
  • 00:18:54
    Thank you for your presentation today.
  • 00:19:00
    I just have a quick question about the first bullet point about us being down 30% for overtime now compared to 2024.
  • 00:19:09
    and it sounds like some of the information you shared earlier is really what has helped lead to this really positive result we're seeing here.
  • 00:19:16
    Would you be able to say a bit more about other things that you are seeing as huge takeaways that we're doing differently now that helped get us the results here?
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:19:26
    Councilmember, thank you for the question.
  • 00:19:28
    Yeah, you know, one of the things that we figured out is, and I really credit the leadership that you see sitting in this room and there's a bunch of folks that aren't here that I would credit for this, is people have become very, very good at finding efficiency.
  • 00:19:40
    So I'll give you an example.
  • 00:19:41
    We have what we consider to be minimum.
  • 00:19:43
    So that's a bare minimum amount of officers that have to work at a certain time of day in a certain part of the city.
  • 00:19:49
    So on the afternoon shifts,
  • 00:19:51
    that's 12 officers in all three districts so what a lot of these leaders have done is they've gone out and figured out that on maybe on a Tuesday there are 14 people working in the Western District there are 10 people working in the Eastern District and there are 12 people working in the Central District so if you add those three districts up we're at the 36 we need to be at
  • 00:20:10
    but in the past sometimes they would hire back the two in that district and what they're doing now is they're borrowing officers from other places the other thing is of course is there are some things that we just aren't getting to as quickly and those types of things and again those minimums are never the ideal because there are nights where there are days where they're working where that number is never going to be enough and we're going to be going call to call to call but they're looking for real ways to figure that out the other thing is is that our a lot of our folks
  • 00:20:37
    will have the ability to shift up hours will do that that's not something by contract we can compel people to do but we have employees that recognize listen this is a city mission we're trying to help the city through the through those budgets or anywhere that we can find a way to say there's a way to do that cheaper we are trying to do that and anywhere we can do that we can say could we figure out a way to do that maybe at the end of a shift and tack on an hour of overtime instead of pulling someone in
  • 00:21:04
    for the City Council.
  • 00:21:24
    City Council.
  • 00:21:39
    is that the right way to continue doing it?
  • 00:21:41
    Is there a better way?
  • 00:21:42
    A lot of times we find out there's a really good reason why we do it that way and you don't want to change it but in some areas they found ways that said we can do this for and have the same outcome or as close to the outcome as acceptable and reduce funds and that's where that's happening and I would love to tell you that that's me but that's really the group that you see sitting here and a bunch of folks that are.
• • Nelsie Yang
  • 00:22:01
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:22:06
    I'll head on to the next one updates on recent initiatives.
  • 00:22:11
    So here we have a number of things 2022 the law enforcement career path academy that's another one of our onboarding systems I really appreciate what was said from the council in regards to the PEO program if there were a gold standard for the best pathway program it is the PEO program
  • 00:22:27
    because not only are those the most linear and parallel tracks to becoming a police officer, they are also performing a super important function for the city while they're employed there.
  • 00:22:38
    So those things are there.
  • 00:22:40
    Non-fatal shooting unit in 2024.
  • 00:22:42
    I would be remiss if I didn't say, as we're going to talk about full-time employee numbers at the end of this slide, we are very good when we reduce numbers.
  • 00:22:50
    So we note that.
  • 00:22:51
    One of the lines you'll hear me say in community quite often was that our
  • 00:22:54
    and the
  • 00:23:09
    for the City of St. Paul, and the City of St. Paul, and the City of St. Paul, and the City of St. Paul, and the City of St. Paul, and the City of St. Paul, and the City of St. Paul, and
  • 00:23:39
    today.
  • 00:23:58
    but that unit has nine sworn employees and one professional staff civilian employee and those aren't reflected in our employee staffing numbers and I'm happy to report it's a good news bad news thing the bad news is those numbers aren't reflected in our staffing numbers and our budget but they are been so effective
  • 00:24:17
    that I don't think any future chief or I know I wouldn't would ever get rid of or disband that group.
  • 00:24:21
    I just wanted to throw that in there.
  • 00:24:23
    And then we have the icy poet thing within there.
  • 00:24:26
    Every possible career track enhancement that we can get subsidized or encouraged for in our city we are looking at.
  • 00:24:32
    We want to make sure that we get every dollar that's out there in the public sphere to help us support and recruit people here.
  • 00:24:38
    we're looking at everything from possibly even hosting our own skills type program which for years we were forbidden from doing and we've talked about actually trying to host those ourselves so in essence the the person who's 30 years old who has a history degree who says I want to be a police officer we aren't well we couldn't do that tomorrow but we are working towards a day where we could say we'll hire you right now and bring you on and after a nine-month period you'll have the college minor you'll be a credit college courses and the skills program and make you eligible to get a peace officer's license
  • 00:25:07
    but we have a ton of programs out there we still see them shrinking but we do know that that model works and it actually is translating to having great wonderful new employees coming in here who have a bunch of really important life experience before they come here and are very very successful.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:25:26
    Next slide.
• • Nelsie Yang
  • 00:25:29
    Thank you.
  • 00:25:30
    I'd like to go back to slide number four.
  • 00:25:33
    I have a question about the CCTV for the city.
  • 00:25:37
    I don't recall this coming up during the budget presentations before, and maybe if it did come up, we probably didn't have a thorough conversation about it.
  • 00:25:45
    Can you clarify, is it that it's not funded at all, or if it is currently funded, what is that amount?
  • 00:25:52
    And if the department received more funding, where would the CCTV be installed?
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:25:59
    So thank you for the question Councilmember.
  • 00:26:02
    So for as far as cameras go we have existing cameras in the city.
  • 00:26:06
    Many of those are coming to the end of their shelf life or to be honest are already past that point and but we are still using them in certain ways.
  • 00:26:14
    We did have a little bit of that one-time public safety money that would allow us to buy a few more of the mobile trailers that you sometimes see out the things that are hauled out there they have wheels on them you put up a
  • 00:26:24
    What the city and most cities our size and bigger are looking at is a much more holistic closed-circuit television system that allows us to be linked up with cameras all over the city and they go into what would be like a one central place that people could sit and watch that that is not funded in a whole way little pieces and parts of it for little cameras for certain parts of the city have been funded but a general over over a larger budget
  • 00:26:53
    is not in that way.
  • 00:27:15
    so little parts of it can be funded and there are little band-aid approaches that we can do but the overall bigger CCTV system as a whole is going to have to be carved out and thought about in a really strategic way if we want to achieve that success.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:27:30
    Thank you, Vice President Kim.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:27:34
    Thank you, Chief.
  • 00:27:36
    With that, so with the Band-Aid approach that we're using on CCTV currently, if we were ten years from now to invest in kind of the entire overhaul that you just described, would that Band-Aid funding, as you described it, kind of contribute to that overall cost or would that then have been completely unnecessary spending once we made that major investment five, ten years from now?
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:28:00
    Council Member, Council Members, I appreciate that question and it's a great question and it's something the City is thinking about.
  • 00:28:05
    It would, what we're doing now would most likely, for the most part, I wouldn't say 100%, but I'd say you're probably safe at 85-90% of that would plug in to the current system so they wouldn't be wasted dollars.
  • 00:28:16
    One of the things that we're working with in partnership with Emergency Management and the Office of Neighborhood Safety is to make sure that
  • 00:28:22
    we're not buying things that once that thing would all plug in they would be they would they wouldn't plug into that system if you want to think about it kind of like that the other thing the city is doing is that we're partnering with our businesses so when they come in and say hey we're thinking about adding cameras to our building we're saying could you please
  • 00:28:40
    use these type of cameras or beyond this type of system so that we could instantly plug into that to create a huge network and we're not suggesting that we should be able to see inside of your building but if you've got cameras on the external side of it facing out into the street we would like a system that we can plug and play into ours so in essence there's a private and public partnership where we can come together and create the infrastructure and camera system that would work best for the city but it wouldn't all fall on the back of the city to provide.
• • Nelsie Yang
  • 00:29:08
    I would like to explore this topic a bit more with you afterwards I'm curious to why I'm interested in learning like you know where we currently have CCTV and you mentioned it would be it would basically take a lot of money to be able to have a citywide CCTV and I'm wanting to learn more about like you know what would that cost and then also what would different versions of that look like of like a CCTV
  • 00:29:39
    I'm just saying this because I think that it's really valuable when I think about crime and violence prevention and there's areas in my ward where I think it would be really valuable to have CCTV, but I don't think we currently have that right now.
  • 00:30:00
    I think that this is definitely a long-term conversation that I would be really interested in having with you all.
  • 00:30:10
    I think it's something that our residents would be really appreciative to.
  • 00:30:14
    So I think that there's definitely a way to be able to find a balance between making sure that we are not getting to a place where our neighborhoods are, all parts of our city are over-policed and people have to be worried about where they're even walking or what neighborhood they're in and feeling like they don't have that sense of privacy, but then also a way in which we can be intentional in utilizing this
  • 00:30:37
    to prevent crime and violence in areas where we already know there's a lot of crime happening.
  • 00:30:42
    And so if you all can share back to the council about what those different breakdowns would be, what it would look like for us to, I don't know, I'm trying to find the words for it.
  • 00:31:00
    and the City Council.
  • 00:31:18
    So that's something I would like to engage in conversation with you more about.
  • 00:31:22
    I don't think that it's necessarily something that needs to be brought before the Council for this budget here.
  • 00:31:29
    But if it's something that you have the capacity to be able to deliver and bring to the Council before the final budget vote, I'd be really interested in looking at that.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:31:40
    Thank you
  • 00:32:03
    has to the city has to decide they want to make a priority and then we obviously have to identify where the funds go as we all know every dollar in the city could be spent a hundred different ways and so that's just it has to be an intentional thing if you're really gonna ever do this in earnest we'll get on to the 2026 proposed reductions if you all have that in front of you so these are obviously
  • 00:32:33
    those pieces that are on there.
  • 00:32:35
    A number of things to highlight again are here on this slide we are reducing our sworn staff by three.
  • 00:32:43
    And then you've also got the vacancy of the two PEO spots that we spoke on there before.
  • 00:32:49
    So those are listing where those FTEs are coming up and that's how that 16.53 number is there.
  • 00:32:54
    So those numbers are all on there.
  • 00:32:56
    Below, our total expense decreases.
  • 00:32:59
    you'll see there's the $815,000 and the $103,000 you also see that $815,000 represented on the upper chart so in essence that's an increase in the amount of money that we anticipate we'll be bringing in for special events in the city that's everything from XL Energy Center to the State Fair
  • 00:33:17
    and of course that money goes right back out so it's a net zero impact on the city's budget but obviously we have to reflect it to show it'll come in here it'll go out there so it zeros itself out that way it doesn't look like we're actually it's a loss or it doesn't look like it's a gain
• • Cheniqua Johnson
  • 00:33:34
    Chair Johnson.
  • 00:33:35
    Thank you, and I really appreciate just kind of having this slide in front of us.
  • 00:33:40
    Could you say a couple more things about just what went into factoring which positions you were going to, the reductions that you were going to propose, or which positions you picked or prioritized maybe over others?
  • 00:33:51
    And I know you hinted at it a little bit earlier, but could you just share what the list that's in front of us?
  • 00:33:55
    I'm assuming clearly some of them are vacant positions but could you share a little bit about what went into factoring?
  • 00:34:03
    These are the ones that I would propose for reductions if I had to.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:34:06
    yeah thank you councilmember for the question so these are the end results of some of these things so there were a multitude of scenarios that were put forth which included much more severe cuts and some of those were conversations with the mayor's office so as we we have conversations about if the number you want us to cut is this big this is what it looks like and then
  • 00:34:28
    you know that shrinks so probably the biggest driving factor here are two which are some of those positions are currently empty that doesn't mean in my opinion that they should remain empty forever but right now they are empty and so you can help contribute to the the reduction or the balancing of the budget by basically writing those positions off
  • 00:34:49
    the other positions that were also empty that weren't sworn were ones where we looked at and said could we live without that job could we put more on the person that does it and would the absence of that employee absolutely kill us it's like the issue with the parking enforcement thing
  • 00:35:06
    of the City Council.
  • 00:35:25
    and the City Council.
  • 00:35:48
    and the
  • 00:36:05
    I think we
• • 00:36:35
    and the City Council.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:36:36
    Yep, we've got a little bit of a tiny line.
  • 00:36:39
    We'll go with, first up we'll do Chair Jost, and then we'll do Chair Bley.
• • Saura Jost
  • 00:36:44
    Thank you, Chair Kim.
  • 00:36:47
    Chief Henry, I have a question.
  • 00:36:48
    I know you have another slide about FTEs, but it's my understanding there are 616 sworn FTEs, and I was wondering how many of those are budgeted out of the general fund.
  • 00:37:01
    I remember last year we had 593, or we've been 2024.
  • 00:37:05
    that were budgeted out of the general fund?
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:37:09
    Yeah, so there is a slide coming up that shows that we were, oops, I just bumped into this.
  • 00:37:14
    The 619 was the number in 2025 that's being reduced to 616 and those three positions as commander, those two officer positions are where you see those removed.
  • 00:37:25
    We had 11 positions, I think, and it'll be on one of these slides coming up, that were pulled off of the grant fund because they were played for by a federal grant that helps report that.
  • 00:37:35
    and then those went back up into the general fund and so wherever we can we are paying for positions with grant funding but that doesn't mean that when that grant funding goes away that those positions go away that's another thing that we work very robustly at is that even if we could let's say an auto theft grant we have investigators that investigate auto thefts already so if an auto grant auto theft grant says we will pay for two of your investigators for two years
  • 00:38:02
    that pulls those positions off the general and puts them onto the grant thing.
  • 00:38:05
    But when that two years runs out and they say you've had your share, we're giving that money to some other department now, they go back on that.
  • 00:38:11
    So in essence you're just switching from where they're paid from.
  • 00:38:15
    Obviously the incentive would be for us, and this is how we approach it, and I know the city looks at it this way too, so all the other departments is, if there's a way to subsidize or scholarship those positions, even if it's for a year or six months,
  • 00:38:27
    take it.
  • 00:38:28
    The good news is that our folks are very good at going out and identifying new grant opportunities and we are getting more and more of those or we get second bites at the apple or a new bite at a new apple because we are very good at reporting back on our grants and of course many of these are through the DOJ and if you create a bad reputation with them they think well the last time we gave them money they were terrible at telling us how they spent it and cooperating with you know empirical research and those types of things
  • 00:38:55
    our folks are very very good at dealing with those things and putting forth that so wherever we can we've kept that spigot on as long as we can.
• • Saura Jost
  • 00:39:03
    Okay, I know the FTE slide is next but it doesn't specifically say how many sworn FTEs are in the general fund it just says how many, unless I'm missing something, it says how many just total FTEs.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:39:18
    I think it's, unfortunately I don't have the exact number.
  • 00:39:22
    Almost all of them are now back in that.
  • 00:39:24
    There are very few grant positions that are there.
  • 00:39:27
    The lion's share of them were 11 that were a part of this COPS program and they are coming off of that grant funding and going back into the general fund.
  • 00:39:35
    They were covered then.
  • 00:39:36
    There might be a few positions that are out there that are subsidized just like the auto theft example that I gave you.
  • 00:39:41
    We don't have that anymore but
  • 00:39:43
    that's an example where sometimes that is funded also there are sometimes partials so you will see not a full FTE but a partial we see that with some of these domestic violence cooperatives we have with SPIP where they will give us 25% of a salary for a person if they are going out and working with an advocate to drive around and check on places a very effective program we have but we can certainly find that number for you and give you the exact right down to it what it is today and what it will be in 2026 barring something else to keep in mind
  • 00:40:11
    our grant application process does not run parallel and succinct with the fiscal year so it would not be unusual for us in May to discover that the DOJ has put out a grant and we think we can we are eligible for those dollars and we could make that program work or that would offset the cost for something we already do a lot of the stuff we're seeing today they want new initiatives so
  • 00:40:35
    and the City Council.
• • Anika Bowie
  • 00:40:56
    I have some questions particularly around the Parking Enforcement Officers and also my next question is going to be voting into the increase for special events.
  • 00:41:15
    One of the things, well I guess not really a question of my comment, especially representing Ward 1 where the Allianz United Field Stadium is.
  • 00:41:24
    We know there's a lot of events.
  • 00:41:26
    I have a lot of neighbors who reach out to my office complaining about not seeing parking enforcement.
  • 00:41:33
    Where there is cars that park for a long period of time.
  • 00:41:39
    Our cars are parked inside of a disability.
  • 00:41:43
    or excuse me, handicap parking.
  • 00:41:46
    So this is something I definitely want to weigh in on, particularly wanting to see more parking enforcement, especially if we're going to be a city that's going to have more events, more concerts, more festivals, all those things that helps generate our economy, but we want to make sure that the residents here aren't compromised.
  • 00:42:06
    with having adequate parking.
  • 00:42:10
    But my question particularly with the parking enforcement officers, I think you mentioned, you said there's four currently right now.
  • 00:42:20
    So are these vacancies of two?
  • 00:42:24
    So what is the, I guess the standard of how many officers, parking enforcement officers that we're supposed to have for our city?
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:42:34
    Thank you for
  • 00:42:57
    and the City Council.
  • 00:43:12
    they're still going out and doing something and they can go out and enforce those things.
  • 00:43:17
    As I said before the number I would probably put us at you know in a perfect world you would we could find work for 30 but to be frank if I was being fiscally responsible and realistic the number would be 24 and that would be that we would have two shifts so we would have one during the normal day hours probably starting around zero seven hundred and we have another one starting in the afternoon and we probably would let the officers themselves and sworn officers deal with parking complaints
  • 00:43:41
    of the City of St. Paul.
  • 00:44:05
    I think you all know this, but when I talk to community members, I always try to remind them that these aren't value statements.
  • 00:44:15
    It doesn't mean that we don't value the work that parking people do or the Chief of Police doesn't think that's super important.
  • 00:44:20
    But we're making assessments across the board and having to make cuts and allocations and put those things into those places.
  • 00:44:29
    For example, with the technology piece that was brought up around CCTV,
  • 00:44:34
    I think the general public hears that we get a grant for, let's say, body-worn cameras.
  • 00:44:38
    What they don't understand is it's like buying your cell phone.
  • 00:44:41
    Buying a phone is the easy part.
  • 00:44:42
    Paying for the coverage and the storage for the next five years is what really costs you the most money.
  • 00:44:47
    And those are the things that we are constantly looking at.
  • 00:44:50
    And unfortunately, on a city budget cycle, we're usually a few years behind when we start something new that isn't built in.
  • 00:44:56
    Just like the CCTV system, you'd have to have employees watching it to have it work.
  • 00:45:01
    and those are the types of things that obviously are going to go into that and we can present when we talk about that.
  • 00:45:06
    But I appreciate your desire for that and your advocacy for more PEOs because you have a friend in that issue.
• • Anika Bowie
  • 00:45:11
    Thank you so much for giving that context.
  • 00:45:14
    The gist of my question, one, I would love to have a follow-up, particularly around a special event.
  • 00:45:20
    One, to actually have it itemized.
  • 00:45:24
    If you could speak a little bit more to how do you project this number of $815,000 for increase of revenue.
  • 00:45:34
    Is that shown up in contracts?
  • 00:45:36
    Is that able to be itemized?
  • 00:45:38
    And are we able to see that on a yearly basis?
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:45:41
    Yes, so that's the budget for it.
  • 00:45:44
    That's based on what we've historically seen and what we anticipate being going forth in the future.
  • 00:45:50
    We've seen an increase in that number because of Yacht Rock and because we went and revisited our arrangement with the Minnesota State Fair.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:46:00
    Yacht Rock is really giggling because now it should be called Yacht Rock.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:46:05
    What's important to remind folks is obviously every event we run in our city is good for the health of the city.
  • 00:46:33
    so that's that's but every event we run in the city is also being subsidized by the city and that all the planning and preparation work that go into that event are not those costs are not visited on to the staffing person the other thing that happens which has created a lot of confusion but i know some of you are aware of this is
  • 00:46:51
    We used to allow something called off-duty here where officers would, in fact Target was run as an off-duty job, Whole Foods was run that way.
  • 00:47:00
    So that business negotiated with an individual and said we'd pay you 60 bucks an hour to have an officer standing here and I'd go get 10 of my friends and we'd cover those shifts.
  • 00:47:10
    The department very wisely went away from that before I was the chief of police.
  • 00:47:13
    I think it was a smart decision and it was something I think needed to happen for years.
  • 00:47:17
    And I give Chief Axtell a lot of credit for actually tackling that problem.
  • 00:47:20
    Well, at the exact same time we experienced COVID.
  • 00:47:23
    So a lot of these community events didn't occur for two years in a row.
  • 00:47:28
    And when they came and turned them back on, they were used to paying the off duty rate, which we no longer allowed.
  • 00:47:34
    So they came in.
  • 00:47:35
    and they heard now you're playing the department overtime rate and there was some sticker shock there because that was probably a 40% or 30% increase not because we were trying to make money on it but because we didn't allow the behavior that we used to allow for those things.
  • 00:47:49
    The other thing to remember with these events is we either
  • 00:47:54
    We either break even with the actual labor on the day of event, we never make money on the other pieces, or we lose money.
  • 00:48:00
    And the reason for that is, if you have ten officers, and we've talked about, done this math before, but you have ten officers working for one hour at ten dollars an hour, that's a hundred bucks.
  • 00:48:09
    We give you, because we anticipate that's what it is, we give you an estimate at a certain step in our contracts to say, here's what your estimate is, it's going to be $100.
  • 00:48:21
    If indeed we get two or three year employees who make less money working it, and so it's $8 an hour of actual wages, your bill that you get is for $80, not $100.
  • 00:48:30
    So you get an estimate that says it's going to cost you $100 for your event, but you actually get a bill for $80.
  • 00:48:35
    if indeed we are we have four events happening simultaneously in the city and we have to force people to work so and they they're like the more veteran more experienced higher paid people or higher ranks and so they're costing fourteen dollars an hour so that means we'd be paying a hundred and forty dollars to our employees you still get the bill for a hundred dollars we absorb that because we need the the event to know that this is the worst case scenario for you and we don't want you to have to pay that higher bill
  • 00:49:02
    and that that changes sometimes not even with the labor but we've had events in the city community events where something occurs three four days before the event or maybe there was a shooting or an issue with one gang going after another gang and then we supplant that event with way more staffing that never gets visited on the organizer either that we just take that up because we figure that's a public safety of you know addition that has to happen does that kind of help with that?
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:49:26
    Yeah, I think when I heard that I thought that was a really, really excellent explanation of those costs and I just really appreciated the transparency for that.
  • 00:49:34
    We're going to go to Council President Aker and then we're going to keep it moving and let the Chief finish through the slides and then we'll hold for questions at the end.
  • 00:49:40
    Council President.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 00:49:41
    Thanks, Chair.
  • 00:49:42
    I'll make it quick.
  • 00:49:43
    Chief, I see here your proposed reductions.
  • 00:49:46
    I have two questions.
  • 00:49:47
    One, two slides from now we see an increase of spending of $2.8 million.
  • 00:49:53
    is there any new spending that is discretionary, that is not just inflation, that is not just salaries?
  • 00:50:00
    Is the department investing in anything new this year?
  • 00:50:02
    One, and second of all, we had a really informative budget community engagement event last night, and one of the things that came up frequently was the city's trend of hiring more and more
  • 00:50:14
    I'm sure now in this moment it's not possible but can you give us a sense as to how we could get information from the department about the trends in terms of hiring those middle management positions over the last say five years and how you thought about those positions versus on the street positions when you considered your vacancy reductions?
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:50:45
    Thank you for
  • 00:51:03
    This is pretty much empirical settled science, that depending on what your span of control is, it should probably be around 8 to 10.
  • 00:51:11
    The more complicated your job is, so if I was supervising brain surgeons, that number should go down, so you're probably at 2 or 3.
  • 00:51:20
    We are way beyond in many aspects of our infrastructure and our hierarchy, outside of our spans of control, they're expanded.
  • 00:51:29
    That's a little bit of a risk, but it's one we're willing to take.
  • 00:51:34
    We ask them to do more, they are doing more, we're able to bring that on.
  • 00:51:38
    Where that of course becomes the most crucial and important is out in the field.
  • 00:51:42
    So we need sergeants out there supervising, following up on things, in fact our policies are written in such a way that we require
  • 00:51:50
    that supervision to show up in real time and be on the spot and have the conversation about what's going there but that's part of why we've looked at restructuring and it's one of the first things I looked at when I was picked as the chief at the end of 2022 is we had a very robust conversation about how are we set up strategically and we actually moved things around so if you were to go back and look at the 2022 organizational chart it looks very very different than it does today and it was part parcel to deal with that very issue
  • 00:52:16
    and the City Council.
  • 00:52:27
    I'll be frank, I'll quote one of our deputy chiefs who knows more about technology than I will ever know.
  • 00:52:34
    We have never purchased technology here other than maybe the body cameras.
  • 00:52:39
    That's been new.
  • 00:52:40
    I mean, we literally are the city who, and this is not a rip on anybody, where we're going out tomorrow and buying an iPhone 2.
  • 00:52:46
    and the City of St Paul.
  • 00:53:09
    and the City Council.
  • 00:53:32
    and the City Council.
  • 00:53:48
    and they just basically said the community needed to understand that because we had no way of plugging those into the back systems and offloading those things, we didn't have to do that with our body camera system.
  • 00:53:57
    In fact, there was no change there because that system can offload and go up to the cloud offline and it didn't matter what happened with the city.
  • 00:54:05
    And those types of things are much more
  • 00:54:08
    Chief, just to follow up
  • 00:54:35
    of the
  • 00:54:55
    This is probably a much bigger oversimplification.
  • 00:54:57
    Someone in there is going to throw something at me.
  • 00:54:59
    But we try to bundle things.
  • 00:55:01
    So if there's a way to get this and this at the same time, then we can get rid of three things.
  • 00:55:04
    We do that.
  • 00:55:05
    And we're always looking to make that possible.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:55:09
    Thank you.
  • 00:55:10
    All right.
  • 00:55:11
    Cruising on through, we got time check.
  • 00:55:13
    We'll say another six or seven minutes, and then space and time for questions.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:55:18
    So we can slide forward.
  • 00:55:20
    I don't, I apologize.
  • 00:55:21
    I think this is slide eight.
  • 00:55:23
    This is budget summary, spending and financing.
  • 00:55:27
    again if you look down just a reminder I know that the salary issue and the contract issue you know that comes up at a different time and you folks are working on that and approving those things but then sometimes I think the city doesn't do a good job of maybe tugging you on the sleeve and saying this is where you're gonna probably see that change you see the overall change from the overall budget down there at 1.97 increase just as a reminder
  • 00:55:52
    of the City of St. Paul.
  • 00:56:04
    Thank you.
  • 00:56:11
    that's at the beginning of the very last year of the contract was the beginning of January 1st of 2026 so and again when ninety two and a half percent of the budget is salaries and the big brunt of that is our sworn staff you can see how that that can become an issue because sometimes you might be looking at one category and not realizing that these things are getting visited over here so I feel like that's just an important thing to call out on that slide historical spending
  • 00:56:37
    to me I look at those as an accounting guy and a numbers guy I look at those and I just think it shows that overall and I'm sure every department in the city looks like this I'd be surprised unless it was someone went from zero to something you would see things different but again the historical spending chart reflects how those increases have come over the last few years
  • 00:57:00
    Here are the FTEs and where we see FTE summary, where those numbers are, where we sit currently as far as the budget positions and those types of things.
  • 00:57:12
    And so that's pretty self-explanatory if with your permission I'll zip on just in the name of saving time.
  • 00:57:18
    Unfilled positions I think was a much more pressing question for all of you.
  • 00:57:25
    what I will say here is the number you see on your screen for unfilled officer positions is 53 that number could literally change today that's a number that that that doesn't it grows and spurts typically because we don't hire one-offs here but we see people someone could come in and hand in their paperwork today and say this is the
  • 00:57:43
    last thing.
  • 00:57:44
    There's an employee on there that is a classmate of mine who is leaving at the beginning of October.
  • 00:57:50
    They're reflected, they're not reflected in that number but I know right now that they're there, that they're there.
  • 00:57:55
    One of the things again that was asked about this in preparation for this meeting was back so I'll reiterate some of the points I made on the the front side is in the next three years we're sitting at about 90 to 100 employees that will be eligible to leave with a full pension and they'll be at the age where they
  • 00:58:09
    we would expect them to go
  • 00:58:29
    that is in no small part to the way we operate our city and it's in no small part to your endorsement and help with us making sure that we can have academies.
  • 00:58:36
    We have finally said we knew that that trend was going to take a couple years to kind of arc out of the dip.
  • 00:58:41
    My hope is that every year that I'm the chief and every year after that when they come in they can say that's a positive number because there's two ways we make that a positive number.
  • 00:58:50
    We can hire more than we lose through attrition and we slow down the attrition rate.
  • 00:58:54
    The good news is 15 years from now
  • 00:58:58
    all the people that we've hired in the last two or three years are going to be right in the middle of their careers and maybe not the next chief but the chief after that is not going to be sitting here having to have this be just as big of a focus as we are today.
  • 00:59:08
    It's just a timing issue it's nothing to say anything bad in fact I would say the brand of this city has made us more immune to the the dips that other places are experiencing.
  • 00:59:18
    We have more officers right now than the city of Minneapolis and they're authorized for a lot more officers than we are so and that's not a knock on them it's just that is that position.
  • 00:59:27
    again revenue trends changes and outlook I think that's pretty self-explanatory again if you look at something today and an hour a week a month from now you think well I got a question on that I hope all you feel free to feel comfortable enough to give me a call we'll gladly do it if I can't answer your question exactly I will make sure one of our staff members does
  • 00:59:48
    And that brings us, look at that, two minutes, down to the last piece, question and discussion.
  • 00:59:54
    Your handout has an appendix in it with a bunch more information.
  • 00:59:58
    Per the instructions we were given, we'll leave that to there.
  • 01:00:01
    But in the last two minutes, I want to make sure that I'm allowing for any additional question, even if it's just that we will follow up with you.
  • 01:00:07
    And I know that someone is taking notes in regards to the question about CCTV.
  • 01:00:11
    And I think there was something else that someone wanted.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 01:00:13
    It's word of strength coming out of the general thought.
  • 01:00:15
    And we've got a question from Drew Dost.
• • Saura Jost
  • 01:00:17
    Yeah.
  • 01:00:18
    I have three quick questions, and you might just have to follow up on them, which is fine.
  • 01:00:22
    So the reason I asked about the sworn FTEs was because I think we had 593 officers that were sworn FTEs out of the general fund from 2024, and so I wanted to be able to compare that, because I think we only actually had 540 officers, which would be a difference of 53, which maybe coincidentally is the same as the number that you just shared.
  • 01:00:44
    And so my question is,
  • 01:00:47
    What is the dollar amount associated with those 53 FTEs?
  • 01:00:51
    And then how many of those do you anticipate filling in 2026?
  • 01:00:57
    That's that you estimate and then my last question is what is the dollar amount associated with the 30% reduction in overtime from 2024?
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 01:01:07
    The dollar amount, Council Member, thank you for the question, the dollar amount is about $650,000.
  • 01:01:12
    It's roughly, we went from, it's in one of the previous slides, but it's from about $2 million, a little more than $2 million down to $1.4.
  • 01:01:20
    So that's about a $600,000 increase.
  • 01:01:23
    That is on, I think, slide, it's one of these slides in here.
  • 01:01:32
    that is on there, but it's about $650,000 I think off the top of my head in big broad terms.
  • 01:01:38
    It's about $2 million last year at that time.
  • 01:01:41
    And again, that's the first six months down to 1.4 this year.
  • 01:01:46
    As far as the cost for the vacant positions, that's a moving target.
  • 01:01:51
    And the reason why that is is it'd be very easy for me to do the math and say this is what a starting brand new officer would make and say we're going to assume those are all, because that's how they're all going to be hired in.
  • 01:01:59
    but as you can see from the reductions that were made to our budget one of those positions is a commander and so a commander's wage is a lot higher than an officer's wage and so it really depends on the positions they're in just like it depends on where you see the numbers in the budget as far as where those things are accounted for because some some of the officer positions are in the general fund others are parked in other places and so and just like we saw
  • 01:02:25
    and the City Council.
  • 01:02:45
    of the
  • 01:03:05
    that we were zero below that number, that cost would be what we have an intra position would be.
  • 01:03:12
    But within the next couple of years that would change because right away that their wage structure starts to change.
• • Saura Jost
  • 01:03:19
    I thought of one other quick comment.
  • 01:03:23
    I guess I just want to just understand the order of magnitude we're talking about.
  • 01:03:27
    53 FTEs, if they were, say, $75,000 to $100,000, we're talking about three to five
  • 01:03:34
    3-6 million dollars potentially.
  • 01:03:37
    and so that's just something I wanted to point out, but I understand that number moves.
  • 01:03:41
    And then, Council President Aker had a question about the increasing cost from 2025 to 2026 as maybe around $2 million.
  • 01:03:52
    But when I looked in the appendix, you have the personnel budget increase and it looked like it was more like $6 million.
  • 01:03:59
    So is it fair to say that your inflationary costs from 2025 to 2026 are about $6 million?
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 01:04:08
    I'd have to take a look.
  • 01:04:09
    If I can get back to you on that question, I just want to make sure I'm not giving you the wrong answer based on that question from the appendix.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 01:04:18
    We'll capture that and make sure you get a follow-up.
  • 01:04:22
    And then I think we'll let Chair Yang have the last question and then we'll move on to our next presentation.
• • Nelsie Yang
  • 01:04:27
    Thank you.
  • 01:04:28
    I was just doing a bit of cross referencing and I do have a question.
  • 01:04:31
    Can you clarify if a community engagement cadet is different from a community engagement specialist?
  • 01:04:37
    Because I see on the 2026 proposed reductions, you are proposing removal of the, it's about seven and a half,
  • 01:04:47
    and the City Council.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 01:05:00
    That's correct.
  • 01:05:00
    So Councilmember, to your question, those are different things.
  • 01:05:04
    Cadet is a part of the Cadet program and so probably the easiest way to visualize that if you've been to a Safe Summer Nights, it's a person in a polo shirt and the khakis, the younger folks that are out running around helping, those are cadets.
  • 01:05:15
    They're on a pathway program to become police officers.
  • 01:05:18
    The specialist is of an actual position within the city.
  • 01:05:21
    that they liaise with other things.
  • 01:05:24
    Part of what's had to happen because of all the cuts and the drastic things that need to happen with this budget is that many unfilled positions are going to remain unfilled.
  • 01:05:34
    And so we try to absorb those in the places that are going to hurt the least.
  • 01:05:37
    Again, when I talk to community members, I always advise them that's not a value proposition.
  • 01:05:41
    It's not saying that I don't value that position.
  • 01:05:43
    We were able to through that one-time funding from the mayor hire so create a new civilian position with our non-fatal shooting unit and that person is in that job that that's a job that never existed here and that's a position that we are the architects of
  • 01:05:58
    it's unlike anything done in the country it's very effective but right now we have them kind of co-working so they got one foot in that unit so in essence the work that would have gone undone by keeping that position on field is actually being picked up by someone else in another position that won't work forever but it is working right now in the temporary sense to get us through that these cuts that are here
• • Nelsie Yang
  • 01:06:18
    Okay, and just a quick follow-up here.
  • 01:06:22
    Upon removal of the seven and a half community engagement cadet positions, how many of those positions would remain?
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 01:06:30
    I will have to check on those figures and I can get back to you with an exact number on that if we noted the question.
  • 01:06:38
    Okay.
  • 01:06:38
    I'll have to check.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 01:06:41
    That sounds great.
  • 01:06:42
    Thank you so much for your time today.
  • 01:06:44
    There was really great questions at the table today, so I appreciate everyone's engagement for this presentation.
  • 01:06:49
    Thank you all to the staff and commander level and district chief level.
  • 01:06:54
    Sorry, I actually don't know everyone's tables here, but thank you so much for participating and supporting your chief.
  • 01:06:59
    And thank you so much for the time today.
  • 01:07:01
    We really appreciate it.
  • 01:07:01
    We've got follow-ups that we'll send to you, and thanks for the great presentation.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 01:07:06
    Council Members, thank you so much.
  • 01:07:07
    And again, let me encourage you that we, our staff is here.
  • 01:07:10
    I'm here to make sure you get your things answered.
  • 01:07:12
    So please never feel like you have to wait to something.
  • 01:07:14
    I get many, I get texts from calls from whatever, and if we can get you squared away or get you the information you want or need, we want to do it.
  • 01:07:20
    So thank you again for the opportunity.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 01:07:22
    Thank you so much.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 01:07:28
    Is it in here?
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 01:07:38
    and the Democratic Party.
  • 01:08:05
    Sorry to your point that that number that price take that you're asking for even conservatively is going to be so expensive It's like over five million dollars
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 01:08:30
    Is Sean here?
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 01:08:46
    yeah it's funny because during the pre-presentation time that we had I don't think I quite understood when I said yeah bring the stencils in
  • 01:09:01
    And to be honest I thought it would be just kind of a photo in the in the presentation book so here we are okay welcome welcome we were moving right along
  • 01:09:19
    Welcome to the chambers.
  • 01:09:20
    We have Director Kershaw.
  • 01:09:23
    We are going to be looking over our, again, one of our top five departments here, Public Works.
  • 01:09:29
    And we are going to work through the presentation.
  • 01:09:34
    We're a little bit behind schedule.
  • 01:09:36
    We'll hold for questions, and certainly if there's a critical point where we're just going to push through the information, we'll do it.
  • 01:09:41
    Our budget officer, of course, will collect the questions that any council members that may have that we will request follow up for, so Camude can help take notes.
  • 01:09:50
    And then we'll take it away.
  • 01:09:56
    So welcome to the chambers, Director Kershaw, the floor is yours.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:10:00
    I'm the Director of Public Works.
  • 01:10:06
    I'm excited to talk with you about our budget today.
  • 01:10:11
    It's easier to do budgets when there's lots of money available.
  • 01:10:15
    It's harder and in some ways more rewarding when it's difficult and I don't say that to minimize the gravity of the decisions you have to make in that.
  • 01:10:23
    I'm excited to talk about the work we have and my assumption here is please interrupt me at any point if you have any questions.
  • 01:10:31
    I did not intend for the props that I've brought to be in the way of the police department's presentation so I apologize for that.
  • 01:10:39
    But I'm happy to talk through
  • 01:10:42
    Our budget proposal, I've got my great team here who will be available if there are follow-up questions that I can't answer.
  • 01:10:49
    This budget and the presentation, all of it was really a team effort with my senior leadership team, Shannon from OFS, the budget director, and our division managers.
  • 01:11:01
    The cover sheet's important.
  • 01:11:02
    You're going to hear a lot about paint today.
  • 01:11:04
    So I'm just going to give you a heads up.
  • 01:11:06
    This is Robert and Manuel.
  • 01:11:07
    Jeremy was the supervisor in the background out last Friday painting a really important crosswalk on 11th and Wabasha.
  • 01:11:16
    And this is, I'll come back to it.
  • 01:11:17
    You'll notice that they are in traffic.
  • 01:11:21
    They are doing the work with the machine that's there.
  • 01:11:24
    And it's a really important safety feature.
  • 01:11:26
    And I'll come back to that theme.
  • 01:11:28
    But that's Robert and Manuel.
  • 01:11:31
    What I'll do here is talk at a high level about our vision, mission and values.
  • 01:11:35
    Those values will be reflected in the budget that we're proposing and some of the tough choices we made.
  • 01:11:41
    I'll go through the 2025 budget updates because that's really important and some of those things relate to proposals that we have for 2026.
  • 01:11:51
    In the 2026 proposal I just want to highlight that there will be additional time, there will be a hearing specifically for garbage, solid waste and recycling rates and for sewer rates and so I'm happy to answer your questions there and preview it.
  • 01:12:06
    We'll also have a chance to come back for that.
  • 01:12:09
    And we'll talk about FTE summaries and obviously through the whole presentation we'll talk about, answer your questions.
  • 01:12:18
    So I'm really proud, we're really proud of this vision, mission and values because we see it playing out in the work we do.
  • 01:12:26
    Part of what I love about Public Works is we work in, you know, sewage and salt and steel and asphalt and concrete, but we make all of these things on this slide possible in that work.
  • 01:12:38
    So our vision is a thriving, prosperous and connected St Paul for all.
  • 01:12:42
    Mission is Public Works designs, builds and maintains safe, sustainable and equitable public infrastructure and services to meet the needs of St Paul for today and into the future.
  • 01:12:53
    That shows up in our budget decisions, it shows up in how we try and match sources and uses.
  • 01:12:58
    There's a lot that you'll see repeated from that mission in the work.
  • 01:13:03
    Values, equity, safety, service, sustainability, and trust.
  • 01:13:08
    Equity shows up.
  • 01:13:09
    I'll talk about examples here and they'll come up.
  • 01:13:12
    I know I am acutely aware of what our residents in well-off neighborhoods think about our work or the needs.
  • 01:13:20
    That isn't always true for neighborhoods that may face barriers by language or income.
  • 01:13:24
    And so part of what we're doing in equity is it fits into how we review our capital projects.
  • 01:13:29
    We'll talk about those in the future.
  • 01:13:31
    But making sure that we're using data, it's not just requests that come in to evaluate safety in our work externally.
  • 01:13:40
    Safety we're going to talk about a lot.
  • 01:13:42
    Service, I can't say enough about what a phenomenal job or team has done in service during the cyber attack.
  • 01:13:50
    our Solid Waste and Recycling team was receiving over a thousand calls a day at the peak of that your staff and council offices were helping in that we had people from across departments and they got through that that service we knew that people had a lot of questions and maintaining that is really important sustainability shows up I think mostly in this budget and trying to accommodate new modes of transportation it always shows up in our work on storm sewers and trust I was responding to a post
  • 01:14:20
    on Facebook today that asked about have we filled the pothole on West 7th yet and I was happy to talk about the collapse and said it's not really a pothole it's more like a mine collapse and here's what we've done and here's what's going to open and rather than taking the bait usually just answering the question works really well.
  • 01:14:38
    This gives you a scope of our work.
  • 01:14:41
    I'm going to highlight 1800 lane miles of streets, 1200 miles of sidewalks, 330 miles of alleys, at least 230 miles of bike lanes.
  • 01:14:52
    We're going to come back to that.
  • 01:14:54
    Many of you have seen this slide before.
  • 01:14:57
    This year we've got about $94 million in capital projects taking place.
  • 01:15:02
    that is probably about 50% more than last year.
  • 01:15:05
    It will go up next year as we're ramping up our capital projects through the sales tax common set program.
  • 01:15:12
    It's critical to us and what relates to this operating discussion is we have to be able to maintain that capital as we build it.
  • 01:15:20
    Council President Naikert knows how long it took us to come up with a sustainable solution for the Jackson Street vegetation and we built this really great facility and we didn't necessarily build in the funds to maintain that so as we do this phenomenal capital program we have to innovate and respond to how we do things differently and I'll highlight at the end 4,200 gallons of paint applied annually so imagine
  • 01:15:48
    you know, Abbott Paint on Grand 4,200 of those gallons in the work we do currently and we're not even keeping up with what we have.
  • 01:15:58
    This slide, there's nothing really new here, but it gives you a sense of how we divide up our work, because I'll talk about how it's funded.
  • 01:16:04
    Maintenance and operations includes plowing, snow clearing, patching, paving, street sweeping.
  • 01:16:10
    We're going to focus mostly today on those maintenance and operation funds.
  • 01:16:14
    Solid waste and recycling, I'll talk a little bit about that.
  • 01:16:17
    But we're now providing service to 7,400 residents in St Paul with the new service that started April 1 out of a total of $74,000.
  • 01:16:27
    and there are 131 households on recycling.
  • 01:16:30
    We issue about 12,000 permits in our right-of-way office.
  • 01:16:35
    That was enormously impacted by the cyber attack we're switching over as we speak to Pauli.
  • 01:16:42
    So I used this slide last year for those of you who are here.
  • 01:16:45
    It's important to understand sort of where the funding goes for these services.
  • 01:16:51
    So if you think back to the last page when I talked about that we maintain and operate, or you think about our mission, the maintaining and operating funds really only come from two sources.
  • 01:17:02
    And that's the general fund, which is most of what we're talking about today, and state MSA.
  • 01:17:07
    State MSA is kind of fixed.
  • 01:17:09
    We have a small amount that we can vary in that.
  • 01:17:12
    But most of the funds that we talked about for plowing, snow clearing, patching, paving, street sweeping, street lighting, all come from the general fund.
  • 01:17:20
    And so what you'll see in this effort is a way to provide that as efficiently and effectively as we can, given the challenges you face.
  • 01:17:29
    Happy to come back to that.
  • 01:17:31
    Some things to highlight for this year.
  • 01:17:35
    One is that we received $425,000 in one-time funds for new snow.
  • 01:17:39
    I'll talk about that at the end.
  • 01:17:42
    We received more funding for traffic signs, pavement markings, and the next best bike safety improvements.
  • 01:17:49
    We created and funded a new development review coordinator and had additional street sweeping and services downtown.
  • 01:17:57
    major program expansions which we've talked about on solid waste and recycling and our capital programs we've changed the accounting that these are now coming out of an enterprise funds raises the 94 million again and that we had a big increase in right-of-way funds in 2025 that's working really really well in terms of funding our vegetation management program and funding the work we need with parking enforcement officers police was here before us and that partnership has been really helpful
  • 01:18:27
    We'll talk later about some of the funding and staffing adjustments with American Rescue Plan and so forth.
  • 01:18:36
    One of the things I, yeah, a question?
  • 01:18:40
    No, thanks.
• • 01:18:40
    Okay.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:18:41
    I want to highlight some accomplishments because we keep these KPIs and we track them internally.
  • 01:18:48
    We are up 3.2%, so about 38%, a third of our employees live in St Paul.
  • 01:18:53
    In our solid waste and recycling group, that percentage is 62%.
  • 01:18:58
    So these employees are proud of the fact that they're cleaning up their hometown, where they live.
  • 01:19:04
    employee retention is about 91.8 in this market keeping the good people we have is incredibly important we're on track to receive uh to track waste uh diversion and reduction goals employee safety we have last year we hired a new traffic safe or new safety manager that's focusing on improving internal work and i'm going to talk about that so we're keeping our employees safe
  • 01:19:29
    Community Safety.
  • 01:19:29
    I'm going to come back to this a lot, but the Council previously proposed and approved a Vision Zero policy that talks about reducing deaths and serious fatalities.
  • 01:19:40
    That's on the books.
  • 01:19:42
    It's something we're all bought into.
  • 01:19:45
    The question is, how do we move our resources to accomplish that?
  • 01:19:49
    Snow operations, I'm happy to answer questions on that.
  • 01:19:52
    The big change for this year is starting May 1st.
  • 01:19:55
    We don't have the ability to issue paper tickets anymore.
  • 01:19:58
    I'll talk more about snow operations later.
  • 01:20:01
    Customer service engagement, I've highlighted the great work that's happened there.
  • 01:20:05
    We're moving towards 90% response within a day, which we're really proud about.
  • 01:20:10
    And grant requests, you're aware that we got the Safe Streets for All grant and now we're moving to get the grant agreement.
  • 01:20:17
    There's a lot happening outside the budget proposal.
  • 01:20:20
    We're responding to the west seventh sewer collapse.
  • 01:20:23
    That should be, as I drove by it today, they're beginning to take down some of the barriers out there and we believe that the pavement will be restored and it'll be fully open by the end of next week.
  • 01:20:36
    Copper wire theft and street light repair are still a huge priority and I can answer questions there.
  • 01:20:41
    We caught the catch basin vandal.
  • 01:20:43
    It was really the great work of us being public about the need to bring people in and then we partnered with the police and used a CCTV camera to catch somebody.
  • 01:20:53
    Unfortunately in that case it was somebody that had fallen with their one year old child into one of the open basins.
  • 01:20:59
    And the person, you know, had, um, Syria was in mental crisis and was not, was trying to clean the basins but
  • 01:21:06
    We're still very worried about that and continue to watch that closely.
  • 01:21:11
    New snow operations.
  • 01:21:12
    We did extra work downtown.
  • 01:21:14
    We obviously had the Yacht Club Festival which was huge.
  • 01:21:17
    We had concerts at the Grand Casino Arena and we're getting ready this winter for the World Juniors.
  • 01:21:24
    Transportation Safety Action Plan is something that we're working on.
  • 01:21:27
    We've talked about it before.
  • 01:21:28
    We're going to be bringing it back.
  • 01:21:30
    ADA Transition Plan will have a huge impact on sidewalk and quadrant work.
  • 01:21:35
    Response to the cyber attack.
  • 01:21:36
    As we speak right now, this week all of our employees are going through training on our new asset management system or any employee that approves a time card.
  • 01:21:45
    That's a huge change.
  • 01:21:48
    And Paulie is going live today.
  • 01:21:49
    I'm going to come back to this, but I just
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 01:21:55
    and I will do a time check for at least the Council President.
  • 01:22:03
    We'll have the next 24 minutes and the rest of us can stay as long as the presentation ends.
  • 01:22:09
    We'll do Council President and then Chair Jost.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 01:22:18
    Thanks, Chair.
  • 01:22:20
    First of all, this is not related to public works, but it's something that I wanted to make sure I said publicly to our OFS staff.
  • 01:22:25
    I want to apologize for something that was said last week that I said last week.
  • 01:22:29
    I said that we had not been receiving our quarterly ARPA reports, and those actually had been submitted, and I was not aware of that.
  • 01:22:34
    So I think it's really important when we're saying things at this table to be honest about when we've made a mistake and to make sure that our staff's reputations are not being harmed by that.
  • 01:22:43
    So I just want to apologize to you and the team publicly for that.
  • 01:22:46
    I also, shifting back to public works, Mr. Kershaw, I really appreciate the copper wire theft and street light repair being a bullet on the slide.
  • 01:22:55
    I do want to point out, and you and I have talked about this, this council has repeatedly requested a public update on copper wire theft and we have been rebuffed many times.
  • 01:23:04
    And it's difficult when we're getting questions from constituents and not able to get that information publicly from your department as well as St Paul Police.
  • 01:23:13
    I'm hopeful that we can schedule that update.
  • 01:23:15
    We've been talking about it for over eight months now.
  • 01:23:18
    But in this moment, I would like to ask what has been the budget implications of copper wire theft?
  • 01:23:24
    Are we continuing to see tens of thousands of dollars being spent?
  • 01:23:27
    And in particular, I'd like to hear about the lights along Shepherd Road, which I understand continue to be out.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:23:32
    Yep.
  • 01:23:33
    Council Vice President, Council President, we're seeing the best measure that we have and it's not exact but it's the best year to year measure that we have is calls of people from the public reporting copper wire theft.
  • 01:23:45
    We saw a big decline and two things that I want to mark that are causing what I'll talk about later.
  • 01:23:50
    One is starting January 1st the state license kicked in that requires somebody to have a license to sell scrap copper.
  • 01:23:59
    That kicked in January 1st.
  • 01:24:00
    effective August 1 destruction or damage to streetlights is a part of a broader definition about public infrastructure adding streetlights and those related communication infrastructure
  • 01:24:17
    is now a felony.
  • 01:24:19
    Now that's only gone into place six weeks ago with everything playing out.
  • 01:24:24
    It's difficult to know and I want to follow up with the police.
  • 01:24:27
    So an important follow up will be our work with the police to say how is that going because the police have been a phenomenal partner in that.
  • 01:24:34
    Right now, we're seeing calls down by about 30% year over year.
  • 01:24:39
    So that tells us, A, that things are down.
  • 01:24:42
    Keep in mind for new council members, our rate of theft had been doubling every year for five years.
  • 01:24:49
    So A, they're not doubling.
  • 01:24:51
    B, they're going down.
  • 01:24:52
    C, they're still too much.
  • 01:24:54
    And so part of what we're doing is responding to it as we can.
  • 01:24:59
    During the summer, our streetlight team is busy doing capital projects.
  • 01:25:04
    Now, shifting over into the fall, we are approving and advocating for overtime for those same employees to work on the weekends, if we can get approval for it, to get caught up before the conduits freeze.
  • 01:25:16
    so that I think will allow us to make progress.
  • 01:25:20
    I won't say that we will get everything done in that timeline because it's so weather dependent and we'll focus on those residential areas that have had the most issues and repeated theft and have been the most problematic.
  • 01:25:36
    Sheppard Road is a long stretch and as you know, Sheppard Road is totally dark at night.
  • 01:25:41
    The lights have been, we're in the process right now of evaluating options on that.
  • 01:25:47
    I can tell you this, it's isolated, it's incredibly easy to steal copper there because there's nobody, even the cars are going by quickly.
  • 01:25:56
    So it's very easy to take copper from those lights.
  • 01:26:00
    Those lights are physically different than the other lights, even the lantern lights that we have.
  • 01:26:05
    The lights themselves are concrete aggregate material, I believe.
  • 01:26:09
    The base has two panels on it, not one like the rest of ours.
  • 01:26:13
    I was out yesterday taking pictures.
  • 01:26:16
    And so those two panels make it sort of doubly hard.
  • 01:26:20
    So it's exponentially harder to prevent it.
  • 01:26:22
    We're looking to see whether there's anything that can be done in the short term to preserve those lights.
  • 01:26:30
    A problem in doing that is that stretch is also really long.
  • 01:26:35
    And so even if we had the perfect way to protect the base, it's a long stretch so it's really expensive just in terms of paying for the copper to do it.
  • 01:26:45
    We have to put traffic control in place because cars are going
  • 01:26:50
    And how much will that cost?
  • 01:27:18
    Well I've told you it's about $750,000 is what we estimate and that's it's a lot of money and I say that you know publicly for everyone else here you and I continue to talk about it it is really important I mean I have people come up on the weekend and say it is dark you can see the stars on Shepherd Road it's you know that's not what we want solving that has a mechanical problem it has a theft prevention problem and it has a capital problem
  • 01:27:45
    And it's my intention to follow up with more details on that.
  • 01:27:49
    I'm literally talking with partners about that right now.
  • 01:27:52
    I won't say that there's going to be an easy answer there.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 01:27:56
    And I'm only asking publicly because I think it is important for folks to both understand the challenges and because this is time when we make those decisions about our capital budget, not just our operating budget.
  • 01:28:07
    And the lights out along Shepherd Road are a huge public safety issue.
  • 01:28:12
    So I know you know that, but I think it's important to raise it here.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:28:15
    It is in a later slide.
  • 01:28:16
    Should I keep going?
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 01:28:19
    We have a quick question from Cher Joost.
• • Saura Jost
  • 01:28:25
    I just want to speak a little bit to the void on West 7th.
  • 01:28:28
    Thank you for allowing me and Council President Naker to come and check it out.
  • 01:28:33
    I appreciate that and I just want to commend you and your staff for how quickly that you've gotten that done.
  • 01:28:39
    I know that
  • 01:28:40
    opening at the end of the week may seem like a long time, but for what you had to deal with and the repair that had to be done, which Council President Naker and I were able to see and understand more in person, it's very quick.
  • 01:28:53
    And so I really appreciate that.
  • 01:28:55
    And I guess my question is, as you know, that making sure we're funding our infrastructure and having it maintained is very important.
  • 01:29:06
    And I'm excited about the increase in capital project funding.
  • 01:29:09
    because when we do have these issues come up, they're very costly, they're very disruptive.
  • 01:29:13
    And do you have an idea or when will you know how much the total cost of this void will be?
  • 01:29:22
    And do you know what the source of that funding might end up being?
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:29:27
    Council Vice President, Council Member Jost, it's a great question.
  • 01:29:29
    I have a sense that it's going to be a big number, more than a million dollars.
  • 01:29:34
    We'll want to see the final invoices for that, including staff time that's been spent on that.
  • 01:29:41
    PCI has been the primary contractor on that.
  • 01:29:45
    We should know that soon.
  • 01:29:46
    You had a second question too, sorry.
• • Saura Jost
  • 01:29:49
    The source of the funding for that contract.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:29:52
    of the City Council.
  • 01:30:14
    have on hand and we have to build up that balance over time in the short term my best answer is that it would come from that whether or not there's a claim for any emergency funding I simply don't know
  • 01:30:31
    and I can't say you opened the door, I can't say enough about the quality of the work that our team did on that.
  • 01:30:38
    I mean you saw Shawn O'Keefe, I can't say enough good things about her.
  • 01:30:42
    To balance keeping the employees when they are out there, keep in mind this is a tunnel system, the one that collapsed.
  • 01:30:49
    that they were in for
  • 01:31:08
    I was just there at happy hour and she said, I want to compliment Sean O'Keefe for the work she's done staying in communication with us.
  • 01:31:25
    And I know I'm not helping the timeline at all.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 01:31:28
    Should I keep going?
  • 01:31:29
    Yeah, keep it rolling.
  • 01:31:30
    And again, we're capturing questions so anything hanging out we can follow up.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:31:34
    I will talk for as long as you want, but I want to make sure we cover the important points.
  • 01:31:39
    You will see again and again two values that come up in this work, public safety, prosperity for all.
  • 01:31:45
    Part of what we need to do is support tax-based growth and development in St Paul.
  • 01:31:49
    All of our work, and I talk about this every year, we need our funding to be sufficient, so do we have enough funds to keep our sewer utility maintained, to keep our collectors and arterials maintained, including the capital replacement?
  • 01:32:03
    Are we matching sources and uses?
  • 01:32:05
    Are we taking the best source of money and applying it to the best expense?
  • 01:32:09
    We did great work on that this year.
  • 01:32:12
    An example last year was moving street sweeping costs from storm sewer fees.
  • 01:32:17
    That was a great use that reduced funding pressure on the general fund.
  • 01:32:22
    This year we do that in solid waste and recycling.
  • 01:32:24
    We're also, what we want to do is take advantage of one-time money for one-time benefits.
  • 01:32:29
    You've talked throughout the ARP process not to do things that have tails.
  • 01:32:34
    Part of what we're doing here is
  • 01:32:36
    taking the limiting funds we have and make sure they're invested in things that not only don't have tails, the tails are advantageous.
  • 01:32:44
    This is something you hear a lot about, and I want to talk about it publicly and with all of you.
  • 01:32:49
    On the left, we are getting now about 20 requests per week related to traffic calming measures, stop signs, and crosswalks.
  • 01:32:59
    So these are requests that are coming in from you, coming in from the public.
  • 01:33:02
    They're worried about accidents.
  • 01:33:04
    These are very important, legitimate concerns that are coming in from the public.
  • 01:33:09
    what we have to do to evaluate those varies greatly you know some we have to do a traffic study some we may not take much evaluation at all we want to make sure we're balancing requests that come in from areas that we're not hearing about the public from those areas where there's a lot of Facebook chatter or you know it's important or you're getting lots of calls
  • 01:33:27
    the time we spend on each one of those varies and we're always triaging them to say which one do we think is most important it's not just first in first out this is something because I know how many how important this is to all of you I was not aware until this week that we're getting about or last week about 20 requests a week for this
  • 01:33:48
    On the right is, as of 2024, the trends on fatalities and serious injuries.
  • 01:33:57
    We're not going in the right direction.
  • 01:33:58
    For a while this year, we had more traffic fatalities than we did homicides in St. Paul, which both of those numbers are awful.
  • 01:34:07
    But this is a big number.
  • 01:34:09
    And the definition of serious injury is life-altering.
  • 01:34:12
    It's not just, I broke a leg.
  • 01:34:14
    It means that that person's life
  • 01:34:15
    was altered as a pedestrian, as a bicyclist, or as somebody, a passenger in a car.
  • 01:34:23
    So I'll go through these, getting to the meat of the presentation right now.
  • 01:34:27
    I'm just going to highlight them here.
  • 01:34:29
    There's a $1.2 million reduction in general support funds for mill and overlay projects.
  • 01:34:35
    I'll talk more about that.
  • 01:34:36
    We're advocating that we purchase a road prints machine to improve safety, efficiency and safety for the public as well as employees and the quality of our markings.
  • 01:34:46
    Increases in right-of-way fund, asphalt plant, recycling and solid waste is coming in now for a full year's budget.
  • 01:34:55
    We are advocating for a net neutral increase in staffing.
  • 01:34:58
    We've reduced expenses in other areas to bring a traffic safety engineer in as a proposal to you.
  • 01:35:04
    The purpose of that person is to address the backlog in calls that we get.
  • 01:35:09
    We've reallocated funding for several positions.
  • 01:35:12
    We reduced 2.9 FTEs in either vacant or temporary positions.
  • 01:35:19
    And we'll talk more about the storm sewer and sanitary sewer rate increases.
  • 01:35:25
    We looked closely at your priorities.
  • 01:35:27
    So pedestrian and bike safety infrastructure, including bicycle and pedestrian markings, was one of your priorities.
  • 01:35:33
    $450,000 for a machine, one-time funding is in there.
  • 01:35:38
    Repurposed engineer, repurposed funding to get an additional traffic safety engineer.
  • 01:35:44
    Restoring signs and markings funding and capital projects.
  • 01:35:48
    It's really critical that we support economic development that we need in St Paul so we've made changes in order to preserve the development coordinator position.
  • 01:35:57
    We're doing additional maintenance with one-time funding and wanting to be part of the process of reporting to you on vacancies and making sure we're repurposing vacancies, which we've done.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 01:36:10
    And we've got a question, Council President.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 01:36:12
    Thanks, Chair.
  • 01:36:13
    Director Khrushchev, first of all, I really, going back to the previous slide, appreciate seeing the number of ways in which you're looking to be innovative in increasing revenue, and especially charging the users for the services we're providing, like the right-of-way management fees, the asphalt plant, which should be a revenue generator, etc.
  • 01:36:28
    So really love seeing those things.
  • 01:36:31
    Can you speak a bit to the $1.2 million reduction in general fund support for mill and overlay projects?
  • 01:36:37
    I might have missed this, but is that going to result in less capacity to do that work or is that being substituted from some other source?
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:36:44
    That change, I'll go into it in more detail, but I'll just answer your question right now, is a reduction.
  • 01:36:50
    It's an ongoing reduction.
  • 01:36:51
    So that is something.
  • 01:36:53
    Now part of the reason we advocated for that is that our impact on the 2026 program is very minimal.
  • 01:37:00
    So that with that reduction, we're able to advance the program, or we think substantially advance the program that we have for 2026.
  • 01:37:11
    any funding that's for mill and overlay or maintenance it's kind of like skipping a payment on your credit card you know it's easy to skip a payment but the costs of that build and compound over time that is something that we believe that we can address next year without impacting the program that we have you know planned for 2026 the concern for that is in the out years for that so that is a
  • 01:37:37
    Right here on this pie chart, and I'm wanting to follow up on your question, this pie chart is all of the funding, the $45 million from the General Fund for Public Works.
  • 01:37:47
    The green and the light blue at the bottom are the percentage of that that is for residential mill and overlay and arterial and collector mill and overlay.
  • 01:37:57
    It's the two, 11% and 10%.
  • 01:37:59
    And so this is what's proposed, and those are the two areas of the General Fund that would be impacted by that $1.2 million cut.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 01:38:07
    So just to make sure I understand, Chair, we're decreasing the amount of total money that would go into mill and overlay, which is the basic street maintenance work that we talk about the need to do all the time, and not kick the can down the road.
  • 01:38:20
    And we think we can cover it okay in 26, but it will be an ongoing reduction of 1.2 million, and we're not sure about how we would cover that into the future.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:38:29
    We would need to find sources to replace that to avoid kicking the can down the road.
  • 01:38:34
    and it seems like this decision would kick the can down the road absent those sources.
  • 01:38:38
    If they're not replaced, that's the tough choice that we made.
  • 01:38:43
    In 2026, our goal was to minimize impact on employees, you know, in terms of not having to lay anybody off and on our work program.
  • 01:38:53
    So this is something that met both of those criteria and it's something that absolutely we have to look at going forward and how we rebuild that.
  • 01:39:01
    Like I said, all the funding for the things that you hear about, mill and overlay, street sweeping, street lights, potholes, plowing, all of that essentially only comes from the general fund.
  • 01:39:12
    Now we get maintenance agreement funding for MnDOT and Ramsey County roads, we get MSA, but the majority of that goes exactly so when we have to make a cut to the general fund, we're trying to minimize that as much as possible in order to address the moment.
  • 01:39:37
    I can come back to this, I'll be conscious of time, but this pie chart, you can talk about this and it's available publicly.
  • 01:39:43
    So it shows that about 16% of it, a small amount goes to engineering, goes to traffic operations, street lights, we talked about mill and overlay.
  • 01:39:51
    Most of it, about a third of it, goes to street maintenance.
  • 01:39:55
    And then there are some transfers in there as well.
  • 01:40:01
    this highlights what we've already talked about in the reduction that we've made from the general fund we're transferring some money in some additional money from Ramsey County and from a right-of-way in order to support the development coordinator position
  • 01:40:18
    and the primary, we've reduced some vacancy positions so that we had one long-term vacancy that we can easily reduce.
  • 01:40:26
    We've repurposed one of the street maintenance workers positions will be paid for by solid waste, aligning sources and uses.
  • 01:40:35
    We do have one vacancy that we're removing from that.
  • 01:40:43
    The storm and sanitary sewers, we'll come back to this.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 01:40:47
    and the Senate.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:40:57
    We've met the overall reduction.
  • 01:40:59
    So what we're doing is taking a sort of no and yes.
  • 01:41:05
    No in that we've met the reduction by over exceeding the cuts that we wanted to make in order to achieve the goal.
  • 01:41:13
    We have a net neutral traffic engineer focused on safety that we've achieved.
  • 01:41:19
    That's the only thing that's new, but we achieved that by making reductions.
• • Saura Jost
  • 01:41:24
    and the
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:41:47
    of the City Council.
  • 01:42:00
    gave up some positions.
  • 01:42:01
    We also reallocated them.
  • 01:42:03
    I can't say enough about how helpful it is to have solid waste and recycling taking over some of the work that was funded through the general fund previously for what was essentially garbage and trash pickup in the right of way.
  • 01:42:15
    So it was a combination of eliminating vacancies, better using existing funds, and then cutting more than we could so that we could get this position funded, the engineer to focus on traffic safety.
• • Saura Jost
  • 01:42:29
    OK.
  • 01:42:30
    Thanks, I appreciate that, Director.
  • 01:42:32
    I guess, and maybe this question is more so for Madeline or just a comment or something I'm thinking about.
  • 01:42:37
    So the $1.8 million that was cut from the general fund, my understanding is $5.4 million was asked to be cut from the departments.
  • 01:42:46
    So does that mean that $1.8 million of that $5.4 million, $1.8 million is coming from public works?
  • 01:42:56
    That's kind of my general question.
  • 01:42:57
    I don't know if you know the answer or if Madeline does or if you can follow up.
  • 01:42:59
    I think that's correct.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:43:01
    Council President, Council Member, Council Vice President, Council Member, I believe that's correct.
  • 01:43:07
    We can confirm that number for you.
• • Saura Jost
  • 01:43:10
    Okay, so that would be almost 20% of the cuts coming from, the general fund came from Public Works.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:43:17
    Council Member, if I were thinking about department reductions, I would probably also add that vacancy number with it.
  • 01:43:26
    Okay.
  • 01:43:27
    So the non-vacancy cuts,
  • 01:43:30
    1.8 was coming from Public Works.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:43:38
    we did you know there's nothing about this that's exciting for the reasons I do think though the work we did I want to highlight at the edges it made a big difference that other parts of our department sacrificed in order to make sure we have this additional traffic safety engineer and that solid waste and recycling is fully funded funding all the things that it can pay for for those of you were here last year it's kind of like what we did storm sewer funding street sweeping
  • 01:44:04
    It was reducing pressure on the general fund by using an additional legal appropriate funding mechanism.
  • 01:44:13
    We'll be back to talk more and Council Vice President, I'll be sensitive to time.
  • 01:44:18
    The proposal right now is for a 14% increase in both storm and sanitary.
  • 01:44:23
    We'll come back to talk about this.
  • 01:44:25
    The primary drivers for that are that there's a $1.3 million reduction from West Rock closing that turns into a $2.7 million.
  • 01:44:34
    They were a major user of, you know, contributor and they use the system.
  • 01:44:39
    MCES, the Metropolitan Council of Environmental Services, what they do is take all the money that they spend on wastewater treating and divide that up by the percentage of the water effluent that comes from each municipality.
  • 01:44:54
    We had an increase last year that we are entirely sure was due to the flooding that we experienced and so the cost that they divvy up between municipalities
  • 01:45:06
    to address what we think are the causes.
  • 01:45:34
    We think this is primarily due to the flood that happened last summer.
  • 01:45:37
    It's real data.
  • 01:45:39
    We're not disputing the data.
  • 01:45:40
    We're not disputing their policy.
  • 01:45:42
    The cause of that increased flow is what we're all diving into, so to speak.
  • 01:45:50
    And we want to make sure that we're catching up, I mean, thinking about West 7th and others, that we have an old sewer system.
  • 01:45:55
    The sewer line that collapsed was from 18
  • 01:45:59
    79 or 89?
  • 01:46:00
    I think 89.
  • 01:46:02
    The water lines going to Burger Mo's were from 1874.
  • 01:46:08
    Like, we have to spend money.
  • 01:46:10
    Water is water to keep that infrastructure repaired.
  • 01:46:15
    Recycling solid waste, I can't say enough good things about what Sarah Haas and her team working across the city, parks throughout public works.
  • 01:46:25
    Increased bulky item collection is up 70%.
  • 01:46:29
    When our employees finish their routes now about noon, they go and just sweep for illegal dumping.
  • 01:46:34
    They go throughout the city.
  • 01:46:35
    They stop near University Dale.
  • 01:46:37
    They hit the hot spots.
  • 01:46:39
    But that's more time spent cleaning up the right of way.
  • 01:46:42
    We've put an entirely new billing system into place, a new call system, a new customer service.
  • 01:46:48
    It was standing up an entirely new business really quickly, including hiring most of the staff.
  • 01:46:53
    And like I said, 62% of those staff are St Paul residents, which we're really excited about.
  • 01:46:59
    We'll be coming back to you about cart sharing.
  • 01:47:01
    We'll be coming back to talk about new recycling options.
• • Anika Bowie
  • 01:47:07
    One question around what really sparked my interest particularly around the gathering of the dumping and the bulky items.
  • 01:47:26
    is there updates of particularly around when those work orders are either issued or when there are you know pickups because as you can imagine especially in the daily University area the University corridor we have a lot of businesses that have experience of legal dumping and nine times out of ten we hear about it through DSI yeah more than we hear about it from Public Works so I'm just wondering if there's any
  • 01:47:52
    Communications are a notice that goes out to Council members when that work is done.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:47:59
    The answer to your question, so what I hear in your question is how are council members informed when there are calls for illegal dumping that we respond to from the city, wherever it comes from.
  • 01:48:08
    Is that correct?
  • 01:48:08
    Correct, yeah.
  • 01:48:11
    We could find a way to summarize that for council members.
  • 01:48:14
    Part of the problem is it would be an overwhelming number, but what we could do is look at a summary of both how many pounds we've picked up or items that we've picked up.
  • 01:48:23
    what we're doing is working and this is work that's in process but we're really excited about it.
  • 01:48:28
    Parks, DSI and Public Works are working together really closely to better align those services and so we're now taking over some of the parks facilities in terms of waste that they did.
  • 01:48:39
    We're improving the coordination.
  • 01:48:42
    I mean it's always been really good but now we've got more capacity with DSI and we can certainly come back when we talk about rates on ways that we could keep you updated on
  • 01:48:53
    where we're making collections and the number of them.
  • 01:48:57
    And part of what's happening, Council Member Bui, is what our team is doing is just sweeping.
  • 01:49:03
    They're not even waiting for calls.
  • 01:49:05
    They're just driving around and picking things up.
  • 01:49:07
    But that's also something that you'll want to know about because it impacts your constituents and your businesses.
• • Anika Bowie
  • 01:49:13
    I just want to add a quick little context.
  • 01:49:15
    I do appreciate to hear that there is an inter-department communication
  • 01:49:20
    I think particularly as a service standpoint, especially when we are seeing a lot of these cases come before us through DSI that can actually save time and capacity for the inspectors to not have to come out and take pictures for illegal dumping.
  • 01:49:40
    And just to hear that we have this amazing service through Public Works is something that I want to continue supporting.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:49:46
    and Council Vice President, Council Member Bui, you hear about an enterprise approach, this absolutely is one.
  • 01:49:52
    So we partner with police, we partner with DSI, we partner with PARC, we partner with fire on lithium batteries.
  • 01:49:58
    I mean, when Sarah's here, there's an enormous growing problem around lithium battery fires and so that's a close partnership between Public Works and the St. Paul Fire Department.
  • 01:50:08
    So that effort is one that cuts across, you know, most certainly City Attorney's Office, your office says that that's a great example of an enterprise.
  • 01:50:16
    and its improving service for residents and businesses.
  • 01:50:23
    This is something that we were asked to highlight and we can come back.
  • 01:50:27
    These are new garbage and recycling receptacles that are going to be showing up downtown.
  • 01:50:33
    The capacity increases from 50 gallons to 150 gallons.
  • 01:50:38
    It reduces collection frequency.
  • 01:50:40
    They're solar powered.
  • 01:50:41
    They've got foot pedals.
  • 01:50:43
    They're harder to break into.
  • 01:50:45
    Nothing's impenetrable.
  • 01:50:47
    You can wrap them.
  • 01:50:49
    We'll say more about some of the exciting things that are coming out of solid waste, but you can wrap them.
  • 01:50:53
    So we can promote downtown activities like World Juniors, we can promote cities hiring, we can promote the work of solid waste and recycling.
  • 01:51:01
    They're locked, they're prevent theft, and like it says, redistribution of materials.
  • 01:51:06
    There's a map there about where it's going, but you will see they've been ordered and you will see these appearing first downtown, and then as we learn about how to manage those,
  • 01:51:16
    the plan would be to as we can expand those into other areas of the city that really need more capacity and and because this also reduces staff time in picking up the garbage so one of the calls I get a lot is can you know pick up a van at University and Dale because it's all full now we do that regularly now but that happens throughout your words really really excited about this and credit to Sarah Haas and her team
  • 01:51:41
    There are a lot of changes here happening in solid waste and recycling.
  • 01:51:45
    They'll be coming forward with the formal rate process.
  • 01:51:49
    Fees that were $1.99 per household are now $1.50.
  • 01:51:54
    Those fees used to go to the haulers, now they're coming to the cities so it's less of a burden.
  • 01:51:58
    on
  • 01:52:20
    out of those funds.
  • 01:52:23
    And again, this is the fund that is helping to offset general fund spending in parks, DSI, and public works.
  • 01:52:35
    Can't say enough things about how well the garbage program, and I know that the public cares a lot about this.
  • 01:52:41
    Council Vice President, Council President.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 01:52:44
    We're not taking any more questions.
  • 01:52:46
    That's why we were laughing.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:52:48
    Okay, one of the big calls that we get is for pavement markings.
  • 01:52:53
    Folks who are part of the bicycle coalition or who ride their bikes are frustrated.
  • 01:52:57
    So the sharrow or the marking on the far left is on St Clair, the one in the middle is on Margaret.
  • 01:53:04
    If you can see the bicycle marking that's there,
  • 01:53:07
    and the one that's on the right is the corner of White Bear Avenue, a major safety concern, and Margaret.
  • 01:53:12
    White Bear Avenue is a high impact corridor.
  • 01:53:15
    Margaret Street is our bicycle boulevard there.
  • 01:53:18
    Those green lines are supposed to be the markings that show how folks get across there safely with bicycles.
  • 01:53:26
    It's incredibly time intensive.
  • 01:53:28
    I will show you until you tell me to stop.
  • 01:53:32
    Because the way we do it right now,
  • 01:53:36
    This gigantic template, which if I try to lift it is going to lead to probably a meme online.
  • 01:53:47
    That template is what our staff, if you look at the photo, lift up, place on the pavement, in traffic,
  • 01:53:53
    in order to make those markings.
  • 01:53:55
    It's time intensive.
  • 01:53:57
    It's not safe for employees.
  • 01:53:58
    I mean, we haven't had injuries, but you're still in traffic with people driving like maniacs.
  • 01:54:03
    It's also hard to get it perfect, because when you get done with the template...
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 01:54:11
    I'm six foot three.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 01:54:17
    We joked earlier for folks that staff could come up and I could walk through that.
  • 01:54:21
    I'm six foot three.
  • 01:54:22
    That big block marking is easily any of us could walk through it, including me at my height.
  • 01:54:29
    That's what our employees, if you see on the right, have to go and place down on the pavement.
  • 01:54:34
    They're doing this, like I said, in traffic with activities.
  • 01:54:37
    Just this week, there was somebody who was either in a drug overdose situation or in some sort of mental health crisis that was
  • 01:54:44
    What we want to do with one-time funding is a huge increase in innovation and by what's called the road prints machine and you'll never see me so excited about paint but what this machine does is a number of things.
  • 01:55:00
    It allows employees to do the work without being in traffic.
  • 01:55:04
    We'll still put up traffic control so it's safer for employees.
  • 01:55:08
    It uses existing robotic technologies, existing laser technologies
  • 01:55:12
    to make the pavement markings like this requires a lot of detail if it's moved out of place it looks funny when you're done with this paint our employees have to wipe off the excess paint before they can go to the next one it computerizes all of that so it's safer it's more efficient it pays for itself about seven years and it allows us to address these types of situations
  • 01:55:38
    I won't promise you that every bicycle marking and every crosswalk and every big block will be perfect happening, but it allows us to take one-time money and make big improvements on concerns that are really important to you and to the public and get to public safety.
  • 01:55:55
    And this also does
  • 01:55:57
    This machine can do both big block, continental, the markings that are really visible.
  • 01:56:04
    It can do the detailed bicycle markings like this one.
  • 01:56:07
    It can do sharrows.
  • 01:56:08
    It can do turn signals.
  • 01:56:10
    It also then uploads that into our asset management system so we know exactly where markings are, which is difficult right now to do manually, that that happens automatically.
  • 01:56:22
    and so this we think it's better for employees, it's better for the public, it allows us to do more with less.
  • 01:56:29
    We know it's not an inconsequential amount of money.
  • 01:56:33
    One of the things that, part of our story in getting it, Council Vice President Kim, that we have this next best funding.
  • 01:56:38
    One of the things, because of the cyber attack, we have to delay that.
  • 01:56:42
    One of the things that we wanted to do right away, delay implementing it,
  • 01:56:45
    is address all the green line markings throughout the city because you put them down once, it's thermal plastic and then they fade over time and they're really, really important for bicycle safety.
  • 01:56:56
    This machine will allow us to do those, you know, it can handle the green paint, it's not thermal plastic but it will allow us to accomplish all of these pedestrian traffic and bicycle safety goals for something that pays for itself over time.
  • 01:57:15
    of the City Council.
  • 01:57:36
    We're asking to increase our rates for the asphalt plant.
  • 01:57:40
    We want to make sure we improve that site.
  • 01:57:41
    And this is something, frankly, that's variable if this is too much.
  • 01:57:45
    But we need to build up excess funds to improve that site.
  • 01:57:48
    We'll be delivering a better product with this funding as well as building up revenue that we need to upgrade the site.
  • 01:57:57
    We've got summary information here.
  • 01:57:59
    I do want to highlight for those of you who get lots of questions about why did the General Fund jump to Public Works so dramatically in 22, well going backwards and then 23, what was that big increase in spending?
  • 01:58:11
    That was a transfer in spending from the assessment where we lost in court.
  • 01:58:16
    It was not an increase in spending.
  • 01:58:18
    I'm happy to cover that.
  • 01:58:20
    I've talked a little bit about employee changes I can come back to this if you would like in terms of the reassignments the additional engineer to focus on traffic safety we've got the FTE summaries here the increase is essentially what we've done is keep them neutral and the three additional is essentially solid waste and recycling and that is to do the work that they are now you know expanding in the city as we build up that program
  • 01:58:47
    We have some one-time funding here.
  • 01:58:49
    I've talked to you about road prints.
  • 01:58:51
    I can continue to talk to you about that if you want.
  • 01:58:54
    What's really important that I highlight is you'll see a balance in our snow removal program that the new snow operations that we have.
  • 01:59:03
    Last winter you know was not a big winner for snow.
  • 01:59:06
    So we tested pilots, we learned a little bit.
  • 01:59:09
    What we want to do is preserve that funding because we need to test it.
  • 01:59:13
    We learned a lot, and we're going to test out with two new pilots this winter.
  • 01:59:16
    These pilot areas are going to be a little more difficult, but the funding there will allow us to complete those pilots.
  • 01:59:24
    If you weren't here, Council Vice President, you were here as an aide, Council President, the winter of 2022 and 2023, we don't want to repeat.
  • 01:59:33
    and we're now in a situation where we don't have the ability to ticket like we did in the past.
  • 01:59:38
    So I know the last two winners have been easy, literally.
  • 01:59:42
    What we want to do is see what is a better program for St Paul in terms of snow clearing, including efficiency and less punitive.
  • 01:59:52
    And with that, I'll pause.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 01:59:55
    Great.
  • 01:59:56
    Lots of good content.
  • 01:59:58
    Any questions?
  • 02:00:00
    Council President, you're up.
  • 02:00:02
    We've got about two minutes for questions.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 02:00:05
    Thanks, Chair.
  • 02:00:06
    I can also follow up with these.
  • 02:00:07
    But I'm going back to the three new positions, Director Khurshan, solid waste and recycling.
  • 02:00:13
    You said that I think it's important to point out that while in most departments special funds are sort of we consider them separately from the general fund because they're not coming back on our property taxpayers.
  • 02:00:24
    In Public Works' case, special funds often do, right?
  • 02:00:27
    So in the case of our sewers, in the case of our trash and recycling, those are not general fund, but they're still costs that we're just passing along to folks in the community.
  • 02:00:36
    So I'm trying to figure out the three new positions in solid waste and recycling, though they are in a special fund, that is a fund that we go back to people to pay for.
  • 02:00:43
    How are they net neutral, and are they always going to be net neutral, or was it that we found
  • 02:00:50
    it looks like some bad debt stuff from the consortium that's paying for them and I'm trying to figure out is that an ongoing source or a one-time source.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 02:00:57
    Yeah, what we're sensitive, Council Vice President, Council President, what I hear you saying is like how do we get three more and not upset the apple cart in terms of cost to residents.
  • 02:01:08
    What we did in building our rate structures, so what makes solid waste and recycling
  • 02:01:13
    and our sewer, Storm and Sanitary, is they have a rate base.
  • 02:01:18
    Storm and Sanitary is actually debt reviewed.
  • 02:01:20
    We issue debt for that.
  • 02:01:22
    Solid Waste and Recycling comes from fees that property owners pay to us.
  • 02:01:27
    In our rate proposals that we present to you and are approved every year, we built in the costs for building out the staffing we need for the program.
  • 02:01:36
    And as we propose the rates, we take these
  • 02:01:40
    increases in staffing into account so that the more staffing doesn't itself cause us to increase rates.
  • 02:01:47
    We've gotten efficiencies by centralizing service.
  • 02:01:51
    I'm pausing because I'm not sure if I'm answering your question.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 02:01:54
    Keep going.
  • 02:01:55
    You said we build in the new staff into the rate increases, so we're not asking for rate increases to fund staff.
  • 02:02:02
    But it sounds like we are.
  • 02:02:05
    We are increasing rates because we know we're going to need new people and we're going to need to pay for them.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 02:02:09
    Correct.
  • 02:02:10
    yeah the rate I guess the short answer is we build the staff needs that we anticipate and the expenses you know bad debt customer service costs all of these the revenue we get back from recycling we build those into our rate structure so that cost is built into the fees that we charge in order to provide the best service for those fees it's not that they're net neutral it sounds like what you're saying is we've already budgeted for them in
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 02:02:40
    We're not, what you said is 100% request.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 02:02:55
    These three people are not causing us to change what we had already proposed for rate increases.
  • 02:03:01
    We built those in to the proposed rates.
• • Saura Jost
  • 02:03:07
    I just wanted to make a comment about I'm glad to see the new pilots snow pilots for this winter we had one of them in Ward 3 in Highland and I thought it went really well with the compliance and we gathered a lot of great information from that to inform kind of our potential snow plowing strategies moving forward and so I'm excited to see those in the budget this year
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 02:03:38
    I will tell you right now publicly that we learned a lot.
  • 02:03:42
    Now we didn't get a lot of snow and we're going to be pushing the edges on this in our pilots for this winter.
  • 02:03:47
    We have more advanced notice so the neighborhoods that we will be proposing will hear about it sooner.
  • 02:03:52
    The proposal will be from December 1 to April 1 and we learned a lot.
  • 02:03:57
    I mean on one of the very first slides there are 70,000 signs in the city.
  • 02:04:02
    Many of those relate to snow.
  • 02:04:04
    and clearing and we learned last year what worked and what didn't work so while we didn't get to a lot of snow to demonstrate we still learned a lot and we'll be pushing that this forward and we'll be coming you know to you with more information on that but we'll be working with the community the engagement of the community is critical to the success here
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 02:04:27
    Councilmember Coleman and then I think we'll end.
  • 02:04:32
    Well is it connected?
  • 02:04:36
    It's 1203 so can you hold the question and maybe it's one that we can follow up with and we'll let Councilmember Coleman take the last question today.
  • 02:04:43
    Oh you have it until 1230?
  • 02:04:45
    Oh okay here I was like lunchtime.
  • 02:04:49
    All right Councilmember Coleman and then yep we'll do Chair Buie.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 02:04:55
    I'll still keep mine very quick.
  • 02:04:56
    Thanks, Vice Chair.
  • 02:04:57
    Thanks, Director Kershaw.
  • 02:04:58
    Just quickly going back to the downtown bid improvements, just to clarify, the timeline for 2026 were budgeted for downtown only for these bid improvements.
  • 02:05:09
    Any possible expansion to other neighborhoods, other wards would be 2027 or beyond?
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 02:05:14
    yeah well so you're talking about the big belly yeah what we'll do is I'll be careful about making promises we just like to call them big belly but we think this will be a visible in every way improvement for the public because some of the bins the mosaic ones look good a lot of them
  • 02:05:33
    you know don't look good.
  • 02:05:34
    The trash receptacles look like trash.
  • 02:05:36
    We will evaluate that before we commit to expanding it.
  • 02:05:40
    So the goal will be to expand it in corridors where we spend a lot of staff time or get a lot of complaints from the public about you know needs for better trash collection receptacles or recycling.
  • 02:05:52
    So we'll expand it based on that but the intent is if it works is to do that because of the benefits.
• • Anika Bowie
  • 02:06:01
    Thank you so much, Director.
  • 02:06:04
    I have a question particularly I'm spinning off from Chair Joe's question around the snow and then you had shared that last year or even this year we didn't really experience that much snow.
  • 02:06:15
    Can you speak to when we do see a reduction of a response to snow storms, we don't really have that much snow, do we also see that same type of reduction, particularly with spending?
  • 02:06:31
    I can attest to part of the reason why we put money into our budget is expecting the same type of forecast, but now that we're not seeing as much snow, do we see that reflected in how we're spending through the department?
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 02:06:47
    Council Vice President, Council Member Bowie, what I hear you saying is how does the money we spend on snow show up in the budget?
• • Anika Bowie
  • 02:06:55
    No, if we're not responding to snow.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 02:06:58
    Do we see savings there?
• • Anika Bowie
  • 02:07:00
    Yeah, do we see savings, thank you.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 02:07:01
    Yeah, that's something, what I'll first say that's really important to the public, you know, media, anybody that's listening, is we never base our snow response on budgeting.
  • 02:07:12
    And by that I mean, we won't, you know, we're not wasteful, but we won't do a snow, we won't not do a snow emergency, we won't not clean the streets.
  • 02:07:21
    for budgetary reasons.
  • 02:07:23
    It's critical to public safety that we provide that service.
  • 02:07:26
    It's like police or fire in many ways.
  • 02:07:28
    We're there in deep snow clearing the way for them to get there.
  • 02:07:31
    So we will never not do that.
  • 02:07:34
    The costs are wildly fluctuating right now.
  • 02:07:37
    Part of the reality of our new climate is the costs for this fluctuate wildly.
  • 02:07:42
    So if we were looking at the costs for 22 and 23, which crosses budget years, they were way more because we had so many snow emergencies.
  • 02:07:50
    and then not even not snow emergencies, but efforts.
  • 02:07:54
    In years where we don't have much, we certainly save funding in the general fund.
  • 02:07:59
    We haven't gotten to a point yet where we can build that into the budget.
  • 02:08:03
    We're still trying to catch up on a lot of the maintenance work.
  • 02:08:06
    We believe and hope that a better system for plowing may be less costly.
  • 02:08:14
    Most of the costs right now are in overtime.
  • 02:08:16
    The staffing on that is critical.
  • 02:08:19
    And we are going to be looking at whether a different way of plowing might save some of the overtime.
• • Anika Bowie
  • 02:08:25
    So what I'm hearing is we haven't measured for any cost savings when we don't have snow.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 02:08:31
    We can fairly easily quantify the cost of a snow emergency.
  • 02:08:38
    What I told the public, and please Councilman, let me know if I'm not answering your question.
  • 02:08:43
    When we had a winter with no snow emergencies, we didn't spend as much on general fund.
  • 02:08:47
    I will tell you that that extra money more or less went into copper wire theft that year because it went up so much.
  • 02:08:53
    So the money we spend or don't spend on snow
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 02:08:58
    of the City of St. Paul.
  • 02:09:23
    Good follow up to have.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 02:09:26
    What I'll do, Council Vice President, Council Member, is because there's snow emergencies are one response and they're very time intensive and very expensive.
  • 02:09:34
    But there are responses that we provide that are not snow emergencies that still require a lot of staff.
  • 02:09:40
    And so snow events vary from responding to two inches of snow where we wouldn't call a snow emergency to six inches or if we get an ice storm.
  • 02:09:49
    So the costs on that vary even though there's kind of a bright line.
  • 02:09:53
    We can provide budget information on winter maintenance.
  • 02:10:01
    I will tell you that if our teams, if it's warm and we're not clearing, they'll be out doing winter potholing, they'll be out doing other activities.
  • 02:10:10
    But I'll see what data we can provide on that.
  • 02:10:13
    It's not going to be as clear as I might hope in the outcomes, but we'll see what we can provide.
• • Cheniqua Johnson
  • 02:10:20
    I guess along that vein, how many snow emergencies do we typically plan for?
  • 02:10:25
    I will say I'm cautious every time I mention last year's winter because it feels like an anomaly, and I don't expect it to be the same ever.
  • 02:10:35
    As a Minnesotan, I'm like, I'm from here, I don't expect it to be this way, but I know that the previous year we had five, and so I'm just wondering how many snow emergencies do we actually
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 02:10:44
    The winner of 2022-23 we got up to H in that winner.
  • 02:10:50
    So how many was it, nine?
  • 02:10:52
    We had seven snow emergencies in that season.
  • 02:10:55
    We had other major snow events where we didn't call a snow emergency.
  • 02:11:01
    I forgot your question.
  • 02:11:06
    What we've said and I've been told is we have averaged four over a period of time.
  • 02:11:12
    The problem is even one snow emergency with light, fluffy, low moisture content snow is easy.
  • 02:11:19
    So 10 inches of low water content snow may be less expensive than five inches of really wet, heavy, high moisture content snow.
  • 02:11:30
    and I'm told that we budget for four, that math is probably kind of old.
• • Cheniqua Johnson
  • 02:11:38
    No, that's helpful and I think it's just because one can maybe, like for the public, for community members, one can maybe presume that because we have less amount of snow emergencies that we somehow spent less money when if we had one that is
  • 02:11:55
    to your point, a little bit more fluffy, a little bit more wasted that it would actually cost a lot more to do than an average snow emergency.
  • 02:12:02
    So that assumption to me is something that I hear a lot when talking to community members about the snow removal operations in regards to last year.
  • 02:12:10
    And so that information will be helpful just to compare.
  • 02:12:13
    But the thing I talk to folks a lot at the time about is just the assumption that that means somehow that there's a bunch of money that just got rolled over.
  • 02:12:21
    And so if that's the case, that's wonderful.
  • 02:12:24
    And I hope that that worked out.
  • 02:12:26
    But if it's not the case, then also being able to show that and explain that as we have snow emergencies moving forward I think is going to be really helpful.
  • 02:12:34
    Again, I'm one of those pessimistic Minnesotans.
  • 02:12:38
    I assume every winter is going to be terrible, but that's probably in my head.
  • 02:12:42
    But I think being able to really quantify snow emergencies when we do them and just like, here's how much that costs, would be really helpful when explaining it to constituents in the future.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 02:12:51
    and we will do Snow 101 with you this year and are excited to.
  • 02:12:55
    A number of things now that you've pulled the snow string, resident expectations have gone up not down.
  • 02:13:02
    The type of snow we get is worse not better and if you think back it's usually either really cold and really warm or more often really warm and really cold so the snow falls and then it turns into cement.
  • 02:13:17
    and the number of ticketers.
  • 02:13:19
    One of the primary reasons we're looking at other models is we used to get full compliments of people.
  • 02:13:25
    I mean our right-of-way office would joke on Christmas Eve we could get 35 people to show up because they just love doing that.
  • 02:13:31
    We are thrilled if we get 20 right now and now we've lost that capacity.
  • 02:13:37
    We've got a great workaround that I think will work really well.
  • 02:13:41
    But the ticketers have gone down, compliance goes down,
  • 02:13:44
    Public expectations are high and it's expensive.
  • 02:13:48
    And so if we can find a way that meets the climate, responds to the enforcement world we're in, responds to public expectations, and isn't more expensive, we want to bring that to you and the public.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 02:14:01
    Yeah, and just a quick follow-up to that.
  • 02:14:05
    Just not to point fingers at ourselves, there was a community engagement budget last year for sort of helping spreading the word around public works and snow updates and shifting of parking and things like that.
  • 02:14:16
    And so some of the best extensions of this kind of communication is our word offices.
  • 02:14:22
    And so the more information that we can share to be like, it's really fluffy today.
  • 02:14:26
    this means right or it's really heavy like when you go out you're breaking your own back trying to shovel your sidewalk so it's just to name that nuance sounds really important to constituents because I'm sure everyone sees the like you know I measured in my house and there's you know three inches of snow here it's like well it's a measurement across the board right so that more specific information I think is good because then you know heaven forbid Minnesotans talk about weather when they're out and about and heaven forbid someone gets to share a little better information around
  • 02:14:54
    I do.
• • Cheniqua Johnson
  • 02:14:57
    I have one comment around snow removal, and I'm sure Mike and the Jones will appreciate it that are in Highwood Hills.
  • 02:15:06
    I genuinely want to be able to put a plug in if they are not on the pilot list for some of these streets that are in our neighborhoods that are in unpaid roads, alleyways, that are not shared.
  • 02:15:21
    I get a lot.
  • 02:15:28
    Most of my snow removal complaints in my ward come from my Highwood Hills residents who genuinely have one way in, one way out.
  • 02:15:36
    And when they are unable to, and know road infrastructure to keep them on the street if they were to slide or
  • 02:15:45
    of the City of St Paul.
  • 02:16:05
    and the City Council.
  • 02:16:19
    In your vacancy report, it's the parking enforcement officers.
  • 02:16:24
    Looks like there were 2.44 FTEs vacant from January this year until October of this year projected.
  • 02:16:33
    And I'm just wondering, is that still on par for that timeline given some of the other budget constraints that we have this year?
  • 02:16:42
    And then just wondering if they're going to be hired in time for
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 02:16:48
    Council Vice President, Council Member Johnson, what I'm going to do is twist your question a little bit.
  • 02:16:53
    Sure.
  • 02:16:53
    Parking enforcement officers, there's always a high vacancy in because it's a feeder system for sworn officers.
  • 02:17:02
    And so even before we started this pilot, there was a lot of turnover.
  • 02:17:06
    And many of you know this well, the difficulty.
  • 02:17:09
    And now it's a good difficulty, and those folks go on to the academy.
  • 02:17:12
    What we've done, though, with our funding is so that vacancy number does not reflect how we've implemented it with our
  • 02:17:18
    Committee.
  • 02:17:33
    it's working out marvelously and I can't say enough again about Jeremy Ellison and the police department's partnership we are able to do residential parking permit enforcement ways that we couldn't as we're doing more construction we can send people out for that or street sweeping or sanitation ban we're able to kind of modulate that so that it's not we're not over enforcing that so we are fully utilizing those FTEs in the way that was attended
  • 02:18:02
    and there's still vacancies within the police department.
• • Cheniqua Johnson
  • 02:18:05
    Okay, so we have three active FCDs right now in PDOs and we just are planning to field these additional positions before the mid-October.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 02:18:15
    Well, and those, let me know Council Vice President, Council Member Johnson, that I'm answering your question.
  • 02:18:21
    We started that months ago.
  • 02:18:23
    So we've been using effectively three FTEs months ago.
  • 02:18:26
    And now those people vary, but it works out to three FTEs.
  • 02:18:31
    We take it, you know, kind of week by week.
  • 02:18:34
    so that work started months ago and will continue and as that work will only increase when snow arrives so those employees are police employees they're you know fully police employees kind of assigned to our work with their duties and the police department is always hiring for that I think council president had a question there are 12 FTEs for PTOs and I'm not sure the vacancy 10 okay
  • 02:19:01
    Does that answer your question, Councilmember Johnson?
  • 02:19:04
    Because we're really happy with the program.
• • Cheniqua Johnson
  • 02:19:08
    Yeah, so that's great that you have the three.
  • 02:19:10
    It sounds like those are full.
  • 02:19:12
    And then you have two additional vacancies.
  • 02:19:14
    And just given the conversation we had earlier, I guess I'm more so wondering, is the plan still to fill those by October 15th?
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 02:19:24
    They're hired by the police department.
  • 02:19:26
    Those are police department employees.
  • 02:19:28
    We will continue to coordinate them with them.
  • 02:19:32
    There aren't three people whose only assignment is public works.
  • 02:19:37
    The police department has their complement of however many PEOs.
  • 02:19:40
    The great thing for us, and this is selfish, is if they have three PEOs total, we're still paying
  • 02:19:46
    and those will be dedicated to our work, but it's a very close partnership.
  • 02:19:50
    So they will continue to have vacancies in that role, but we've been utilizing three FTEs for months now.
  • 02:20:00
    Does that answer your question, Council Member?
• • Cheniqua Johnson
  • 02:20:02
    No, but I'll follow up with you separately.
  • 02:20:04
    I'm particularly talking about your public works general fund vacancy report.
  • 02:20:08
    So in your public works general fund vacancy report, there's an item for parking enforcement officers.
  • 02:20:13
    My assumption was that those were public work staff.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 02:20:18
    It's a really important question, so I want to make sure we answer it.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 02:20:28
    Sorry, Councilmember, I'm Courtney Anderson Ewald, the HR Manager for Public Works, and I think the confusion is in the title of how these vacancies are budgeted.
  • 02:20:38
    They're budgeted as parking enforcement officers, and I think Director Kershaw was thinking of the parking enforcement officers that we
  • 02:20:45
    of the City of St. Paul, City of St. Paul, City of St. Paul, City of St. Paul, City of St. Paul, City of St.
  • 02:21:13
    that those positions will have a wrecking process and we're starting the recruitment process so that although they won't be ticketing, they'll be running tickets, they'll be partnered with a police officer and then running tickets from the police vehicle to the illegally parked car.
  • 02:21:33
    So I apologize for the confusion.
• • Cheniqua Johnson
  • 02:21:36
    No, thank you.
  • 02:21:36
    Thank you, I appreciate that.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 02:21:37
    And I apologize for wasting your time with a non-answer.
  • 02:21:40
    Thank you.
  • 02:21:41
    Courtney Anderson Ewald coordinates that
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 02:21:43
    Committee.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 02:21:58
    I think we got from the mayor's office was that we didn't understand what was being presented to us, and I think that exchange shows how difficult it sometimes is to understand, so I'm really glad that we pushed to understand, and thank you for clarifying.
  • 02:22:15
    Two things, one comment quickly about snow.
  • 02:22:18
    I appreciate the point that residents' expectations have gone up.
  • 02:22:22
    I think that may be the case.
  • 02:22:24
    I also think it's important for us to acknowledge that their expectations have very often not been met, and I know you know that, Director Kershaw, and your team knows that, which is why we're trying to innovate and try new approaches, but I don't want the overall message to be nature's gotten harder and people expect too much, and otherwise we've been hitting it out of the park, and I know you didn't say that, but I think we all, we have a long way to go to do snow very well in the City of St. Paul,
  • 02:22:48
    I think residents do have the right to expect a lot from us on that front, so I just want to say that.
  • 02:22:53
    I want to come back to the Met Council additional sewer charge for a second, which you mentioned briefly.
  • 02:22:58
    It is $6 million of an increase, it looks like, a $35 million charge total and a $6 million increase from last year, if I'm looking at it correctly.
  • 02:23:08
    And I know you said that probably the best thing to do is just sort of pay it and move on and look at ways of reducing that in the future, but
  • 02:23:17
    If you're saying that a lot of that was from flooding, it doesn't make sense to me that we should be penalized for how much rain falls on our city when we're already seeing decreases from the state in lots of other funding categories.
  • 02:23:29
    So I'm wondering what our recourse is to push back on the Met Council's charge and
  • 02:23:35
    and the City Council.
  • 02:23:39
    I am loathe to immediately
  • 02:23:51
    and the City Council.
  • 02:23:52
    I don't know if they came into this.
• • Sean Kershaw
  • 02:23:53
    The staff love that question.
  • 02:23:55
    If you could clarify, Bev would be perfect to answer this.
  • 02:23:58
    Is that okay to address the question?
  • 02:24:00
    And if we can talk about both the delta, what it was, and the mitigation actions.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 02:24:07
    Thank you for your question, Council President Naker.
  • 02:24:09
    It is a fun one.
  • 02:24:11
    I'm Bev Fariker.
  • 02:24:12
    I'm the operations manager, and we've been interacting with the good professionals at Met Council Environmental Services to really
  • 02:24:21
    the perception that they have shared through their data analysis that this part of this increase is coming from rainfall.
  • 02:24:29
    And we have lower areas, we have more of an effect in some of our infrastructure from rainfall.
  • 02:24:35
    We also have older city infrastructure for our sewer systems.
  • 02:24:40
    And so we are assiduously every year through the sewer utility addressing
  • 02:24:44
    to address infiltration in our pipes, our mains, and we're working with private people, residents, to address infiltration in their laterals.
  • 02:24:54
    So we're constantly working on it, and we are making headway.
  • 02:24:58
    And that is recognized by the Council.
  • 02:24:59
    They do give us a grant to help us do that with private citizens, because this is a big financial hit.
  • 02:25:07
    But when the Council is looking at the percentage of flow
  • 02:25:10
    and they apportion the payments based on what they perceive are each city's flow into their system.
  • 02:25:18
    They believe that there's a rain effect for us.
  • 02:25:22
    And we have made the argument that we should not have to take the burden for rain.
  • 02:25:27
    But they make a counter argument because we've had several meetings with them on this issue.
  • 02:25:32
    And they are very good, kind professionals.
  • 02:25:35
    and their statement is they have a certain budget and they need to address that budget with all the participating agencies that are sending them waste so they can't they feel in good conscience have other agencies pay higher amounts
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 02:29:39
    2023, St Paul Regional Water Services launched an ambitious 10-year plan to replace all lead pipes in its service area at no cost to property owners.
  • 02:29:56
    While lead is not present in water leaving the treatment plant, it can get into drinking water from lead service lines entering a house.
  • 02:30:03
    St Paul Regional Water Services treats its water to minimize leaching.
  • 02:30:08
    This process, called corrosion control, creates a protective scale on the inside of the pipe between the water and the lead.
  • 02:30:15
    While corrosion control is highly effective, the best way to remove lead from water is to remove lead service lines.
  • 02:30:22
    Service lines are the pipes that carry water from the water main in the street into homes and buildings.
  • 02:30:27
    St Paul Regional Water Services owns the water main in the street and the service line in the right of way to the property line.
  • 02:30:34
    Individual property owners own the part of the service line from the property line into the home.
  • 02:30:40
    With the support of local and federal funding, St Paul Regional Water Services plans to remove the entire service line on both the private side and the right of way at no cost to customers.
  • 02:30:51
    Participation in the Lead-Free SPRWS program is completely voluntary and customers are strongly encouraged to remove their lead lines when offered the opportunity.
  • 02:31:00
    At the project start in 2023, about 26,000 lead service lines needed to be replaced within the SPRWS service area.
  • 02:31:09
    SPRWS has set the goal of removing all these lines between 2023 and 2032.
  • 02:31:15
    Total project costs are estimated to be about 300 million.
  • 02:31:19
    Replacements are organized and prioritized using multiple factors including efficiency of completing replacements during other construction projects including water main replacements or street reconstruction.
  • 02:31:31
    We also use census information to identify areas where the population is at a higher risk for negative health consequences of lead exposure, including children under 5 and low-income populations.
  • 02:31:43
    Replacement decisions are made and communicated annually leading up to the construction season.
  • 02:31:48
    In addition to lead from service lines, lead can come from home fixtures such as faucets purchased prior to 2014 or from lead solder in copper piping.
  • 02:31:57
    There are things you can do to reduce your exposure to lead from these sources.
  • 02:32:01
    These include letting your cold water run for three to five minutes anytime your water has been sitting motionless for six hours or more, or using a filter for drinking, cooking, and making baby formula.
  • 02:32:12
    If you have an aerator on your faucet, remove it and clean it once a month.
  • 02:32:16
    If St Paul property owners would like to replace their service lines sooner than lead-free SPRWS will be in their area, SPRWS offers a Lead Assessment Program.
  • 02:32:26
    This allows customers to hire a licensed contractor to complete the work within private property and pay for it via a 20-year low-interest assessment.
  • 02:32:35
    If it is lead, St Paul Regional Water Services will then replace the public portion at no cost, typically within the same construction season.
  • 02:32:44
    Visit stpaul.gov slash water slash lead free to learn more about lead and the lead free SPRWS program.
  • 02:32:51
    Use our online tools to check your water service material and find out if the lead free program will be on your street soon.
  • 02:32:57
    complete an intent form to let us know you're interested in a free water service line replacement and to receive updates on the program.
  • 02:33:04
    We are still collecting contact information for the program even if you are not eligible currently.
  • 02:33:09
    This allows us to easily reach you in the future.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 02:33:22
    St Paul Parks and Recreation's natural resource staff use prescribed burns to manage over 200 acres of burn area.
  • 02:33:28
    But what is a prescribed burn, and why is it needed?
  • 02:33:31
    Prescribed burns are a controlled fire that mimic natural wildfires to clear unwanted vegetation and protect biodiversity, making it a safe, efficient, and cost-effective way to restore our city's natural areas.
  • 02:33:44
    Before European colonization, Minnesota's prairies spanned 18 million acres, home to an incredible and diverse array of wildlife.
  • 02:33:52
    Think of them as the rainforests of the Midwest that we must protect.
  • 02:33:56
    Grasslands and oak savannas are fire-dependent ecosystems.
  • 02:34:01
    This means prairies and the species that thrive in them rely on frequent wildfires to exist.
  • 02:34:07
    Fire plays a crucial role by clearing out encroaching trees and shrubs,
  • 02:34:11
    Recycling vital nutrients like nitrogen back into the soil And encouraging new growth that benefits herbivores and pollinators Now we know about the importance of fire in natural ecosystem life cycles But why are prescribed burns necessary?
  • 02:34:26
    Today, only 1% of Minnesota's original prairie remains
  • 02:34:30
    However, St Paul has been able to restore and maintain