--------- County work section to order. First item on the agenda is the introduction of new employees. I think we might have a a new employee or two that they if we do, please come up and come up to the microphone and state your name and give a little uh background
from where you're from and so on. Hello. Hi, my name is Jamie Danielson. I was hired on a 228 this year. I am from Shovel, Minnesota. Great. Originally from Chevlin and I have lived in uh my house for 30 years
over Shovel address. Cool. Well, welcome aboard. All right. Thank you. Anybody have any questions for No. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yep. Hi. My name is Samuel Hendendrickson. I was hired May 20th of this year and I'm
originally from Monovid, Minnesota. What what are you going to do for the sheriff's department or corrections? Corrections. Corrections. Okay, great. Speaking of life. Yeah.
So far everything's good though. Great. Well, welcome aboard, Samuel. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? Looks like that's it for new employees. Uh future work meeting topics. Anybody have any future work meeting topics they'd like to bring up?
Not seeing any. We'll go on to Cast Lake Fire Department. Our fire chief, Robert, is here to go through a presentation to give us an update on the Cast Lake Fire Department and what we have going on there. Welcome, Robert.
Welcome Buju. So, like uh Craig said, my name's Robert Jasper and I'm from the Cast Lake Fire Department and I've never used one of these. So, I'm assuming just the little button here will click me over.
Yeah. All right. So, I wasn't exactly sure uh what we were looking for today. So, I thought maybe just a little overview of who we are and what's going on over in Cast Lake. Great. So, that's just a little history about
the Cass Lake Fire Department. It was originally founded, I think, prior to 1900ish or so. Um, the relief association who manages the retirement fund for the firefighters is as far back as I think 1903.
Um, in 2005, the city and surrounding government agencies created a joint powers and then they created the Cast Lake Royal Fire Association with that. So, we're kind of a little bit independent on our own as
far as how we're ran structurally and uh I send like a budget out to the 11 members of the uh association each year and then they all um you know pay their share of fire protection fees. So, there's a little bit more about uh
our fire coverage area there. You'll see the blue is the Belrami County area. We have we have the four areas, three townships and then the one unorganized township which was Brook Lake. And then that is why Craig comes to our meetings and helps us out in a good way that he
does. So there's a little bit more what I was talking about how we're funded. I believe everybody got a copy too, right? So they had a chance to read through. I don't know. Did that get out to everybody or No, no, it didn't actually. So, that's something maybe you could send out, Diane, just so they have
the the data if they want to peruse it later. The It's pretty convoluted formula for how we come up with it. Takes into number of fire calls and and um you know, household, fire hours, yeah, marketable value, um things like
that throughout the year. And then it's it's stone into a real nice formula and it really breaks down quite well for each of the entities. So, you know, so like the smaller townships or whatnot that don't get a lot of calls, they're not having to pay a really expensive price overall.
Um, so and then there's uh so Leech Lake Reservation is one of our one of our entities and within our boundaries 381 of those acres are are within the reservation square miles. I should say. Yep. Trying
not to get nervous here. All right. Uh, great. So, yeah, like like we showing there on the map, you can kind of see our outline again. Then some of the surrounding departments, uh, I believe we have mutual aid agreements with everybody.
I found that map to be really, really interesting to be able to see how everything lots of different fire departments that we right in the middle of. That's a good map. That would make a good mouse pad.
Actually looks like it might be. I don't know. Probably sell you one if you want. I'll buy one. Uh, some more things. We do a lot of training and drills. We do uh mandatory monthly trainings plus we do a bunch of
extra trainings. Um when I took over as uh chief for the department, one of the main things that the guys wanted us to do was really amp up our training and so we've really done a lot of that. You got almost all the guys now are certified or aren't they with the the
fire fire one and you know so yeah. So everybody has to be fire one certified to be a firefighter in the state of Minnesota. So, not only do we do that, we certify them as firefighter tube and the association has agreed to uh pay for
their state firefighter license. So, I think we're about 18 or 19 guys right now out of 24 that are actually statelicicensed firefighters, which is not a requirement for volunteer fire departments right now. Um, so we're going above and beyond is what I was
getting at. Yes. And the And are we fully staffed at 23 or close to it? 24 and we're fully staffed right now. Oh, 24. Okay. Yeah. Counting myself. Oh, yeah. Okay. Y we do a lot of community events. Um we help the Cass County Sheriff's do their
ice rescue training every year. We do the parades and we go do a lot of like uh fire extinguisher safety training and stuff like that for a lot of the small businesses. and agencies around town.
There's the ALC career fair that I met Joel. I see two of my students there. One of them had a great time. They got nay that day. Putting on the equipment. That's cool. Uh, one of the big things we're doing for the last couple years now is we're
working on a new fireh hall. So, right now, our current fireh hall is about 4,000 square ft, and it's just we just don't have much room. Um there's no separation between the garage and administrative places. So like this
morning we had a structure fire uh up in Allen's Bay. Trucks come back. You get to smell them off gas for a day or two. You know, gets kind of stinky in there. And that there is our little meeting area. Um and right behind on the right side of that is is where our trucks
parked and everything. So, and all the gear is hanging there and all the gear has been in that smoke and toxic stuff and yeah, it's just not not the greatest. So, and there's just no room. We have a we have a hazmat trailer, but it's 2 miles away in someone else's garage, you
know? It's just we don't have room for a four-wheeler or type of boat or anything. And and we need those things. So, we're really hoping we can upgrade here soon. And with the casino, uh, the multi-story, we we don't have room for a ladder truck if we're, you know, to be
able if we if we were able to get one sooner than later. We don't have room to store it inside. Right. Um, so the, uh, the reservation agreed to lease us a parcel of property about 1.64 acres. You could see it on
the sheet there. Um, if you guys know where the Dairy Queen is in Cass Lake along Highway 2. So that's the area and that's just kind of a quick drawing that we had a drawn up a couple years ago where we're hoping we'll have our fire department. Robert had a criteria that
it needed to be right next to a Dairy Queen. Like those flamethrower burgers is what I say. So uh yeah, estimated current cost is about 5.4 million. And I just gotten that from the the world architects and engineers. I think they're out of the
cities. Um we we have been raising money for it. So we're at a little over a million dollars stashed away already. So that is uh one good thing. So we're really serious about, you know, hopefully completing this. Those are a list of
some of the funders so far that we've had. Uh last summer I hurt my knee and I wasn't really to be able to do a lot of stuff. So I I started pounding the grants and all the different things and I think I went through what do we say like 60 60 different organizations
foundations and I I attempted to reach out to as many as I could and yeah I didn't get a whole lot back. So other than the Mardog foundation that was really a really nice surprise there. So, Robert's being modest when he says we he
largely it's been him that has been the the inscare behind all that fund fundraising and and u you know it's done a great job. I need people driving me forward on it. So, it's a we project. So, any comments, questions?
Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair, Chief. Uh thanks for coming in today. Uh, good information. Have you guys thought about doing uh bonding uh as a joint powers board? Do you have that ability to um bond or we we've thought about that and
the idea behind bonding with each separate entity and everything like that would is going to get pretty I think it would be really a a really big upward battle to to attempt to do that. Could one of the Could one of the
members be the fiscal host or lead on it and go that route? It's just a matter of the you know the the cost for a lot of these townships are very you know meager funds and and to to even be able to pay for that. Um that's what we're trying to
get get it accomplished through grants and that sort of thing. Mhm. Yeah. I'm just thinking if you've raised a lot of money so far that could be an incentive for the you know to get the approval. uh you know bring down the overall cost if
I don't is Cass County a member uh could they take the lead on it potentially or um yeah the um Ricky is is he from Yeah. Yeah. Rick Holland is commissioner for Castony. Yeah. Um
know Rick pretty well. Yeah. I mean, I'm kind of hoping to be able to get more of it done without trying to do that just because it is so complicated having all the multiple parties and all the individual boards would have to approve of that and
no. Yeah, it would be really uphill battle like you said. Yeah, I could see a good idea, but yeah, we've got we thought about that. Could see how it get wonky quick. Yeah, real wonky. So, one of one of the other things that I that we are doing that I didn't put on here is uh congressional funding. Yeah. And
so, I uh I submitted applications with uh Mr. Stabber uh Senator Smith and Clolobashar. Yeah. And uh this year, I believe Stalber wasn't able to help us push it forward, but uh Senator Smith and Clolobashar still have us on the radar, and they're
still going to push us to see uh see if we can keep getting that pushed through. So, yep, that's a good route for sure. And we're looking at other other, you know, as I say, mostly Robert, looking at other potential options, too, other, you know, other tribal entities that might be able or willing to help. And um
it's a it's definitely a good cause. I don't remember on your slide that if you had the the Neielson Foundation amount in there. You did. Okay. Because that they've pledged that much to it. Yeah. That's wonderful. So, anybody else have questions? Commissioner Sumar. Uh Mr.
Chair. Robert, thanks for coming. I appreciate uh you coming over and filling us in about uh what you do at the at the Cast Lake Fire Association. I've been on the board for a number of years and I think this is the first time that I've heard, you know, uh the work
that you guys are doing, aside from what Commissioner Gos reports, it seems like you guys are doing a lot of great work over there. Um but I'm kind of curious. Uh I I also have all volunteer fire uh departments in my district and and I I
struggle with trying to figure out how, you know, I could help or we, you know, as a county could help uh because they they had the same situations about, you know, their equipment, their their uh buildings, their trucks, you know, their, you know, outdated. And uh I
mean, we just don't have enough money, you know. I I you know I I agree with the Commissioner Gold about, you know, maybe asking for some bonding, but I mean there's there's there's thousands of of volunteer fire departments out there that would probably be lining up uh the
doorstep asking for the same. So I I I completely understand. So, I'm just kind of curious. This uh your association receives funding from each of the townships that go towards
uh the cost to to have you guys there to Yep. to operate our to operate our funding department. Yep. And and your formula there, I was trying to understand it. The down conversation to go through that. Well, I I would I would love an
opportunity to to uh understand that a little bit more and and how you guys um operate with with you know the limited resources that you guys have and and uh um so I just want to again thank you for
for coming. So thank you. Thank you Commissioner Sar. Thanks. Yeah, anytime you want to just reach out and you can set something up. So Commissioner Carlson. Thank you Mr. Chair. So, Chief, uh, are is it just you were the only paid full-time staff? Everyone else is volunteers. Is that correct? Correct.
Wow. That's that's a that's a lot. And it wasn't that way when I first got on the board, and that was a a really good decision. Um, the guys actually were very much behind Chief uh Jasper to become the the full-time fire chief. And that's made a a huge difference in how
the department is ran. And so it's made a we wouldn't be doing this with the new fireh hall and stuff if we still had um you know part-time um people running it. It's been a credit to having Robert in that role. So thank you. Yep. Anybody
else have any questions? Well, maybe next time you won't be so nervous. Yeah, it's it's always No, you did great. Oh, thank you. Thank you, Robert. We appreciate it. and have get go get some some rest. He'd been working with that fire this morning
and everything, so he's been out out with the guys already. So, thank you. Thank you. All right. Next on the agenda, we've got uh the facilities update with Mr. Shadrich. Thank you, commissioners.
firefighters and EMT. Aren't they great? Yep. Pretty awesome people. Say thank you for uh letting me visit with you today. Um I'm here to talk about facilities. Um I did have uh Commissioner Gold reach out to me and request that I provide an update on
building status and and such and it's a good time. So like to like to do that. So, our mission uh obviously uh provide uh clean, comfortable uh safe working environments for everybody that occupy our buildings.
Um with our new jail coming online, we will be a little over 450,000 square feet that we manage and maintain. Um I may be moving pretty quick through these slides because I got quite a few of them. Please shout out or holler at
me if you want to chat further. Um we we lease a fair amount of space uh within the county. We do have uh 20 in 2024 made a little over a million dollars of revenue. That's uh both a combination of
outside revenue typically from state, federal, nonprofit organizations. Um and then uh we also do uh county agencies such as Health and Human Services, Pauline and Task Force, uh Natural
Resource Management. They pay us for the spaces that they're in. Um a good reason why is because they get rent revenue back um from state or federal reimbursements. So, um, currently we
have, uh, some space, uh, lease space available. Um, we don't have a lot of it, but we do have some. We're still looking at filling some of that from the community services center first floor, and we've got a couple offices over in the historic courthouse, but um, overall
a lot. Steve, uh, yeah, who do you think would be ideal possible candidates for the offices in the historic courthouse? I you know um how big is that? 417 I guess but yeah you know we we most of
our um leases our state federal uh nonprofit those folks in you know actively um communicate and integrate with county work. So like the for example, Department of Corrections, um public
defenders, the Minnesota public defenders, you know, they're always in our courthouse. Um you know, so generally we like to to connect up with people that have a vested interest in the work that the county does. Seems to be a good fit. So that's typically who
we um uh you know, would would like to see um you know uh rent from us. But you know, it's we're open. Okay, thank you. Uh just like a lot of departments, we uh deal with challenges and everything. One
of them is increased cost uh uh aging infrastructure as you're going to see in my uh slides as we move forward here. Um 25 years ago, we had a pretty good uh pretty new campus, I should say. um you know, but now we're at that age
where we're having to start investing into uh some big ticket items and stuff and and so with limited revenues, that's always kind of a struggle. Um some of the opportunities that we've uh um worked on in the past is uh in 2022, we
had a $65,000 plus uh rebate from Ottertale Power. Um, and that was for uh some of our lighting projects that we had going on that year. Um, we did reach out for historical grants in the past. We have not received any. Um, but we
hope to change that. So, we will continue to work along those lines to uh gain grants for our updating of our historical courthouse. What's that? What's that up there? That is a rooftop unit on that's actually on
this building here. So that's a heating and cooling unit. Looks like a little house. That's pretty massive. It's It is the ones on the community services center about twice that big. Yeah. Yep. So it really is a like a um it'd be like
a full um say trailer house type size. So Yeah. Yep. Uh, as you know, we do a lot of in-house services to maintain our uh properties. Uh, a lot of things to do, a lot of
things to to uh keep up on. So, in order to make it uh um safe, comfortable, and clean for our building occupants, tenants, staff, um we contract out services. uh sometimes we have to contract out
mandatory uh statemandated services. So uh this is uh you know we do that um this is kind of where I wanted to end up today. Uh facility consisting assessments. Okay, we do those uh
annually. uh it takes me and others um generally one to three days per building to complete one uh FCA. Um this information is used basically to uh
review the state of the building and identify um what uh repairs or upgrades are needed both for uh immediate and long-term. Uh this is what I use for our
budgeting uh purposes. So this is a massive um help during our budget process. Uh we have um as I mentioned when we do an FCA we look at everything external uh uh on the building uh the
internal what the conditions of the walls are what the finishes look like um if there's any damage to anything. um uh mechanical systems. We have uh and have had for the last 15 years an an awesome
HVAC technician, John Dah, and he runs a very strict preventive maintenance program uh for HVAC, and allows us to really know what our systems are doing, how long we're going to be able to keep those systems for, and that type of
thing. Uh but we look at all that stuff, electrical systems and and then obviously the the outside grounds. So did John D contracted a person or is he an employee? He is an employee. Yep. Yep. Went to certifications and stuff
with equipment we have. Oh yeah. Yep. Yep. Went to tech school for HVAC. Worked out of a service van for nine 10 years. Um been here at the county 14 15 years now. So yeah, he is an an excellent service technician and a hard
worker. So he he makes uh uh he keeps me updated on all the HVAC stuff and uh so that's extremely helpful. So, um, and as I mentioned, the FCA works really in conjunction with the preventive maintenance program just
because we know, uh, what the condition of the equipment is, and so that allows us to, uh, put the information from the FCA, tie it to the preventive manage program and provide outcomes. Uh,
it then allows us to rate the building. Okay, we have four different ratings that we like to use. Um, everything from excellent to poor. Uh, excellent would be, you know, 15 years ago, we had a lot of excellent buildings. They were like
new. Um, because our campus is now getting 20 25 years old now for a bulk of our buildings. Um, so we're not seeing that excellent rating uh as much anymore. Most of our buildings are in
the good uh rating, structurally sound, aesthetically pleasing. Uh maintenance is being conducted with uh minimal maintenance uh being deferred. So the maintenance is getting getting done when it should be getting done. Um that's
what we like to see. Um, a fair rating is pretty much the same except for it's really based on a um, it's a possibly an older building, maybe not as updated. Um, it could use a little more updating, that type of thing. Um, still
structurally sound. Um, uh, mostly aesthetically pleasing. And our last one is a pore. Um, where you might have possible structural issues. Uh it's no longer really aesthetically pleasing anymore. A little higher level
of deferred maintenance. Um it's generally an older building. Uh some systems in it have failed or are currently failing and the potential need for extensive repairs. We have one of those buildings.
I'll be going over that in a minute. Yep. Um when you talked about the buildings uh age of our buildings right here on this campus, you said they're about 20 25 years old. When they were built, do you remember what sort of uh specifications were they built to
like a 50-year standard, a 75 year standard to any Well, the the big thing is the maintenance. Keep water out of a building. Um maintain your equipment. And I mean you can you could add another 25 years just
like that by just doing that just maintaining that equipment. Now obviously you're going to have to upgrade infrastructure and that's what we'll see here today. But you know if a building is maintained properly these type of buildings that we see you know
75 100 years you know um so it's it's not not unheard of or nothing like that. It's It's really should be in the this board has to should Yeah. Right. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.
But again, um you know, that comes with investments and making sure that we're we're doing the right things at the right time and stuff. So, all right. So, we're just going to jump into the different buildings here. Um I won't go through everything for every building, but it's just uh to kind of
get you updated as to where we're at with different things. the historic courthouse. It's 123 years old. Um, given the age of it, it's still in pretty good condition. Um, we actually have a lift outside today and it's been outside for about 2 weeks now. Um, we're
cocking the exterior windows and doors of that building. So, the last couple years we've been doing tuck pointing and brick replacement repairs. Um, are we done with it? No. That building is a continuous. So that's where that historical grant really should take
place. So what is tuck pointing people? Tuck pointing is that grout that mortar joint in between the bricks. Okay. So it's that you know it can be multiple different colors but it typically a dark gray or you know so but yeah that right in between the bricks. Yeah. So you get
uh cracking and deterioration in there. Water gets in there and that's a bad thing. So all right. our annex building. It's uh uh 51 years old. It's in good shape. We're actually doing ro roof replacement on it right now. Got roofers on it right
now uh uh replacing that. Um but uh so we have a few things coming up in 27 and 28 that we want to do. Uh but nothing out of the norm on that bill. It's a it's a good solid building. Highway building, this is our problem
child. Um, so the office section, that section was um, you know, remodeled back in 2012. Okay. So, the office area that's that's in good shape. Uh, good good condition. The shop, that's where our problem is. That's we have one
building on our one building that is in poor shape and that's the shop. So, um, at least the one the buildings that I manage. I don't know about solid waste. I think that's a probably pretty tough building out there, but I think they're
doing remodeling on that now. But, um, the shop, um, I guess this is where I would emphasize we need to focus on getting some, you know, getting this building remodeled, getting it, uh, uh,
redone. Um, I think that 20 and 2027, uh, Bruce Hazbaren, the engineer, and myself is is we're trying to see if we can get make that happen at that time. Go ahead, Scott. Commissioner, thank you. U, you're talking about like
just the one garage on the front side that's on Adams Avenue basically. So, yeah, not the big not the big garage space in the back, right? It's it's the whole whole 20 some 50 foot 230 foot um
by 80 some foot section. So what we're there's a number of issues with it. Um you know again it's it's 51 years old. There there has not been a lot of maintenance put into it over the years on the shop part of it. Um it's seen a
lot of rough rough stuff. You got salt trucks coming in a lot of deterioration of the floor because of the salts. Um, you know, a lot of a lot of different things. The roof has been in need of replacement for 3 4 years now. Um, we've just been kind of cobbling that along
until we can figure out what we want to do from a plan. Um, drain piping under the concrete that's deteriorating. We already had to tear up some of it. Um, so we're having some issues with that. HVAC, uh, we keep kind of, um, do
repairing that as we can, as we need to, I should say. Um uh but uh yeah, we we have some some concerns in that building as far as uh you know, needing to to get it back up to par. Um few years ago, we
saw some uh shifting taking place in the building. Um and so I brought in a structural engineer. It was determined that everything is safe. So there's no issue with that or anything, but it is affecting the way our garage doors open up. It's affecting uh putting cracks in
our C CMU concrete masonry units, our concrete block walls. We're seeing a shift in and cracking and stuff and so um we need to address that. So that is Mr. Chair. Uh thanks. Um
so I know that the um highway department uh came and presented maybe a year or two ago about you know this situation. So maybe this could be a future work meeting topic. Um I'm just kind of
curious to find out if if we could use some of the the sales tax money towards uh making improvements to the to the shop. I know it's not um road related, but I mean it it is
kind of a it is a a need. Um, so maybe we can have some sort of discussion about possibly putting the shop on on the on the list of of projects possibilities. Just wondering if that is a possibility. Commissioner Summer, I think that Bruce has said that it is
possible to do that. Just that we've always prioritized the road projects and and that, but at some point, you know, we're going to have to pay the piper and get it the building up to speed. I think I remember Bruce mentioning that there are issues with not only the physical shape of the building, but also just the
the you know bigger bigger graders and trucks and stuff. Uh it not having the depths and having to park things outside and work on certain things outside and in the winter that's that's less than desirable if you were the one working on it. So I think that that is something that we need to look at prioritizing.
Yeah, exactly. That's one of the other factors, too. Yep. All the new equipment's bigger and just won't fit in the illegal. Um we have, you know, the the pavement around the facility. Um if if people would come and take a look at that, they'd probably enjoy the roads a
little more. It's pretty rough. So, um so yeah, there's a number of things going on there that that we really need to address coming up here pretty soon. So you'll see more of that from probably Bruce and I on that. But
uh jail uh 37 years old rated as a fair uh condition. I rate it as the same as what Cross Anderson did. Cross Anderson, you probably know that they did a FCA on this uh building as well. Um and then we're working with the architects to
identify solutions on what might happen with that existing jail. Um and so that's we really don't have any capital projects planned uh for this facility uh at this time just because of the unknowns. So
community services center 27 years old uh there again it's it's good rating. Um this is one area where we do have a massive uh cost. If you see if you look on the right side 2026 uh right under future projects on my budget this year I
did submit um for two rooftop units to be replaced. Now these were the rooftop units that are massively large. Um this is a 74,000 foot building. Um, we originally uh uh had gotten uh quotes
and it was $630,000 originally. We had uh um an engineering uh firm come in and they gave another estimate at 850,000. And then as of last week, we got an
updated uh detailed information or estimate from our engineers from EAPC that are currently working on the design for that uh rooftop replacement project. And uh they valued it as uh 1.3 million.
So it it has just significantly got astronomically grown. So that will be something that we will probably struggle with in the budget committee this year a little bit I would guess. So it can't be staged. You know it can be done in multiple
years but that is a it is a concern. So all right we're we're wrapping up here. Law enforcement center 21 years old. Uh it's in it's in good shape. We do have some things coming up, you know, but uh nothing out of the ordinary.
Uh this year, this building admin, uh same thing. Uh good shape. Uh nothing out of the ordinary on this. Just normal uh maintenance. Uh judicial center. Uh that's 19 years. And again, it's in good shape. So,
um Diane, how am I doing on time here? I'm about out. Um, we're close to done, but Okay, go finish up. I just wanted to I'll just only take just a couple minutes here. I just wanted to let the board know that um I'm starting to see and it's this
been something that's been done for many years with bigger organizations and I think we really need to to step into that um master planning mode. Um that involves a lot of other people than just myself and my staff. Um, I think we need
to uh actually have a a planning committee um that that you know I don't know what Ann Lindsath from Health and Human Services is going to want you know 10 years from now. Um she might know that. Um I don't know what Bruce is going to
want. He might know that. You know it's hard to to estimate that but we really should get their input. So, I do want to form a committee, develop some long-term planning, um, make it more strategic, uh, give me some direction as the
facilities director as to where I should be heading. Um, that type of thing. Uh, making sure we're meeting the county's goals and the values. Um, and, uh, we're supporting our departments as we as we need to. and also making sure that we
have the financial resources that we need to sustain our buildings and and facilities. So, uh, some of the things that some of the folks that we could have on this committee would simply be, you know, involving those that might be, uh, uh, represent larger departments,
uh, those that have specialty resources that that deal with, um, you know, they might have their all their um, equipment in one facility and yet they work out of another facility. Does that make sense? You know, that type of thing. Logistically, is that a good thing or
not? Um, I think we should have those conversations. Um, and then, uh, financial direction, you know, obviously we get that from our auditors, uh, department or possibly administration. So, that might be something that, you know, I don't know if Tom wants to be
involved in this or not, or board members do or not, but but, uh, it would certainly be something that could be optional as well. So, um, but I do think that, you know, this this, uh, is something that we should be be involved in, uh, um, and having a
countywide master planning, uh, so that's it. Sorry it took longer. Oh, no, that's fine, Steve. We appreciate it. Anybody have any other questions? Commissioner Sar. Yeah, Mr. Chair, thanks. So, um, Steve, I know that, uh,
you you do a great job of of trying to make sure that our our buildings are, you know, up to standards. Um, but I'm kind of curious. I know that this boardroom here is, you know, uh, has some security features in it that, um,
that that, you know, uh, might protect us. Um just kind of curious, have you checked to see if if everything is is working properly? Um uh the how's your
your safety plan? Um is the safety of of other uh buildings are they okay? Uh just kind of curious. We're Yeah, good question, Commissioner. We're we're always working on u making sure
the systems that are in place are functionable. Um we just did uh when I say we, I shouldn't say we. Uh the sheriff's department, the bailouts division, uh they test all the panic devices. They test the cameras that tie
to panic devices, that type of thing. Um during uh annual safety training this year a couple months back um we actually I brought in the sheriff's department and we showed all the county employees how to operate the panic devices, what
to expect, um when to activate a panic device. Uh that type of thing. Uh what cameras will be associated with with panic devices. So the sheriff's department when when a button is pulled, it pulls up pictures of the nearest cameras to that device. Um so dispatch
can direct uh officers in the right spot and such. Um yes, and and as you mentioned, there are some security and safety features that that are in place for the county board as well. Um and it's probably a good idea that we we look at updating everybody on that. uh
probably at a later date and stuff we can, you know, work through that and stuff, but yes, we we do have some of those in place and be more than happy to review that with everybody. So, Gossic. Yep. Go ahead. Um just real
quick, uh I know Tom usually provides an update, he's gone today, um on if there's anything with the current jail. Um any significant updates since our last meeting about that from design operations committee or anybody have anything Steve or Commissioner Carlson
on the operations Steve was on vacation last meeting so yeah welcome back. Yeah, I'm still playing catchup. So, no, there's uh they're progressing uh rather rapidly on the foundation and uh the schedule for starting to set walls is
still I'm sorry, I meant the current jail. Okay. Okay. So, so yeah, we spent about an hour and a half on the new jail and then we spent about two hours on the old jail working through um the real trick there is how do we get the
Sallyport and and how's that going to work? Um so I think you know there's there's a number of ideas that uh Klein McCarthy came up with um regarding using existing
regarding using part of the existing tearing down rebuilding a new sally port. So we're still working through that and we're hoping that by end of the summer we'll have a recommendation for the board. Um so that's kind of where we're at time wise. We're trying to make
sure we we take our time and and get it right, get the right information. So, yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Golden Carlson. Anybody else have any questions for Steve? All right. Thank you, Steve. Appreciate it. Thanks. Thank you. And we are on to the Bamiji State
University storm water project that Brent is going to come and update us on the big gopher mound over by Glass John Glassfield House. Yeah, you know, uh it was it was kind of funny. We we knew that the project was going to start construction like any day and then one
day driving by there's this massive earth pile and like wow they they was started fast. Yeah. The uh um quick kind of funny story. The director of facilities at BSU uh started
getting so many phone calls and started asking like hey we got to put something out there. And so we put some press releases out. We put stuff in the paper. We put stuff online and whatever. But he was getting so sick of the calls, he started telling people, "Yeah, we're building a water park." So,
it was kind of funny. He told a few people that, but um no, it's not a water park. It's a storm water project. Um so, kind of just quick history. Um kind this all this project specifically started back over 10 years ago. The county and the Mississippi headers board partnered
to evaluate the city of Biji. The Mississippi Headarters Board had a grant to look at the larger cities on the upper uh Mississippi headarters looking at storm water retrofit analysis. We hired an engineer, did a study on what the polluting loads are into the lakes and what we can do about them and
looking at cost benefit. This is one of the projects that was at the very top of the list. Um, we didn't do it 10 years ago because every grant that we would apply for, everywhere we went to find funding required like a 25 to 50% match and BSU didn't have the money to spend
on it. So, fast forward to today, we we do have grants to pay for it and we actually partnered with Nbridge Energy to provide the match for our grant. And then we're we're we're putting together six different grant funding sources for this project. the uh four of the other
grants don't require a match. So, um it's it's been a long time coming. It's been a lot work long time. I just kind of put together a a list of partners. So, the county, SWCD, BSU, the city of Baiji, and Nbridge Energy and uh those
are listing out the different funding sources for the project. Um and I put the clean water, land, and legacy amendment on there. Um all the funds that you see on that list other than Nbridge are clean water land and legacy amendment funds of some kind. Um
if you look at this map on the left the I don't know if you can see number 15 the diamond point on on the left that is so these are like catchment basins in the city Biji storm water system. The red is like stuff that we should target
the waterersheds that we should target. The green says, "Yeah, there's sufficient treatment there." The blue is those are not contributing to anything to the lakes directly. Those are all going into the ground. So, as you can see around Lake Bamiji, 15 is kind of the big highlight one that that was left
untreated. The other ones, uh, there have been projects on on and off in different capacities. The one on the right is kind of a map of that number 15. And the blue lines in there show the existing storm water infrastructure from the city of Bumiji's
GIS online. So the pipes you can see go right underneath BSU's buildings out to Diamond Point. Um it drains that whole area across Iran and then or I'm sorry across Palunion Drive and all of Palonian Drive into that area and um
it's a lot of water comes through there. It's 92 acres roughly a drainage area. um project began May 27th there. They were planned for completion on June 20th. I know they lost one day in there. Um the state of Minnesota came up and
said, "Hey, you don't have a storm water permit." And there was some confusion on the so that was a frustrating day, but um project was designed by more engineering from here in town uh with other u engineering
outsourcing in their company. They're a big company. Um, Casper Construction is doing the construction work. It's the same construction company that's doing the land construction stuff for the jail. Um, they were able to bring costs down for this project because they're already here. So, that was a good win there. Um, city of Bamiji has committed
to maintaining the system in the future even though it's on BSU's property. So, there it took a long time surprisingly to work through the details of that arrangement, that agreement. Um, the system is designed to capture the first one to two inches of rain in a 24-h hour period, depending on the velocity or the
the speed of the rainfall. Obviously, if it's a much if it's a heavy dump, it'll be an inch or something like that. If it's a nice gentle rain, it'll it'll probably take more than two inches over 24 hours. But, um, the additional rain, anything over that will continue on in the existing storm water system back out
to Diamond Point Park like it did before. Um the design will reduce about 58 pounds of phosphorus a year. Um the one wershed one plan the Mississippi headarters wershed. We've kind of talked a bunch about that. The 10-year goal is
about 200 pounds of phosphorus removal from Lake Bumiji. This is about 25% of that goal that we're doing in one project. So that's this is a huge project. And then I just threw this in at the end. um one pound of phosphorus they say average in in good conditions
makes about 500 lb of algae. So you imagine the significant algae bloom difference that there should be in Lake Bamiji after this project is in place. Um this is a drawing of the site itself. Uh I I just did this based on just rough
guess I put the red line is about where the current storm water pipe is. The blue box is about where the underground storm water treatment basin will be when it's all said and done. Um, and then this is what the site looked like at the pre-construction meeting before construction. And this is what it looks
like looking to the north from the side street kind of uh just a few days after they started really. Um, they had a pretty big hole in the ground. Uh the whole the bottom area of treatment is about 200 by 80 feet and
it's got about 12 inches of rock put on the bottom and then on top of that there's these three foot tall chambers. They're like 33 inches tall and they'll run the whole length of the the bed you'll see. And then they'll get covered in rock with another I don't remember if
it's another four inches of rock on top of those and then a geoteexile fabric and then all the dirt material back on it. This treatment system will be about 12 feet underground. It's all finished. Um there they're down to the other end after a couple of days. And this is um
looking kind of northnortheast. The the pipe you see in the bottom of the picture is the concrete city storm water pipe. And the the manhole looking thing at the bottom is exactly that. That's where the storm water will be diverted once they break that concrete pipe. they'll be diverting the storm water
into that that basin and then they'll reconnect it on the other end on the downhill side of it. So, um pretty cool projects happening really fast. Um this is them back filling it in. They've got um yesterday when I was there, it was
probably about twothirds filled already. So, um and then I threw this in at the end. This is my last slide. This is what the site looked like in 1976. Um, the reason I put this in there, there's no Gillette Rec Center. There's there's a few less buildings on BSU campus.
There's a few less things in Baiji. But, um, people ask sometimes like, why do these projects cost so much and why are you doing these projects now? Why didn't they just get done whenever it was developed? But we got to remember like this development happened 60 years ago or 80 years ago or whatever. And now
we're fixing things and it's more expensive to fix things. it's it's a lot cheaper to do it up front and design for it and plan for it. But plans change over time and then we have to adapt and and we learn new stuff over time. So, um I just thought it was pretty interesting to kind of historical perspective a
little bit there. So, and that's all I have. We just wanted to give you an update on a on a pretty cool significant big project in in our area that we're all partnering and working on. So, you have any questions? I'm here. Question for Brent. Brent, uh go ahead. If you go back to the two maps slide, um
would you agree that there's a need for the western part of the city limits there 7 9 11 12 13 are there any projects in the works for those areas? Yeah, we've been talking with the city engineer about potential projects for
that. um our one large water one plan we've budgeted a significant amount of money for urban storm water projects over the next 10 years work partnering with the city of Biji um we don't have any identified right now um with this we
did um we did a big project on the southeast side of Lake Irving and then this one is another big one that we've done um and then now we're kind of waiting for the city and partnering on what they want to do next too. So, there's nothing in the works, but that is definitely stuff we've been talking
about like what should be next. Okay. Thank you. Yep. Any other commissioners have any questions for Brent? Thanks, Brent. Appreciate it. And that brings up our transportation improvement plan from Bruce Hazburgen,
our county highway engineer. Good afternoon, commissioners. Bruce, how much did you have to pay Steve to bring up the I definitely owe them. I have uh a draft five-year plan uh for you. Uh again, it is draft. The official
plan would be adopted along with the budget in December. So, we do have some time to uh take a look at this and uh review the projects. Uh I hope to have a road tour in October to kind of see our current projects and future projects also. So, but at this time I wanted to
get this draft um five-year plan in front of you. Um did you print it in bigger form? No, sorry. I think you usually do that. Um sorry, I did not print out uh 11 by 17
sheets for you. Uh you'll have to listen carefully as I go through the projects and or uh zoom in afterwards when you're looking through them. Uh on the the attachment I I used the colors to highlight the changes. Yellow is new and
orange is uh just change a year in the plan. Um so first for 2026 we do have uh three projects that I would like to add. Um it is a Milan overlay on County Road 305.
uh our Casawa one which is up by Griggla, Marshall County takes care of that one for us. Um that's a shared road on the county line. Uh they take care of it for us and they are hoping to do a mill and overlay next year. So that would be our share of that project. And
then the bike trail out to the from the high school out to Gene Dylan was a new project grant that we received. So those would be three new projects. The two uh in orange would be our project on 20, the north side of the lake. Uh that would move from this year to next year.
We've been working on that one. Um and then our our pedestrian bike trail out on the scenic highway. That one keeps getting pushed uh forward and we're still trying to work through that the the issues with that one. But so those
all changed. So really the the only project that stayed in that year was our project on 2022. Um and that one we're getting ready to to advertise here later this summer. And so that is one of the items I have with
this draft 5-year plan is I and I do have it on the consent agenda. Hopefully the board will support it. But I would like to uh include the Carnode 305 project with that 22 project. is adjacent or you know ties into 22 and
with letting it this year I would need approval from the board to to go ahead and have that project in the 5-year plan because it's not there right now. So I guess I that is one thing I am asking is approval from the board to add 305 to the 5-year plan. I don't remember is
there any estimated cost savings by doing it in conjunction with the other project or any any off-the- cuff thoughts on that? Yeah, I mean that's the reason why we would be doing it is we would uh um do it with that adjacent projects and we would be getting cost savings with the again the the paving of
22 and pave 305 at the same time and so that's I guess why I'm asking to to include it right um yes it can be done as a standalone project but there would be some cost savings I don't know again really don't have an idea that would be
at this time but going forward into 27. Uh all those projects stay the same. We have a resurfacing project on 32 and on 16. Uh I also have in there our our shop project. This was the mechanics uh part
of the shop that I have in there and then some hopefully some of dollars that can help address all the other things that Steve uh has on his list there. We hope to go out uh and get an architect under contract here this summer to start taking a look at and come up with what
that project could would entail. But that project um can use our county state aid funds and we also included it in our our list for the local option sales tax. So it's already in there. Um so those uh two options for funding is is available
to us. Then the project I would like to add is uh Spirit Avenue. This is in Wilton. It's kind of on the front edge road. Um it is our CASA 14 and with us doing work on number 16 nearby again um room in the
budget. So I guess I'm suggesting that we add doing that just a resurfacing project there in Wilton. The other new project I had spoke to the board about is a new grant that we got uh for signpost sheeting. So a red strip
that goes down below a stop sign and or a yellow strip underneath yield signs. We got that was awarded that grant here last last year sometime that to do all of them in the entire county Bruce or Okay. I was going to say that's a lot of
money for just some stickers. Um and it is it's not just it's actually a district-wide project. We're uh working with other counties. This would be our portion of it. Um, and it is not every
stop sign every but it's on um it's on the select routes that are uh highlighted on a Carne road safety plan. So yeah, it's not every stop sign, but it is across the major connectors, minor connectors, that kind of thing. Yep.
Yep. uh 28 2028 uh similar projects stayed in there again resurfacing on 32, resurfacing on 13. Uh resurfacing on 11 that's in front of the county highway shop. We have the
roundabout on 6 and 11. The project that has changed and moved into 28 is Lakewood Avenue. Uh this is a CASA 42. Again, I talked to the board about that. we received a grant and that grant was for 28. So that actually moves that
project from 29 to 28. So it's a project we have in the plan just moved. The big change is in 2029. The reason being um we had uh a large project out in our last five years out
five years and that was the well 42 but also the project on 21 which is Biji Avenue from the corner of 197 up to just past An Street Annabel and we I wanted to put that in the five-year plan as a kind of a placeholder so we could go out
there and apply for grants. uh we've applied for what three different grants and have been unsuccessful and so I want to keep pushing that project that 21 out in that fifth year in our plan. So that opens up some room in the fourth year of
this plan in 2029. And so you will see that there are quite a few projects listed uh in yellow there. Um in 29 we had already had a resurfacing on 23. It's on the south
side of Red Lake and a couple of projects on some streets in Kellier. But adding to 29, I guess I would like to add uh number 11 that is uh forget the name of it, Carl Lake Road,
but it is down in the industrial park. So from um 197 over to over to R 50 uh 25 U we would be resurfacing that goes south off of number eight down to our
four uh 46 that is uh Oak Hills Road. cuz it's not that last little leg that we re re uh rebuilt here a while back, but this would be the other 5 miles from uh from
71 going west towards Oak Hills. Uh also have resurfacing on 43 and 31. Those are the old trunk highway 71 alignments in the Hines and 10 strike areas.
And then also 27 from 20 up to 22. Uh 23 we would do a mill and overlay from 29 up to 32. And then county road 401 which is from that Oak Hills Road going south down to the county line. Um
a lot of projects there was a lot of dollars available and so these really potentially could be the the last of our roads in poor shape. So happy to say if we can get out there to that point.
Again, other roads are going to continue to fall down, but those roads that are right now currently in poor shape on our list are being addressed in 2029. And then lastly, 2030, just moving those
projects uh 2021 into 2030. Then also it's excuse me, CASA 54 that is a shared uh section with Cass County. uh they've got actually the legs on both sides of ours. It is in the very very southeast
corner of the county and they they are uh again kind of moving that project further down the time frame. So just keeping it in the five-year plan and and moving that back to the fifth year. So that's what I have proposed
uh at this time. Again, we kind of take comments now at any time all the way up to till to you guys approve it in December. But I guess I would like to again put that plug in for that consent agenda item of including county road 305 at this time just so we can move forward
with that project. Again, it'll be done next year, you know, as per this, but we would be looking to design, advertise, and get it under contract this year with our 22 project. Commissioner Sar. Thanks, Mr. Chair. So that that 305 project that is already on
is that already in the consent or are you asking it be included? It's in there. Okay. It's in there now. Um a couple more things. Uh so you just mentioned by 2029 we should be done with the last of the poor roads.
You know, it sounds uh we've come a long ways uh from when we first started, you know, uh doing this uh the the road projects, and it sounds like you're working me out of a job here, Bruce. Best phone calls hopefully.
Um but I had a question about uh Highway 89. I was coming I was going home uh the other day from the the management team meeting and there was a truck that just pulled out of the shooting uh sports uh
park there. I I noticed that there wasn't a stop sign. I'm not too sure if it requires a stop sign or not, but on the way home I was looking at, you know, all these uh uh public access roads. Um,
and most of them had stop signs. I was kind of curious who I would inquire about uh where that I can take a look into it. I can check with Shane. That isn't, you know, a official county road. Uh, but it is a a road that accesses the
county parks. But I Yeah, good spot for a stop sign if it doesn't have one. Yeah, I don't think it's technically designated a road. It's more like a private drive, I think. But but it's a certainly probably should be looked at. That's a good point. I'll check into it.
Anything else, Commissioner Summer? Well, thank you. Anybody else have any questions for Bruce other to be continued on on this? All right. Thank you, Bruce. Thank you. And yeah, really uh now under a title 4E
legal enhancement and advocacy for facil families program, the LEAP program. Ann is here to fill us in about LEAP. Good afternoon, commissioners. Annth, director of health and human services, and I'll try to be quick with my presentation here today. This is a
revenue producing program, so I'll just quickly do an overview. And then there is a title 4E agreement in the consent agenda that is related to this. Um so again I'm here to provide information regarding the legal enhancement and advocacy for families program which I'm
going to call LEAF from here on out. The LEAF program provides access to federal title 4E funds to reimburse counties for a percentage of costs associated with providing public defender representation. So, primarily the case types that are eligible for this program
are cases that are related to child welfare. Um, in your packet, I provided a two-pageformational sheet um that was done by the Department of Children, Youth, and Families, and that outlines that the reimbursements are for eligible costs to provide
attorneys to parents. Um, the cost to provide public defenders is the responsibility of the county. And so this program would help to recoup some of those costs through reimbursements. So we have we county staff um have done some research around the program. We've
also attended anformational meeting with the department of children, youth, and families to learn more about the program and the administrative um oversight that's required for the program. And the first step in moving forward uh to receive those reimbursements is to have
an authorized title 4E agreement between the county departments that are involved in that reimbursement process. So we do have that draft agreement in the consent agenda. Once we execute that agreement, if the board does sign off on that, then the departments would start to work
together to collaborate around submitting those reimburseable costs to the state agency. Um it is quite a collaborative effort. There are a number of county departments that are required to be involved in order to make it work. Um we would be working with the court
staff, the county administrative office, our county auditor's office, our county attorney's office, and of course health and human services staff. The program does have to be independently operated outside of the health and human services office because we are considered the
title 4 agency for the county and that's why we have the agreement between department so that we can work together and share information to submit to the state. Um so once we get that title 4A agreement signed off then we will work on our processes to establish um how we
do that administrative work to submit for reimbursements. There are only eight counties who are utilizing this program in the state of Minnesota currently. Um and we would like to be added to that list and um this is a program that will help support bringing additional revenue into the
county system. So with that, do you have any questions? Mr. Carlson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So Ann, uh, what kind of analysis do you have to do to figure out if the benefit outweighs the cost of having to do all this collaboration
internally? Well, we have done some limited cost analysis. Um, some other counties who are receiving reimbursements are receiving significant reimbursements related to their costs. There is a pretty complicated formula on how we get
the reimbursements back and it's based on our title 4E ratio which looks at our number of title 4 eligible cases over the last six quarters um at any given time. So the reimbursement rates can change depending on what that title 4 ratio is. But we do have a significant
number of child welfare cases in Bel Tramy County. So we do anticipate that the administrative work will be worth the the administrative burden of the program. Mr. Gold. Yeah. Just one more time if you could give an example or two. Uh
what exactly are the reimbursements for? Is it uh staff wages, mileage, attorneys fees? Does it go to the families or does it go to the county? Just I'm I need a little more learning here. Sure. the c the reimbursement is for the cost of the
public defenders. So the county is required to cover the costs of public defenders in certain case types and child welfare being one of those case types. And so this program looks at the cost of the public defender time spent on those cases and then uses the title
4E ratio to determine a reimbursement percentage of those costs. Thank you. Good question. Good question. Thank you, Commissioner. Anybody else have any questions? Commissioner Summer. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, is this something similar to what Red Lake might be doing or
um cuz I know that they they have a pretty robust uh um for program and I just kind of curious about that. I don't know if I can speak
directly to what Red Lake is doing. There are a number of reimbursements that are related to fore cases. So, Health and Human Services is reimbursed a percentage of placement costs related to fore cases, but that is a separate
program than this particular program. Anything else? Thanks, Ann. All right, commissioners. Thank you. And we're to the the Chaw Chip with our public health administrator, Amy BS.
She's got the hot mic. Good evening, commissioners. Um, I come before you tonight as your public health director, but also as your community health um, services administrator. Um, next July, we will or in July, we will
be having our next CHB meeting to um, look for your blessing to approve the publication um, and submission of our CHA chip to the state of MDH and to our community. So, you do have before you um in your packet the draft as it stands. I
have found some technical errors in that that I'm already planning on making changes to. But what I'm really looking for for feedback from our CHB and our county commissioners is we're responsible for submitting this to the state saying that this is the findings
of the the health of our county and our community and of our people and then these are the things that we plan to do to improve that health. So, um the newest addition to the back of your booklet, you're going to find um our four primary um health areas that we
want to focus on over the next five years. This is a living document, so these are always changeable, right? We'll continue to meet and talk about how we're doing to meet these strategic goals, how we're measuring them, if we need to make adjustments to them, and maybe some of them aren't achievable and
some of them we achieve right away. and uh we can kind of check them off and just keep monitoring how we're doing. Um so what I'm asking from um the five of you if you could take the next two weeks to go ahead and review this document and submit to me any changes or additions or
things that you would like added um or removed from the booklet. uh if you find grammatical corrections um just send them to me by June 30th and then I will have them back to you uh in this completed form for the July 15th for um
CHB meeting. I really like the picture on page four. So we had an excellent photographer that day. Glad she put the one in there with when she was with us. Right. Yes. Right. Yeah, I did not choose the pictures.
Pinnacle Marketing did. That's the other addition that you'll see on the back. So, I want to give a shout out to all our community partners and agencies um and uh different stakeholders that um have put time into reviewing the document, helping make the document in
addition to the individuals that are listed in the front of the the booklet. And uh I'd probably be remissed if I didn't uh thank our community members because we had 580 responses to our community survey. That's the most we've ever had in the history of completing a
CHA chip. So their voice uh was heard and it was put into this booklet and now we're going to put some action plans in place. Any questions for me? Any other questions? No. I my first review of it. I haven't gone through to do any grammatical correcting yet, but I'm
notorious. I'm notorious for that. But uh it I like the format of it and I I think you have done a done a great job. We'll hopefully we'll go through and give you all suggestions or or give you the blessing on it at our next meeting or is that our first or second meeting
in July that we're second meeting? July 15th. Okay. Yeah. 2:00 if um we don't have a or if we have a full work session, but then we we move it forward closer to 3:00 if we don't have enough on the work session. Yeah. And we I know there's another another event happening
that days that, you know, so we might try to push it to to 3:00 if if possible, but we'll uh we'll stay tuned. Okay. Thank you, Amy. Looks nice, Amy. Yeah. Thanks. All right. get Prime West and and the
health and prime health updates. Thank you, commissioners. I'm uh Matt Magnus. I'm the director of member and provider services at Prime West Health and serve the same role for Prime Health. Um today's meant to beformational, so stop me if you guys have any questions. As we go through here, I'll kind of explain both of the
organizations. Um we'll start out with Prime West Health. Prime West Health is a health plan that El Tramy County owns. Um, it serves Medicaid members and also members that have Medicare, but they also have that Medicaid component. So, our most vulnerable residents of the
counties, Bel Tramy County became a member of Prime West Health in 2008. Um, so kind of do I can I with it or is you Oh, you Oh, there it worked. All right, cool. So, um, you know, just what is
Prime West Health? Again, it's a joint powers entity. Today, it's 24 counties that own Prime West Health. Um, we've expanded over time. We started out as 10 counties. Belrammy, Clearwater, and Hubard counties joined in 2008. That's when we started serving members. Um, and
then most recently in 2023, we added an additional 11 counties. So, our geography really kind of goes from the northern part of the state up here, Belrammy County is our northernmost county, all the way down to Pikstone, Minnesota. So, really the the western half of Minnesota. Um the the purpose of
Prime West Health was it exists to help our members achieve healthier, fuller lives. Um that's what we're all about. So we think about serving the most vulnerable residents of a county. Prime West Health provides the health care for that. So we pay all the providers. So
our responsibility is paying providers. Um just a little history here. So this is Bel Tramy County's numbers for Prime West enrollment. Um, right now we're looking at kind of our total enrollment. The green line to orientate you to this.
The green line at the top is the previous 12 months. So, this the the purple boxes go back 12 months. The green line is the 12 months prior to that. So, you can see there's been quite a decline in enrollment. Um, that has specifically to do with the unwinding of
the public health emergency. So during COVID, our enrollment actually expanded up to about 64,000 total members. Today we're right around 51,000 members. Um we serve members in six programs. So
medical assistance, that's the MA there. That would be families and children. Um by far our biggest program, um the majority of them are children in that program. So, of the 40,000 members in that program, about 25,000 of them are kids 18 and under. And then the rest you
have would be families in there. Uh Minnesota Care, the next program over, um is a program that's specific to Minnesota. Um it's for members who maybe can't who do have are working but can't aren't getting insurance through their employer. They pay a small premium to
the state of Minnesota, then they can be become eligible for that program and get covered. Uh the next program over is is called Minnesota Senior Care Plus, MSC Plus. That would be a program for seniors. It integrates their Medicaid
and their waivered services together. So wavered services are those things that seniors qualify or for to help keep them in their home or help them with activities of daily living. Um the next program, Minnesota Senior Health Options, Mshow, MSH. Um, again, seniors
65 and over. The unique part about that program is those members also have Medicare through Prime West. So, I talked about us having Medicaid and Medicare. We have a couple programs that we integrate. So, a member doesn't have multiple cards. You know, Medicare pays for some services, Medicaid pays for
some services. They might have a separate Part D card. In Minnesota, we have these integrated plans that allow a member to easily access their care. So, they're carrying around one card. All their services are covered. Makes it easier for the member. uh SNBC special needs basic care is for members that are
between 18 and 64 with a disability. So they qualif their qualification to get on public programs is because of their disability. Um that program also has a dual option. So some of those members qualify for Medicare, they can enroll in that program. If they don't qualify for
Medicare yet or don't have Medicare, then they're in the SNBC non-dual program. So, those are kind of the basics of the programs, but you can see from those numbers, um, we're, you know, just under 50,000 members in May or just over 50,000 members in May, and the vast majority of them are coming from that
medical assistance group. So, our families, our children, um, are the people that were primarily covering in your area. This is Bel Tramy County specifically. So, of that 50,000, how many members are in Bel Tramy County? You can see there, just under 10,000
members come out of Bel Tramy County. So very a lot of members come from this from this county. I have the program breakouts there. You can see that you can see the slope of how your enrollment has changed over time. Um and then we also try to highlight some of the major cities and where where some of the
members are coming from. So this program in most of our counties in Belrammy County is very similar. About one in four members, one in four residents of a county at some point will be in public program. So you're talking about 25 30% when we look across our
area. So as commissioners we're touching a lot of people as a part of Prime West Health. This is a lot of the residents of our county that we're serving through this program. Um new to Prime West Health in 2023 also brought competition. So we used to be the only plan that could serve members
in our counties. It was a part of how the state set up the rule originally. if counties were going to do this, counties got to decide who they wanted to cover, which plans they wanted to offer. Um, in 2023, they changed that a little bit and they brought in a new plan. But you can see here, um, Prime West still stacks up
really well against the competing plan in this county. The majority of people, I think it's about, if when I look across all programs, about 90% of all the members are still enrolled in Prime West Health. Um, why was Prime West kind of started in the beginning? what what are our founding principles? The big thing here
was that counties wanted kind of that self-determination and local control of this resource that was de that was designed to help the most vulnerable residents of a county. So in 1997, the state of Minnesota was rolling this thing out called managed care where that
instead of the state paying directly for everybody's health care um which is called fee for service, the state used to everybody just got a state Medicaid card. members would go to the provider, the state would pick up the bill. The state wanted to contract with health plans. And a lot of rural counties were
concerned at the time if they contract with only metro-based providers, what are they going to know about our rural areas? And so counties in Minnesota actually sued the state of Minnesota back then in the late 90s to have the ability to do this. And so with the help of AMC and counties there there was a
special law that was passed that was called county based purchasing that allows counties to do this. So we have our own set of statutes that say counties can become a health plan. We have to meet all the requirements of every other health plan. We have to operate just like a health plan. We have
all the same federal and state checks as a health plan. But the difference is that we're countyowned. The reason they became joint powers is because a lot of counties weren't big enough to kind of manage the risk on their own. We have you have 10,000 members here in Belrammy County, but we have some counties that
have 800 members total that'll be covered in some of the smaller counties. Um what do we do? Again, we our our goal is to ensure that members have access to the care they need. So in Minnesota in in medical assistance, the states and the federal government set the set of
benefits. So we can't cover less, fewer benefits than what the state tells us we need to cover. We can always cover more, but we can never cover less. So people are always worried like if counties get into this, are they going to cut benefits to try and save money? And we can't do that. We have to offer the same set of benefits as everybody else would
always have. But we can offer more. And the difference is is the the big thing that counties wanted to make sure of is that we make sure we contract with every local provider that's available. The idea behind this is it's it should be an economic development engine, too. How do we make sure we protect our local
providers? We all decide to live out here in rural rural Minnesota. How do we make sure that the providers that we're going and visiting are going to be around? And when you take 25% of the population that's going to be covered by these programs, we make sure that we contract with any willing and able qualified provider locally. Um, we also
try to reimburse local providers more those providers that are located within our county borders. We try to give them a higher reimbursement rate than they would have got under the old Medicaid fee for service system when what they were getting paid just directly from the state.
Um, we're responsible for credentiing providers, making sure that they're all qualified, making sure they all have licenses to do that. Um, we have to make sure that they have there's quality and access and safety. Um, we do everything in house at Prime West, too. We have our own customer service, our member call
center, our provider call centers, they're calling us directly. Um, it's a big difference that you pick up the back of your insurance card now, call your customer service line, you're going to end up in some IVR system somewhere, bounce around from place to place, person to person. At Prime West, when a member calls us, they get a live person
every time. Um, last year, the the call center was about 16 seconds to reach a live agent in that call center. Um, again, it's about how do we make sure that we're helping the people that we serve. Um, one of the goals on here is ensuring financial stability. Go ahead. Go ahead,
Commissioner Carlson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to emphasize that whole thing about I don't know how many of you get frustrated when you call into some big organization and it says press one if you want and you're on the phone for 5 minutes before you ever get anything. And this is a big deal that Prime West answers the phone call and
that's a knowledgeable person knows where to transfer you to so you're not punching buttons forever. That's a big deal. Yeah, I agree. In that IVR, the integrated voice response is frustrating, especially if you're, you know, dealing with a medical issue or
something in the first place. Yeah, most people that call customer service or health insurance aren't calling happy to thank us. They're be already frustrated about something. They got a bill or something has gone wrong. So, yeah, uh it is the number one reason we hear for why people choose us over another plan. Um you know, we when we talk about
marketing and things like that, we always just say call them, call us. Um it's kind of an easy way of justifying which plan you want to enroll in. Um I want to talk about a little bit about ensuring financial solveny and safeguarding u member rights here. So ensuring financial solveny is an
important part because ultimately counties are at risk for prime west health. So this joint powers arrangement we get a flat capitated amount from the state basically a premium per member per month premium. When we in the years we spend more than that on health care,
then we have to use our reserve dollars to pay for that. If at any point our reserve got too low, technically the counties are the backup behind that that the counties would have to chip in more. Now, in our lifetime of operating, we've been serving members since 2003. We've never had to go to the counties to kick
in additional money to help cover one of those. Um, we're very fiscally conservative. We make sure that we keep a healthy reserve so that we never have to to knock on that door to try and get those counties. So if I don't know how often you actually will look at the financial reports you might get back
from Prime West Health, but today we have over hund00 million in reserve because of that. Um that's why we keep those big reserves is to make sure that we're protecting that financial solveny. The other thing we do with our reserves is do those community reinvestment grants. So whenever we hit that area
where we're like, "All right, we have a enough reserve now. We're down to worry about that. What percent of that reserve can we kick back into our local communities?" Um, and that's the big difference between county based purchasing and any of the other plans you might be offering. I'm glad you brought that up, Matt. I was actually just going to ask about that because I
thought that was the case and and it's it's almost like a cooperative in a way that you you know the dividends, so to speak, are going back to the local communities and that's uh that's impressive. Yeah. And it's not necessarily a dividend directly, but I mean it's similar. It has to in in our
statute, it actually has to be used for health care or human services. So, it has to somehow benefit the population we're serving or the community in that way. Um, again, different than any other managed care organizations, they don't have that same requirement. So, when the state contracts with UKare, Blue Cross, Medicica, any of those, they don't have
the requirement to have to reinvest back into the communities. County based purchasing does. remind me how that la last round of dollars back to us went there was a grant to one of our departments or I I can't recall but I think public health
and human services all of our public health and human services agencies got one uh I think it was 2023 maybe it was the grant year um but then there's other times we do some of them like that where we target organizations there's other ones where we open up RFPs where we can have local providers come and and submit
requests for proposals so we fund at a healthy Davies project here. I know years ago um cooperative between Sanford, Red Lake, the county. Um but yeah, I think just off the top of my head, I believe bel County in your time in being a part of Prime West since 2008
is probably around $3 million in grants that have come back to this county. Mr. Carlson, thank you, Mr. Chair. So, as I sit on the Prime West Joint Powers Board, they look at us and say, "Why does Bill Trammy always get all the money?" Uh there was a real generous donation to the Northwest Minnesota
Bettered Women's Shelter. That was I know that they were extremely grateful for that. And I see a vehicle writing around. I'm not sure what it's doing, but it says this vehicle provided by Grant from Prime West um health. And so
yeah, it's we constantly get chided at the board meetings that we get more money than anybody, but I think we have one of the most members too. Right. You do. Yeah. So, and and a fair amount of need as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, to grants, we try to focus in on
areas like that. Like transportation has always been a struggle in rural areas. Dental has always been a struggle in rural areas. So, you know, we help start start the dental clinic up here, fund some of their expansions to their newer locations, things like that. So, we're always looking at putting the money back into where we think it's kind of most
needed to help our residents and ultimately all residents of the county. Um, you know, some of the reasons why counties do this, um, again, it's it's having control of that public health resource. We're talking about pretty big dollars here when you start to add up these, um, numbers for premiums in
there. Ensuring all providers, I talked a little bit about that. Ensuring that, you know, oh, this is another good one. Ensuring that all eligible county services are included. So, uh, that was another worry that counties have. Ultimately, you're always the last payer. And so they were worried that
plans might cost shift, you know, not deny some coverage that ultimately just ends up falling on the county's lap to end up paying in one room. And we make sure we coordinate that to try and keep that as much what's responsible responsibility of Prime West stays the responsibility of Prime West and doesn't get shifted back onto the county. Um,
and then the very bottom one there, just kind of a, you know, we also directly contract with the county. Um, we contract for all of our case management to be done directly by the county. And so in 2024, just I just pulled up a quick number there is, you know, $2.1 million in direct reimbursement back to
county um for the work that you do to support our members. Um and that's something that not all health plans have to do. They don't have to contract back with the county case management for case management services, but obviously as a being a county owned entity, it's part of our mission. We make sure that we're
contracting back with those counties. Um I did talk just quickly a little bit about the history. Um, again, it just is showing some of this some of this legislation and when it came through in the late '9s when we began serving members in 2003. You can see we started out small. It was a a group of 10
counties. Um, we had 5,000 members covered in, you know, at our height we hit 64,000. Today we're just under 50,000. Um, Belrammy, Clearwater, Hubard were joined in 2008. Um, and then 2019, those counties joined, but we didn't
start serving their members until 2023. Um I I know we have two separate programs here. So this last slide is really just talking about other things that Prime West Health does. So in addition to the the work we do as a health insurer, we also are a TPA. So we
help support the other county based purchasing entities in the state and there's two of them, South Country Health Alliance and I itaska medical care. And so we actually act as their TPA. So, we do their claims processing. We do their some of their provider call
center customer service stuff. Um, and so they contract back with us to do some of that work. Um, rather than kind of creating their own infrastructure and and duplicating something that's already being done by another county entity, they contract back with us to do that. And then in addition to that, we do
Prime Health. And so Prime Health, shifting gears here, is a political subdivision self-insurance pool that Bel Tramy County is also a part of, a separate board for Prime Health. This now is shifting from what we do for
Medicaid members to what we do for county employees. So early on in Prime West history and I I probably attended four or five different meetings where different counties were coming to us over time talking about, you know, all right, we own this health insurance company. We're serving all these
Medicaid clients. Why aren't we somehow leveraging this health insurance company we own to do something to help us control the cost of our county employee coverage? And so that's where Prime Health eventually was established. and a a few of the counties from um Prime West
Health joined Prime Health to help pull their insurance. Um the big thing about Prime Health is on the the pool once it was established, it's all for one, one for all. So once a
members in the pool, you're not individually rated anymore. So, what was happening, and I have some slides here that'll illustrate that, is some counties would experience a few high claims. You don't know where those high claims are going to come from. Could be a million- dollar claim or $2 million claim. You have an employee or an
employes family member who gets really sick. And you'd end up with a 25 or 30% increase in your rates the next year. And it's how do you kind of balance that with what you're doing with budgeting and and building all your levies. And so the idea behind this was how do we create a bigger pool that can be more
stable so that over the long run we can manage those rates better so we don't have to adjust quickly to any ch quick changes like that or large claims. So the the idea behind this is that right now the membership in this is seven of our counties and then we also have any
county owned entity can participate as well. So Prime West Health for instance we're a county owned entity under Joint Powers Board. We're also a member of Prime Health, so we get our insurance through there as well. Um, today there's about,00 employees in that, about 2100
members. Um, again, I talked about this this self-funded. Um, the the idea here is what Prime Health does is it is whatever money we collect in premiums from all those pool members is the money we have to spend on claims,
right? We there isn't some other insurer somewhere unless we hit a catastrophic claim. we do carry a policy that's at $500,000. Once a claim hits that amount, we have another insurer to pay that. But otherwise, whatever we collect in premiums is what we have to use to create the benefit sets to cover the
covered services. Um, and again, a little bit like Prime Health or Prime West, see, we should have changed the name here. uh a little bit about little bit like Prime West is if this pool ended up being short at any given time, we'd have to increase premiums significantly to make up for
that shortfall because we also have to keep reserves in this pool as well. That's what the Department of Commerce is looking at us for. Um versus a fully insured plan is if you go to an insurance company, buy a fully insured product, you pay them a premium, no matter what the costs are, they're going to have to cover you that year. out
coming into your renewal next year. They may jack your rates way up because they want to try and recapture whatever they may have lost. But if they do better, they also get to keep that in the self-insured pool. In the years where we have good years, we get to keep that as a part of our pool. It doesn't just disappear into some other health
insurer. We get to keep that either keeping premiums down the next year, adding a new benefit, things like that. Um here's the groups that Prime Prime Health currently serves. um a little bit about how it how it benefits the employers. The why were
county's interest in doing this. Um again that local control having control over the benefit having control over the resource. Um again when you look at your budget, your health insurance line is a probably a pretty big line. You guys have a lot of employees here that you're offering coverage to. What where is that
money going? How can we have better eyes into what's happening with that dollar? Um that financial transparency was a big part. um early rate renewals. This was something that wasn't even on our radar when we were developing this plan, but um a lot of our county administrators and county HR personnel um really said
it would be really helpful if you guys could come up with your rates early. So, we produce our rates in July of every year so that you have them when you start your budgeting or before you finish your budgeting. Um so, so that you know what that increase is going to be for the following year whereas most other plans are coming out with renewals
later in the in the fall, late summer and early fall. Um, again, the idea behind this was long-term rate stabilization. How do we keep these big fluctuations in rates out of the out of the plan and the pool? So, this is one of my favorite slides. Um, if you look
on the left, all those lines going up and down and all over the place, that is the real experience of all the groups that joined Prime Health at the very beginning before in the years leading up to joining Prime Prime Health. the the slide on the right is the
experience of those groups since they've been in Prime Health and what they've experienced in rate increases. And so that is the idea behind the pool. It takes away all that kind of individual risk rating, puts you as a part of the pool and helps stabilize those rates.
Um that that was kind of the key to that. It's it wasn't about we weren't going to be able to come in and save every county a bunch of money because it's ultimately still based on the cost of care. Whatever the health care costs is what it costs. It's about how do we stabilize which group? Nobody knows which group is going to get a big claim
this year or next year. So, how do we kind of mitigate that risk from those groups? Um, how do we stabilize rates long term like that? One, this pool requires a five-year commitment. So, any new group that joins us and and every time you
renew, you're renewing for a fiveyear cycle. That allows us not to overreact if one group has a really large claim. Um, and we're going to come up here when we first came out of the gate. We had a a member that had a $2 million claim the very first year that we started the
pool. And it was a little bit scary and you didn't know, you know, where was that going to come from? How are we going to cover that? But because we had a five-year commitment, we knew we didn't have to overreact and kind of raise rates way up that we would hopefully experience some good risk in the future years to make up for that. Um, the shared risk model, like I talked
about, it's all for one, one for all. Once a group's in, we're not individually rating anybody anymore. Um, we monitor the health of this pool all the time to make sure that we have these the right factors in there. Um, when we started the prime health pool, one of the things we saw in some of our county
groups that had were experiencing really big increases in their insurance is their family plans had gotten so expensive that no families in their county took the family coverage anymore, which eliminated a whole group of pool good pool risk that they could potentially have. And they kept
continuing to get bigger and bigger increases. Well, the only people left taking insurance were people that knew they had medical expenses that were going to cost more than that insurance was going to be um because it was so high and or a pre-existing condition that they couldn't go out at that time to anywhere else and get a different
plan. See Matt um on the shared risk model in the previous slide you had group four that had a big dip in it. All the other ones were pretty but that green line had a big dip in it and actually had a you know negative uh increase. how how in the are they not in
the shared risk or so what happened is that was our at year five of the pool we what we also do is go back and review groups for like where they started from they've been sharing risk and we were sharing it all equally that group happened to have a lot of turnover in their employees so their average age
went from I think it was like 55 when we first started and it was down to about 35 after year five okay so their their risk and their use had changed significantly and so keeping them as the highest priced group didn't make sense anymore. So, he gave them an adjustment
back down to what their real risk to the pool should be at that time. Okay. Thank you. Um, we also, you know, we had unique, we have very unique benefit design. I'm sure you guys hear about that from employees. It's different than any other plan, especially when you look at how
family how families buy coverage. Um, but all of those are very intentional to maintaining good pool risk. Um, here's one of the charts we look at for pool risk. Again, the idea is, do you have families participating? Are
most people taking single plans? Um, again, we want to make sure that we have a healthy combination of those. And you can see in this model, our family plans are growing over time. Um, that's one of the things we want to look at to make sure our pool's staying healthy. If we start to get just a lot of singles and
we lose all those kids in the pool, um we lost a lot of that good risk that we need to have in to help us maintain maintain good rates for everybody. Um just a an example again, you saw that chart earlier that showed we were able to stabilize rates and here's just an
idea of like the high cost that we've had, high-cost claims that we've had over the years. So, uh, right out of the gate in 2018 when this pool started, we had seven high-cost claims, and those seven claims were just under $4 million. Um, last year in 2024, we had 11 high
claims that were just over $4 million. Um, but even when in in those cases, we're not having to overreact and adjust rates way up. But if you were with other carriers, they'd look at that and they'd say, "Hey, we got to make a big adjustment here. We spent a lot of extra money last year." Um, and we didn't have
to do that going into 2025 rates. Um, again, just a look to see the health of the pool. What's kind of our cash balance? This is what the Department of Commerce, who regulates these types of pools, looks at. Do you have enough cash to pay your claims today and any future claims? This is the the sheet that's
important to them. Um, we're in a very stable place. Um, you can see again, we had that pretty big decrease those first couple years because of those high claims right out of the gate. Um, but we've slowly been able to start building back up that cash and then again in 24 you saw there were some high claims so
the cash balance decreased a little bit but very again we're in a very good spot with what we need there. Um, this is just an example I wanted to show you again when we're a self-funded plan every dollar we collect in premium where does it go? And so what this does is
actually kind of shows you if for every dollar in premium we collected um 9.67 six seven cents of it is what our administrative cost was. Um 10% or 10 cents of it was to our non-preventive pharmacy list. Uh 7 cents of it was our
preventive pharmacy. So we have a very extensive preventive pharmacy list where members get all those medications for free when they're on that list. Um that that cost us about 7.1 cents of every dollar we collect to maintain that and we want to maintain that list. It's a
good list. So, we spend about 17 cents on pharmacy. Um, overall our medical costs are about 81 cents of the dollar. And in 24, you can see we had those large claims. We actually spent 7.9 cents more than we collected on every on
every premium dollar in 2024. So, what we'd like to see is where that red doesn't exist and there's a little bit of revenue on the end of that dollar. Um, that's usually a sign that your pool's in good health. you want to be making a couple cents, one or two, you know, percent of that the total premium
we'd like to be able to add to reserves so we can reinvest it in other programs over time. But health insurance does fluctuate. We'll have it just bounces back and forth. You'll have a year like this and hopefully knocking on wood here, 2025 is a better year and we do end up being able to put some money back into the reserve. But again, this is the
idea behind this. It's a big self-funded pool. So every dollar we collect, there isn't any more money. This is everybody putting their money in and then we're paying all the claims that are coming in um with those dollars. Any questions on that? U just wanted to put in our most recent
uh quarterly financials from March 31st of 2025 just to kind of look at how the Prime Health pool performs overall. Um to give you an idea of that. So where where where does our money go? Um what do we spend things on? How are we sitting financially? So I go down to the
bottom of the chart, you can see there's member equity listed there. So there was an initial capital contribution from Prime West. So all the counties in Prime West at the time had initial capital contribution of $3 million. I Our goal is to always kind of stay close to that
line. You don't want to be charging too much premium that we're building a big reserve. That's not fair to employers or employees. We don't want to be undercharging on premium where we're eating through all of that. We want to maintain pretty close to that level. And so we're into our 2018 was our first
year of service. Um and now coming out of 20 in the first quarter of 2025, we've accumulated about $156,000 more than that. So we always try to balance that out to try and stay close to that line. Um how does Prime Health benefit
employees? Um, so when when we designed the program, we collected all of the current coverage documents, the summaries of benefits and coverage from all of the current plans and carriers that were out there that were offering coverage to the counties. We went
through those. We made sure that all the same services were covered, that we weren't eliminating any covered service. So things like there was uh one of the groups and it might may have been this group had some limited coverage for beriatric surgery for instance which isn't covered by a lot of commercial insurance anymore but it was still
covered on one of these plans. We made sure that was included. Um there was some one of the plans had coverage for infertility treatment which isn't typically covered in the commercial market anymore. It was offered by one of our plans. So we made sure that that coverage remained in effect. So the idea here was that we weren't take trying to take away coverage when we were doing
this, but really trying to build plans that could meet every member's need and really focused on where are the majority of members spending their healthcare dollars and how do we build plans that really emphasize like how do we help those people that are really um the the
majority of the people in the plan. Um that preventive medic medication list, we have a unique custom plan for that. The reason it's so large, there's so many medications on there is because there was three or four of them offered at by different carriers, we combined them all into one that became the Prime
Health one. Um, our coverage is really easy to use. Um, some of the plans that you see in the market today have, you know, you need prior authorizations and referrals from your primary care doctor to go anywhere. We don't require that. As long as it's a network provider, you go to that network provider. Um, we also
maximize health savings. So all of our plans, well the majority of our plans had that health uh HSA, health savings account um as a part of the plan design. And what we did is encouraged all of the employers to fund that HSA and so that
the employees would actually start to build real balances in those accounts rather than in an old traditional plan where you used to have the $500 deductible and no HSA. Your lowest utilizing employees, the employees who aren't using their healthcare at all are really getting no benefit from that
plan. With an HSA model plan, the majority of our people that aren't using any healthcare, they're able to get those HSA balances to start to build over time. so that if and when they do have something a lot of times they have enough money in those HSAs to cover the cost of their out of pockets and their and any co-pays or co insurance that
they have. Um again in 2025 first quarter in Bel Tramy County employees alone they have over $2.7 million in employee accounts right now in their HSAs and feed but bounts. So that's money that could have potentially disappeared into an insurance company
that's now sitting within employee in their accounts. Um, and then we talked a little bit about those age banded dependent rates. It's a unique part of our plan and design, but what it does is it allows an employee to only cover the people they need to cover. So, if they only need to add one child, there's a
rate for that. If they need to add a whole family, there's a rate for that. So, you're kind of it's they're picking and choosing who they need to add coverage for, and there's a rate individual to that. And that also is comparable to how somebody would shop in the open market. So if they were going to go buy their spouse a plan in the
open market because they their spouse didn't have option to get it through their employer let's say when you look at the open market it's all age banded dependent rates and so we try to make sure that we stay competitive with that. So it's still a better deal to come through here for the coverage you get for the premium amount that you're going to pay should still be com comparable to
what they can get in the open market. Um a little bit on the plan designs themselves. Again, these are the single plans that you start at the bottom. That's all that preventive stuff, those preventive prescriptions, um preventive services that you get. Any of those are always covered by the plan at 100%.
Member doesn't pay anything for those. You move up to that light blue, that's that HSA amount that the county's funding into an employes HSA. Those are dollars that, you know, they're not use it or lose it. They stay with the employee. If they leave here, they get to take it with them. Um, then you get into the the darker blue section, the
1,000, 2,000, 3,000. That we call that additional first dollar coverage. So, the plan kicks in again and pays 100% of those costs. And then the orange is the true kind of max out of pocket, worst case scenario. If I'm an employee, a single employee, and I have something catastrophic happen to me, how much am I
going to have to cover out of my pocket? And that's what that orange represents. The plan on the farthest right there is a non-HSA plan that that we created uh maybe three or four years ago now. Um designed specifically for what happened was we had employees that started to
talk to us about um they they could not afford the HSA plans because they knew they had something that was reoccurring. So they might have had a a $5,000 medication that they were going to have to be on and come January one, they're going to have to pay that. They hadn't built up any money in their HSA. they
don't want to go to the pharmacy and have a $4,000 bill left over. So, we did create a traditional plan in the in the pool. Um, it does come with a lot higher premium, but it allows for that kind of spread so that you're used to go back to paying a $500 deductible, an 8020 cost
sharing, so that it helps an employee kind of manage those high cost expenses that they might have as they go through that. Um, family plans, very similar. There's one family plan that's an HSA plan. There's one that's not an HSA plan. It's basically taking all of those plans and
just kind of doubling the bottom part of it and then they go one and a half times on the max out of pocket. Um the big difference there is that red line in the middle, we we include an it's called an embedded deductible. Means if any one any one family member
has all the costs, it helps to cover that. So the plan will start paying 100% there. So, if I'm a family of four and it's just my daughter that has something catastrophic happen to her, the plan's going to start start paying at that red line for her. And unless my wife and my other daughter start incurring expenses,
we're not going to have to spend anymore. How you doing on slides here, Matt? We're just dime. Yep. We do use administrative partners. Um, UMR is our TPA that we use for this. So, the network is UMR's network and we use
Clear Script as our pharmacy benefit manager. Um, and that's it. Great. Any commissioners have any questions for Matt? Commissioner Gold? Yeah, thank you, Matt, for coming in. This has been super helpful for me personally. Uh,
any new uh members on the horizon? Are you looking at for either Prime West or Prime Health? Uh, Prime West, no. I would say 24 counties. Um, so the the governing board is county commissioners. You already have 24 of them in a room, so that's a lot, man. No. Uh but Prime
Health, yes, we're always looking for new groups there. Um every year we have groups that'll reach out to us. We'll do bids and quotes for those groups. So Mhm. Um and then I had a question about uh um reinsurance that that the state
program a few years back did some re I don't think they did it this year. Uh there was some talk of it, but um would we qualify for those dollars from the state at all? So, the state reinsurance pool is specific to those plans that are offered on the exchange. Okay. It's to help those plans manage their risk.
Okay. Um just a couple more things here, Mr. Chair. Just a quick comment. Uh you know, um I've heard a lot of comments from employees and members of the community that the insurance is is really great overall as far as quality
and coverage, uh and that the single is is affordable. um but that the the family care is still um kind of a a burden financially. So, anything that we can do as a board or organization to bring down those family cost plans uh
would be super helpful. And then my last question was just uh um Commissioner Sumner kind of touched on this uh last meeting. I'll touch on it today, but uh the impact of um less Medicaid funding coming in from the federal government.
if that happens, what would the impact be um to our organizations, the county board, etc. in your opinion? Yeah, so the the Medicaid cuts are an interesting question. So there's the the two that we're watching specifically um work
requirements um if they implement that, what it'll do is who's going to administer that program and does that all fall to the county today? like your financial workers now have to be in charge of that and what is the administrative burden that that's going to add to a county. Um big concern and then you're going to end
up with lots of churn on and off programs, right? Because people are going to be more confused with what they need to do. Um as far as direct cuts, I think the area that we were most concerned with is Minnesota was one of the states that did the expansion population. So we covered adults at a
lower percentage of the federal poverty guideline. They allowed it under the Affordable Care Act a while ago and the federal share of that is actually like 90%. So the state only is responsible for 10%, the fed pays 90% of that population. If they change that back to
the traditional Medicaid share, that's probably 50%. Does the state have the money to cover that other 40%. Do they look at cutting that program? Do they look at reducing who's eligible for it? I think that would be where some of that would could potentially hurt our enrollment. Um I the last time I looked
at that population it's about 7,000 members total of our 50 fall into that expansion population. Okay. Um area. Thank you. Y uh if I can make a comment on the family rates that you had brought up. Um one thing I would say to look at
as a as a board would be you today you contribute the same for a single and a family member. In most of our groups those are two different contributions. They're different levels, right? A single gets one level of contribution. If you take family coverage, you get another level of contribution. Again,
from a pool standpoint, we like the families participating. And so, if you think about it from I I know you might have an individual say, "Well, how is that fair? Just because you have a family, you get more coverage." But it's ultimately helping keep the premiums down for all those people that are taking single coverage as well because
the more families we can get into the pool, hopefully it helps us stabilize rates even better, helps us bring down costs. So, it is something to consider would be your contribution strategy as well. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Gold. Thank you, Matt. I really appreciate you
coming up and and enlightening us. Uh really be handy to have those names be a little different. I know I've I've been on the board for a while, not as long as Commissioner Sumar, but it's I've always been conf always mixing those two up. Which one's the employee one and which one's the the community one? Yeah.
Thought you were so smart when we started. Oh, let's call it Prime something. Yeah. See you now. Thanks. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. All right. So, we got um we don't have an administrator report because our administrator is on PTO. Um is there anything that anybody wishes to pull
from the consent agenda? No. All right. So, looks like you're good to go there, Commissioner Winger. And we will adjourn until 5 o'clock. Part: 2
the Belrammy County Board meeting to order. Please stand for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
All right. Didn't write anything up for my general comments uh for tonight, but I would like to extend my condolences to the Hortman family for the tragedy that uh was all over the news uh earlier this this week. Um and uh also for Godspeed
to the health of the Hoffman family and thankful to all the law enforcement for their diligent work in catching the alleged perpetrator. Um very thankful for all of our law enforcement uh and the work that they do day in day out and the the danger that they put themselves
in for our safety. So, those are my general comments and next we'll have uh anyone wishing for the citizens addressing the board. Anyone wishing to address the county board on an item not on the agenda may come forward at this time to be recognized by the board chair. Please state your name and
address for the record. Comments are limited to 5 minutes. A personnel complaint against an individual county employee may not be heard initially at a board meeting. Personnel complaints may be submitted to the board in writing through the county administrator's office. A person addressing the board may not use profanity or vulgar
language. Is there anybody wishing to address the board this evening? Not seeing anybody here. I assume nobody online. Diane. Okay. So, we will move on to the approval of the agenda. Commissioner Wingard.
Move to approve the agenda as We have a motion to approve the agenda as presented. Do I hear a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Carlson. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor of approving the agenda say I. I. Any opposed. The agenda is approved.
Five to zero. Approval of the consent agenda. Do I hear a motion to approve the consent agenda? So moved, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Commissioner Gold. Do I hear a second? I'll second that. Second by Commissioner Carlson. Any discussion on any of the
consent agenda? Hearing none. All in favor of approving the consent agenda, please say I. I. Any opposed? Consent agenda is approved. We have no regular agenda items. So, we'll move right into our our commissioner reports
and legislative lobbying issues. And I think we have about a 45minut u presentation from commissioner sum he was talking about earlier. So, thank you Mr. Chair. I'll do my best to uh fill the time till our next six
o'clock meeting. Thank you, Commissioner Zing. All right. Well, as for commissioner updates, uh I attended the uh deep river uh one watershed one plan uh last
Monday. Had also had the management team last Wednesday, the opioid committee meeting um this past Monday. uh AMC District 2 meeting um on the 2nd and AMC board meeting this Friday. And
that's uh what I have for my Oh, and uh the Black Duck Ambulance meeting. We're still trying to figure out whether we're going to meet or not this coming Thursday being that it's a holiday because of the u the the closure of of the the county and stuff. Yeah. So,
we're still trying to figure that out, but that's my report. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Summer. Commissioner Winger. Yeah, I did the uh attended the BAS meeting um on the 11th um
and behavioral health in the 12th. Those both went well. Uh this morning we did the solid waste. Um it is and I did bring the code sheet with for the uh waste and and recycling
workers week. Um so they he showed a nice little video that's a YouTube video if anybody's interested. Um about all I got. Great. Commissioner Gold. Thank you. Um I've had some housing and libraries
related committee meetings lately. Um, happy summer is officially finally here. Uh, with the music on the Mississippi had their first uh, uh, program on Wednesday and second one will be tomorrow night. That's always a fun
community event. Uh, I don't know, they had maybe a thousand people or so down there last week. So, that was great. Um, little more uh, pontoon areas to pull up to too with a couple of new docks down there. So that that's great. I went to
the county wellness expo. Um visited all the vendors and booths that were uh here on campus last week. So shout out to the employees that put that together. That's u becoming a a very positive annual event. And I just want to thank you, Mr.
Chair, uh for your um text early on Saturday morning. And I know you texted all of us uh regarding the u um violent uh murderous attacks that took place and um I just I just want to personally thank you uh for letting us know um and
uh thank our law enforcement agencies across the state. It's a it's a very uh frustrating sad uh event. Um you know personally I'm feeling um sad and angry and anxious and on extra alert. um you know, our addresses are public and so
anytime we go to a public event uh um or just just at our homes lately, you know, it's it's good to be cautious. There's certainly no place for uh political violence in our democracy, and I would um stress that message um to everybody
and share that. So, um thanks again. Thank you, Commissioner Gold. Appreciate that. And Commissioner Carlson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, congratulations to Commissioner Gold. He was nomin he was reelected to the uh vice chair of the
second district district for the AMC and u so congratulations for that. Um that was uh Commissioner Sner, Commissioner Gould and myself that attended that and that's it's always a good event. I'm I'm glad that I've been able to go each time. Sometimes I know you we can't get to everything, you know, but I think
that was good. I think they did a nice job. um attended my monthly Prime West Joint Powers Board meeting. Um there is, as Matt had mentioned, there's there's some challenges from year to year, you know, whether you're you're
making a lot of money or not making a lot of money. And a lot of times you just don't know because of the health of of the pool of of those folks. Um so we had a um a challenging year last year, but as Matt said, the um the reserves
are you know, many many millions of dollars. So, there's no sense in having to overreact um and and and do that. So, but there won't be this year there won't be the community grants like there has been in the past just simply because of
that. So, in the years when they have the excess, uh then they can rebuild uh the the the reserves and then also come out with the competitive grants. So, we won't be doing any competitive grants this year from Prime West. Um, jail design and
operations committee. Um, as I had mentioned before, um, we're working through some ideas that Klein McCarthy's trying to take a look at that footprint of the building over there. What can be done? What can't be done? One of the biggest challenges of that building over
there is that all of the mechanical and electrical stuff is sort of way over on the south side of the building. And in trying to save if you if you're only trying to save the sally port and reuse that, how do you how do you incorporate
all those? It's it's it's sort of a nightmare. Um so we're we're trying to work through all that. Um what are potential uses? The as Steve had mentioned the FCA the facility uh condition assessment was done by Kra Anderson um and the building's not terrible
condition. condition was fair, but still a jail, you know, and and and so the condition of the building may be okay, but what do you use it for? I mean, you've got a bunch of concrete and metal bars and things inside and organized in
a way that that's the way the structure is built for the jail. There's a lot of columns and things that can't be done, can't be moved because they're structural. And so you you try to work around that and it's it's been a little frustrating trying to figure out is it
even savable, you know, and there's is and and so now the next step is is we're we're having Carl Anderson come back and look at what Klein McCarthy's doing and I'm filibustering to help fill in the time because Commissioner Summer didn't do didn't do.
So, um, so it's it's how do you put a price tag then on, uh, if you try to save the whole building because the conditions fair, but the remodel would be so extraordinarily expensive. So, Carl Anderson's going to try to put some numbers to these different ideas that
Klein McCarthy had um, to give us a better idea of where's going to be the best bang for our buck. And I think, and I'm and I'm going to pose this to all the commissioners because this question is going to come up. Do we as a county want to be in the leasing business or do we want to leave
that to private businesses? And and because that's really kind of what it comes down to. It's a building that's going to be vacated by the county. And if the county wants to get in the leasing business, that's something I just I'm not asking for anybody to but
be thinking about. That's a question that we have to answer as a board. if we tried to save that building, then that means we're in the leasing business and it means that we're in the restoration business and all of that to try to make it fit for some entity. Um, so be thinking about that. So it's that won't
be a surprise as it comes up. Um, anyway, so enough on that unless you have is there any questions on that jail thing that any further questions about that? I I was just, you know, wondering where we're at. I know I had talked to administrator Barry about it and he he made it sound like we were probably
sometime in July we would have some at least some fleshed out um you know three different options kind of a thing and to me it's a matter of you know what the to me the budget drives the the project not the other way around and you know we're going to have x amount of money out of
our sales tax money that we can use to do what we need to do over there and if if it makes sense within that budget it to have something then we can look at if it if it's going to be more expensive than that to remodel it to try to have
lease space and we don't have necessarily lease lease seized or whatever to take that space or we're taking away from taxpaying entities. Um I think that it should should be pretty self-explanatory I think once we finally get those numbers. Yeah, exactly. So
exactly. Thank you. Uh and then airport affairs council that's different than the airport authority. The Airport Affairs Council is a is a mixture of people that just uh are interested in aviation and aviation related activities. Um and so they're
they're trying to help they're they're trying to help give community input to the airport authority because we can't be everywhere and do everything. And so they they give us ideas of what things that they would like to see. And as an authority then we either say, "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Let's do
it or not." And so I attend those every month. Uh, and I did also go to the uh, employee health and wellness expo, but I went really early because I had a golf that afternoon. Oh, but I so I got there right at about 11 and and uh, whipped around quick. But yeah, but it's really
good. And and again, like Commissioner Ghoul said, shout out the employees that that put a lot of effort into having that. Um, the only thing I was disappointed that they didn't have that the food truck with the pork sandwiches cuz that was really good last year. I think they were supposed to be there and
something came up. I did read that a truck had to pull out last minute. So, yeah. So, that was that was unfortunate. So, they had coffee and cookies, but you know, for coffee is okay, but I don't need the cookies. Um, and then uh we I we had I had a dancing sky uh area
agency agency meeting on Monday. Um, and that's it. Thank you, Commissioner Carlson. I I had uh a P County uh joint powers meeting on Wednesday uh last week and um things are
in flux pretty good there. We you know we were still waiting to find out for sure what we would get or not. We pretty much assumed that we wouldn't get any funding for the 9ount demolition landfill thing and that's not looking like that's happening. Um, so we're kind of from the solid waste standpoint locally, we're looking at the worst case
scenario at this point and figuring that we're probably going to have to plan for the the demolition landfill closure. Of course, the state is making basically penalizing you if you don't do it right away. Then it's going to cost you more because then even though you've already put vinyl cover on a good chunk of it,
they're going to probably make you put a like a vinyl cover over the entirety of it even though you've already accomplished putting a you know bunch of clay that's non-permeable on top of it. So, it's it's a little frustrating, but we're not we're not going to jump to
recommend something to the board um initially because things things can change and we're going to try to continue to push for an exemption or an extension of our current permit, which our current permit expires in 2020 at the end of 2029. Um, but our we've got a
good 10 years worth of capacity if we could just somehow get the MPCA to play ball and and u or the legislature to to um to cancel or not implement the rules as as soon as they're planning. So stay tuned for that. Um I had a fair board
meeting last night and uh we had um some damage was done. I don't know exactly when, but um I alerted um our our facilities manager, Steve Shadrich, earlier today um and put him in touch with Burl Wernberg from the fair board
to get she's got the police case number and and stuff. appears that somebody went and like whacked a hammer or something in in along a bunch of the doors that you like five of the different big metal sliding doors um
just for vandalism apparently. And so we're uh I'm going to have have Steve work with her to check that out. Um and uh the road by the fairgrounds has come along nicely. the dirt work, prep work is done and now they're going to
work on uh getting the curbon gutter done and um targeted to get that done very very early August before the fair is done to have that whole project completed. So that's uh that's getting there. um at our solid waste committee
meeting this morning and um you know we talked about the rates um right now it's looking like we won't have um a tipping fee increase from PK county from our joint powers uh for next year it's not 100% but um that's the way it's looking
so that's good news and uh got our airport authority meeting tomorrow night uh HRDC meeting Thursday night and Mississippi headwater board meeting on Friday so we've got a busy rest of the week That's all for for me. I don't know who's uh Commissioner Gould. Yeah. Who's
got the the the chat chat about for tomorrow? Is that Commissioner Gold? And uh and then what um management team who's next? Is that you also? Yep. So, okay. And uh what's that? Yeah.
So, we are at 5:17. I think that is all we have until our our 6:00. We are going to have our board of adjustment meeting and our county uh county assessor Caleb Bessler will be in here and so we are
going to adjourn until 6:00. Oh yeah. Well, I technically wouldn't but yeah, we'll take a we'll have a motion to adjurnn just to be that way. Motion by Commissioner Sumar. Second by Commissioner Carlson. All in favor of adjourning say I. I. Any opposed? All
right. Thank you. Yeah. Technically, we don't have to