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Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=6ZNRLATlu3g
Video-2: youtube.com/watch?v=2l36MzjYttE

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--------- Good morning everyone. It is 8:30. I will go ahead and call today's meeting of the Klay County Board of Commissioners to order. Our first item on the agenda is a approval of the agenda. >> Madam Chair, I'll make a motion to approve the agenda. >> We have a motion offered from Commissioner Bear to approve the agenda.

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>> Second. >> And a second from Commissioner Ebinger. Any further discussion? >> Discussion. All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I. I >> oppose. Same sign. carried. Citizens to be heard today. Are

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there any individuals in the audience wishing to address the county board on any item not on the agenda? Any citizens wishing to be heard? Steve, have you had any online? >> Nothing, Madam Chair. >> Thank you. Our next item today is the payment of

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the bills and vouchers. >> Move to pay the bills and vouchers. >> We have a motion offered from Commissioner Kabanov to pay the bill pay the bills and vouchers. >> Second. and a second offered by Commissioner Abinger. Discussion.

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Discussion. All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I. >> I. >> Oppos. Same sign. Item carries. The minutes are presented from the July 21st, 2026 board meeting. >> Madam Chair, I'll make a motion to

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approve the minutes from July 21st, 2026. >> We have a motion offered from Commissioner Bear to approve the minutes as presented. A second from Commissioner Campbell. Any further discussion discussion? All those in favor of the motion signify

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by saying I. >> I. >> I. >> Opposed. Same sign. The item carries. Item two today is a recognition, a proclamation for child support, fraud prevention, and collections appreciation month. We have our social service

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director Quinn with us today. Good morning. Morning, Madam Chair and commissioners. Uh, yes. I'm here requesting uh the uh motion to approve requesting this month as child support fraud prevention and collections appreciation month. August is recognized nationally as child support awareness

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month and provides an opportunity to recognize our dedicated professionals who administer child support fraud prevention and our collections programs within social services. Uh, our staff work collaboratively with families, employers, our courts, state agencies, and community partners to establish and

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enforce child support obligations, investigate possible public assistance fraud, recover those public funds, and promote program integrity. Uh, their work helps ensure children receive financial support they deserve while protecting public resources and strengthening accountability within public assistance programs. Um, just to

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give you some 2025 numbers, uh, we had 2327 child support cases, um, representing a lot of different families and children. Uh, our team distributed over $7.6 million in child support payments. Um, and we're very efficient at that work. Um, for every $1 spent, uh, we have

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collected $3.34, which is higher than the statewide average. Um, so with that, I have the attached proclamation, but I'd yield for any questions that you may have. >> Any questions for Quinn? All right, we'll read the proclamation. Commissioner Campbell. >> Okay.

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>> Whereas ch children thrive when they receive the financial and emotional support they deserve and strong child support programs help promote family stability, financial security, and positive outcomes for children. And whereas child support professionals work

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diligently to establish parentage, secure child support and medical support obligations, enforce court orders, and assist families in meeting the ongoing needs of their children. And >> whereas fraud prevention and collection professionals protect the integrity of

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public assistance programs by investigating allegations of fraud, recovering overp payments, and ensuring that limited public resources remain available for those who need them the most. And >> whereas these dedicated public servants collaborate with families, employers,

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the courts, law enforcement, attorneys, state agencies, and the communi community partners to pro provide fair, consistent, and effective services while treating individuals with professionalism, respect, and dignity. And

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>> whereas the work performed by child support, fraud prevention, and collection staff, strengthens public trust promotes accountability, safeguards taxpayer resources, and improves the well-being of children and

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families throughout Klay County. And >> now therefore, be it resolved that the Klay County Board of Commissioners recognize the dedication, professionalism, and commitment of these staff and hereby proclaims the month of August 2026 as child support, fraud

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prevention, and collections appreciation month in Klay County and encourages all residents to recognize and thank these public service public servants for their important contributions to children, families, and our community adopted this the 4th day

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of August 2026. >> Motion. >> Madam Chair, I move to uh approve the proclamation. >> We have a motion offered from Commissioner Ebinger and a second from Commissioner Bear. Any further discussion? >> Quinn, thank you for bringing this

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forward to us. We are really proud of the work that these individuals do on all of the facets that you discussed. Uh really vital service to our residents. We appreciate it. Thank you. They're a great >> Any further discussion? >> All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I

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>> I >> oppose. Same sign. >> Car. >> Thank you. >> Before you go, really quickly, uh, as Commissioner Barry and I have worked with you and Steve and our elected officials on the SNAP components and how

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vital some issues that need to be addressed in the farm bill will be. Yesterday uh we did receive word we've been working with Senator Clolobashar's office. Uh the Bosezeman bill did or not Boseman bill but between her and the collaboration with Senator Boseman uh

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bill language came out. There is a modest one-year delay that's been included in that with the click or the county's concerns. Uh we do have some some other outgoing concerns with that and if you could really maybe in 30 seconds just highlight the board where

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some of our concerns lie with that. I will be maybe uh entertaining a request for this board to send correspondence to our elected officials on that. >> Sure. Sure. My understanding of the language in that bill would say we get a one-year delay, but then there's a concern that the top end of the payment

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error rate would increase to 20% instead of 15%. So, if if the statewide error rate is at that highest threshold, that uh payment to the federal government would be higher by 5%. Um that would push uh again based on the preliminary numbers I presented to you before that

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would push the highest end upwards of $3 million per year. Again if the statewide error rate fill in that highest category. I believe the hope behind this legislation would be with a year delay it gives the state enough time and opportunity to really drive down the error rate. But I also believe that this

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legislation would have a stipulation in there that says you can no longer choose between the two years of your error rate. This would lock in whatever 2026's error rate to be what we are essentially graded on as the state. >> Can you explain why Klay County has an

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error rate of 1.5% and the state is at 15. >> We do a great job. Um but also at the same time they audit a very small amount of cases. Um we're very accurate with what we do, but if you're only looking at a small sample size, um you know, I believe they looked at 11 cases out of

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Klay County's 3,000 plus. Um so if you we're told that they pick complex and difficult cases, not just kind of easy run-of-the-mill ones. I'm not aware of like any sort of formula that they use to choose those cases. >> I would think the sampling should be the same. I >> I believe it's prrated. I know like uh

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Wilin County had two had two cases that were audited. So, I think if you're uh a county that has a high error rate, it's a multitude of different factors. You could either have poor performance in terms of actual data entry, you could have um information that's not returned to clients, or you could have had

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probably the worst cases selected for your audit. Um again, I believe the rationale behind it is if they're picking the most difficult cases and you do well, those are the hardest ones to administer. So if you're doing well on difficult cases, it's reasonable to assume that you do even better on more

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simple cases. >> Does staffing have anything to do with that? >> Absolutely. Yep. The higher the case load is, the more difficult it is to juggle all of the uh tasks that are required and the timelines that are required. Um that said, our staff have pretty high case loads and do a fantastic job. Uh we really lean on each

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other a lot um to make sure that they're getting everything done and they pride themselves in entering the work accurately. Um, another component which I know this board is aware of is the system modernization issue. Um, there's a lot of workarounds and uh, digital

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processes that are old and difficult and require a lot of duplicate an address here and address here and address here. Well, if you typed it in incorrectly the third time, that could count against the error rate. >> Any further I know you weren't prepared to maybe update the board. Any further

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questions on that? To the questions that Commissioner Campbell posed, uh, Commissioner Bear and I have discussed what is the equitable review and what is the numbers? How does it correlate with the different counties? We're really proud

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of your staff, a 1% rate in and having $59 that weren't even didn't even go out the door, but uh is a very small amount and we're really proud of the work. And also to note that we met with Congresswoman Fishbach last week to

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highlight uh that um the issue and we're hoping we'll get a meeting with her towards the end of this month as well to update. >> Yes, >> thank you Quinn. >> Thank you for the advocacy on this on this. It's it's very important because it has a really significant fiscal impact for us here.

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>> Appreciate Commissioner. Yeah, I just want to make mention I'm glad you're on the task force be if you will for that modernization. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, >> it'll be uh it'll be good to to give our input directly to be at the table from Klay County's perspective.

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>> Thank you. >> Next item today is a uh request approval to reduce retainage on SAP 014-602-031 to 1%. Our county engineer Justin Sor Justin Sorum is with us. Good morning. >> Good morning. So yeah, this is the urban

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reconstruction project through comtock. I know we did talk about this project a lot throughout the last couple years. Would say it definitely started with some very unique challenges, but once the project was bid, it it did go really really well and Seline Brothers did a

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fantastic job. There is some minor um work to be done this fall once harvest is completed just kind of around the elevator area. Um and the value of the work remaining is less than 10,000 and at 1% retainage we'd be withholding more than 40.

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So I feel comfortable with that request. >> Okay. >> Move to approve the retainage. >> We have a motion offered from Commissioner Campbell to reduce the retainage to 1%. >> Second. >> A second offered from Commissioner Ebinger. Any further discuss? >> Just one question. what do we normally retain until the work is done?

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>> Uh so the standard is 5% until um I would say substantial completion and usually it's only on these urban jobs where things get kind of drawn out just because of concrete warranties and stuff. So it's not uncommon to reduce it

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to 1% once we're at substantial. >> Any further discussion? Really glad that we were able to get this done. This was a vital component that was sitting out there for a while. So, thank you. >> Definitely. >> Any other discussion?

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All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I >> I oppose. Same sign. >> Carried. >> Thank you. >> We're three minutes ahead. Are you waiting on anyone else? >> Okay. All right. Item three today is the budget presentation. We have the Fargo Morehead West Fargo Chamber of Commerce

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with us today. We have uh president and CEO Shannon Fo, Kale Dun Woody, vice president of workforce, and Jane. >> Yeah, >> good morning to all of you.

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>> Good morning, Chair Mojo and commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity to be with you today. Uh uh before I begin, I just want to start with a simple thank you. Thank you for your continued leadership and partnership with us. Uh, one of the greatest strengths of our region, uh,

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the Fargo Morehead region, has always been our willingness to work across political boundaries, county lines, uh, different sectors. Whether it's the flood diversion, uh, public, uh, safety partnerships, workforce, uh, economic development, we've consistently

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demonstrated that our region accomplishes more when we work together. Klay County has been an instrumental and important part of this success and we sincerely appreciate your continued confidence in the chamber and in the regional partnership. The investment is much more uh though

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than about funding programs as you see on this slide. It creates the conditions that allow the economy to thrive whether that be uh policy stability, workforce development, regional coordination or quality of life. Most importantly, uh the investment that Klay County has, uh

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continued to give us uh demonstrates leadership. We know that when government invests, the private sector uh builds it builds confidence in the private sector to invest alongside you. Public investment opens the door. Private investment multiplies our impact.

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Together, we create a return that neither sector could do alone. And that's clearly been demonstrated by the public private partnership success that we've had in this region. It truly is a differentiator for us. Uh one of the funding requests uh or the two funding

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uh one funding request with two core offerings. Uh it supports two of the most critical regional drivers uh for our competitiveness. First, public policy ensures that Klay County as well as our region has strong and consistent voice at the local, the state, and the

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federal level. While workforce develops, attracts and retains the talent that our employers need, which drives growth and allows us to increase tax base. These are interconnected. Strong policy creates opportunity while strong workforce creates growth. And we know

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how much you appreciate opportunities and growth for this region. Together, uh we will continue to strengthen the regional economy. I'm really fortunate uh today to have two extraordinary leaders that lead this work day in and day out. We're going to start with Kale

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Dunwy, our VP of public policy, followed by uh Jane Magnes, our VP of workforce uh and uh talent. So, go ahead, Kale. >> Perfect. Well, good morning, chair and commissioners. Appreciate the opportunity to be before you to talk a little bit further about our public

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policy efforts at the chamber. I'm really echoing Shannon's comments of gratitude, not only for your investment for but for your continuous uh advocacy and your continuous showing up uh and being a part of the discussions that were that we're convening throughout our public policy and center for civic

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engagement efforts. Um our public uh our public policy partnerships with you are really focused on three main areas. Legislative engagement, advocacy and leadership uh and advocacy and leadership, regional education and convenings, and our center for civic engagement. And really starting with um our legislative engagement and advocacy

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efforts. One of the things um we continue to say is you our region can't be competitive without a strong unified public policy and advocacy strategy. And and really that's uh where we fit in uh in both our advocacy in St. Paul and Washington DC. And together uh we've been able to secure uh u funding for

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numerous projects like the flood diversion, the juvenile detention facility and the PRTF. And so really uh really excited to talk further about uh that. Additionally, on behalf of the business community, we've been able to uh find some some wins u maybe small or

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minor, but uh still significant wins. When you look at defeating property tax proposals, uh increases, I'm sorry, uh tax increases um and mandates. uh we've been able to work collectively to to help uh mitigate those while also

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passing federal tax conformity at the state level. Really making sure that our business community is being well served across uh Klay County. And as you know, these uh policy wins mean real impact to businesses right here in Klay County. And so just really appreciate the collaboration. I know we've been in St.

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Paul multiple different times together uh advocating uni in in a unified fashion. and we couldn't do this without this partnership uh with with you all. And so we really appreciate that. Um when we look at this last legislative session, a few things I just want to highlight is um you know overall we

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tracked about 130 bills, really leaned in on 13 different policy priorities and saw about a 62% success rate. Um but as you know um that work is not done. It's a continued grind out in St. Paul. Um, and these last two legislative sessions haven't been the easiest to navigate

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with the uh with the uncertainty and the the various political dynamics that are taking place. And so we're committed to continuing to improve that success rate and working collectively with you all um uh in this next legislative session to continue to advocate uh in a unified

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fashion for our region. Moving on to the education and convenings. Uh just want to talk a little bit more about our direct advocacy in St. Paul. And again, this is where we um we bring the broader community together. We engage businesses in the conversation. Um and so in your

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packets, you'll find several different uh nonpartisan resources that we've put together to help educate members in the general public as they enter into these convenings and these conversations, whether that be here locally or St. Paul or Washington DC. Um and this education really turns into impact for us. were

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able to um we were able to bring it together just this past year over 350 business and community leaders for policy conversations. Again, that's roundts uh direct conversations where we're having conversations with the governor about flood protection or having conversations with Senator

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Clolobashar about uh federal issues or whatever it may be. And so really really looking at the impact that those have uh on our region. convenings also look like our flood mitigation meetings that we hosted uh bi-weekly during the legislative session to really make sure that we're collaborating across all

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political entities uh here locally. Um and then also our Klay County leaders roundt where we're able to bring leaders uh together on a quarterly basis just to make sure that we know what's going on. on the left hand knows what the right hand is doing because we often always get busy in our work and sometimes we need to uh to all get together and just

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really talk about the wins and talk about the strategy to move forward uh against some challenges and so again just appreciate you all for showing up in those conversations. I think that's that's what great partnership looks like as we show up for one another and so we appreciate uh the alignment that we've

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created. Um and really I think the at the end of the day the value of these convenings isn't just by the number of people or the number of meetings that we're holding. It's really about the conversations that we're having, the relationships that we're building again with elected officials, uh, agency leaders, and really building those that

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continuity and building that um, that trusted relationship amongst our region and those uh, elected or appointed leaders. Some more convenings I just want to mention uh, is our is our days at the capital, our DC flyins, things like that. Again, appreciate you all for for

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taking part in those opportunities, coming out to St. Paul. Uh, again, I know you're out in St. Paul a lot, but it's really um really important when we can bring 50 business and community leaders to to Washington DC and into St. Paul and really show a regionalized voice. Again, not just Shannon and I

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talking at legislators, but really the business and community leaders talking to elected officials and sharing their their firsthand input and their firsthand knowledge of what's taking place, talking about the opportunities and challenges that they're seeing in the legislation. One of the unique things that we did this legislative

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session with our uh day at the capital uh we were able to partner with the Detroit Lakes Area Chamber uh to do this jointly. Again, really elevating the voice of greater Minnesota, elevating the voice of our region, really everywhere from from uh across Highway 10. Uh we were able to bring people

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together to to advocate effectively for our region. And so, um that further further engagement just really helps elevate our priorities and help helps elevate greater Minnesota. And again, just appreciate the the folks uh on this commission that have been able to attend those. Again, I know you have a lot of different priorities, so we appreciate

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your time uh in that. And then again, uh session priorities dinner, going out, building relationships with elected officials before we get to legislative session. Move to the next slide. One of the things I just also want to touch on a little bit further is our

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center for civic engagement. Um and really when we're looking at our center for civic engagement um we're not seeing uh seeing anybody across the nation doing this um doing this the way that we're doing. And it really is because of the systematic approach that we've been able to create looking at candidate

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cultivation, employer engagement, voter education, and fostering the future. And that's really kind of I think the differentiator is we're looking at this holistically. A lot of folks across different communities are doing one or one or the other, but they're not doing it systematically. And we've been able to strategically put these things

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together um and lean into this and really see that civic engagement is something that is also vital to the success and the competitive nature of our region. When we look at good policies, you have to have good elected officials out there advocating for your region. And so through our center for civic engagement, we've been able to

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really um really lean into that further. And it kind of starts with what we're calling a ladder philosophy. It's really when you look at the center for civic engagement and you look at civic engagement overall, our job is to move folks one rung up that civic engagement ladder. Somebody that's maybe never voted before, maybe they just got out of

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high school, how do we get them to show up in the general election? Or somebody that's voted in every single general election, how do we get them to show up in a primary election? Moving one rung up on that ladder all the way to when they're raising their hand to run for office sitting at this dis or other dascese across the the community. And so

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really looking at how we're moving folks in our our community again on both sides of the river, one rung up on that civic engagement ladder. Now just diving a little bit more into the the facets obviously candidate cultivation. One of the things is you have to get good people to run for you just have to get people to run for

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office. In our uh in Minnesota, one in every 241 individuals have to run for some type of government leadership role. That obviously gets narrowed down for a rural community like or a a greater Minnesota community like ours. And so really being intentional about how we're again, we're not picking candidates.

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We're just saying we need more folks to run for office. Let's offer them the tools, workshops, whatever it may be to to run for office. And then when we look at um employer engagement, often times there's three people that have to say yes uh for somebody to run for office. The individual themsel, their family,

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and their employer. How can we as a chamber of commerce really work with that employer so that they see the value in somebody running for office and they can see uh see a champion for you multiple different policy priorities sitting on a dis. One of the other uh things is you can have the best person run for office,

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their employer can say yes, but if nobody shows up to the polls, it doesn't really matter. And so really leaning into voter education uh and voter engagement like our vote FMWF resource, which uh I know several of you have utilized in the past. Uh and so really a great initiative where we can see

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individuals uh getting more educated about what's on their ballot. oftentimes those lower ballot races uh struggle to get as much attention as some of those higher ballot races like the US Senate race, US Congress, whatever it may be. But really making sure that voters know who they're voting for. And then the

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last um the last thing I'll mention on that actually is uh last election we saw about 11,000 views on vote FMWF. That was throughout the entire year. Um, just in the June primary for North Dakota, we elevated that to 76,000 views and we're

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going to continue to work on uh for this primary coming up next week, elevating that impact in that viewership to make sure that folks across this community can see this nonpartisan resource as an asset to them as they enter the polls. The last thing I'll mention for civic engagement is just fostering the future.

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And that's really leaning into our um young uh young professionals, our K through2 and higher education students. Ultimately, they're they're the folks that'll be sitting at this DAS in 20 years. And so, how are we preparing them working alongside our educational partners to make sure they're prepared to enter civic engagement in an

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effective manner. So overall, uh we're going to continue to publish these resources like the employer toolkit um and add additional get out the vote opportunities um and and just really appreciate um uh the support that we received from from this body uh for our

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center for civic engagement and again kind of tying a bow on our center for civic engagement. Nobody else is doing this across the nation. We're uh we were just uh fortunate enough to be in New Orleans a couple weeks ago to talk at our national conference uh for chambers of commerce and we uh we've been getting

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out, you know, overwhelming support and overwhelming questions about how are you doing this? How can we integrate this into our chamber of commerce? We're trying to crack this nut. How do you how are you guys doing it? We love your approach. And so we just feel very fortunate for the support from this body uh and private businesses across the

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community to help elevate our impact. And so with that, I'm going to turn it over to our VP of workforce, Jane Vgnesfish. And if you have any questions for me, I'm happy to answer those at the end. >> Jane, if you just a moment, just any questions in regards to Kale's presentation.

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Well, I I know that we have all of the items that you talked about, Kale. uh one of us or multiple times had uh participated in it from the the civic engagement component to the legislative piece to the the quarterly meetings.

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Thank you. Uh as we look towards how legislation really affects the work that we do in our corner of the state. Uh you've been handinand with us, your entire organization, and I I I really heartfelt want to thank you for that

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work. uh p on the the broader the Morehead uh Detroit likes day which I think really should be Clay Becker day uh the comments that we hear from legend we'll >> consider that >> in regards to um how often do you see uh

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private sector municipalities counties the business sector all there advocating together it doesn't happen and um to my colleagues uh that's something that the capital uh elected officials are taking notice at

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and so when we are down there it really speaks with a huge voice and and just the tracking piece I um unfortunately for Kale or fortunately I think Kale and I talk daily throughout the legislative session things are happening so quickly and so to have a partner to be able to share information on what they're

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hearing and keep on top of it is why we had so much success at the capital thank you >> yes commissioner I'd just like to make an observation having run for office um and and when you have a position like

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county commissioner, a lot of people don't know what to do. Uh there's a lot of misinformation sometimes within the community about one candidate or the other. and you afforded in four or five

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different U venues afforded me an opportunity to go out and explain to people what we do and explain to people what my view of that position is and it's a nonpartisan position. It should be a reasonable thing where people have confidence in in the person they're

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voting on. you provided venues for us to get out there and show what our position is and to subject ourselves to some scrutiny which I I think now more than ever the political system needs. So, I

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found it to be a really uh at times challenging, but uh overall just a really good gift to our to our community to give them the opportunity to look at these positions where there's not a whole lot

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of information out there and there's probably more misinformation than there is information and give them a chance to come in, scrutinize us, and even direct questions to us. So, I was impressed with what Kale's doing and Shannon's under your leadership. It's really a

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valuable contribution to to our region. >> Commissioner Ebinger and the the rest of the commission, thank you for that comment. I think one of the biggest things that we're really leaning into is we understand that awareness drives alignment and alignment drives action. And I think that's the biggest thing is

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if we can continue to increase the awareness uh at every level of government and opportunity, uh we'll just have more educated voters, we'll have more opportunity for people to see themselves in those positions. And we're really concerned about the void uh in

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leadership in the future in all of the levels, whether it's school board, county commission, state level. Uh so uh we're excited about this work, but again can't do it without great partners like you. So, thank you for the comment. >> Anything else, Jane? We'll >> Yeah.

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>> go into yours. >> Well, much like and and thank you commissioners for allowing the opportunity. I know you interface with with Shannon and Kale a lot. Uh often my programs are somewhat behind the scenes, but much like what Shannon and Kale have talked about alignment and opportunity

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and connection, that's what really our workforce system is about. And I'm really proud to share some of our outcomes related to uh what we've been doing to ensure that we have a thriving region through a a very vibrant workforce. And you know, we have really

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tried at the at the um at the chamber level, but frankly at the regional level to make sure that this is a system that we're not operating as two separate states, that we're not operating as two separate things. And apparently we also are operating with a very interesting way of spelling

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workforce up there. So, I'll just point that out. >> I've noticed it's realigned it in the packet. It's correct. >> Well, that's that's great. >> Keep you on your toes. >> Got to love technology. >> Um, but but through the investment in workforce, we have been able to build an interconnected system. And the the heart

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of that is ensuring that we have a framework that provides our business and industry partner alongside our workforce activators and navigators in collaboration with our training and education partners a way to have conversation. And that is what we're incredibly proud of. We've been able to

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stand up a framework over the past two and a half years called uh through our industry sector partnerships. Our main sectors are healthcare uh which I'll talk about in a moment. Uh cyber security, IT, advanced manufacturing and

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agriculture. Our four major industries within the community. Through those industry sector partnerships, we've had been able to convene and collaborate over 500 individuals from across those sectors, but across those support systems to have those conversations about what is really needed. What as a

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as a former higher education administrator, I can say that our training and education partners do a great job of once a year bringing in our uh business and education part business and industry partners to say what do we need to do better? uh we need that more frequently and we need that also with

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the to the table of those that are supping providing that support. So we feel really good about some of that industry sector alignment that that we've been able to do. And one of the ways that we've been able to do that is through a partnership that we had with rural Minnesota SEP accessing some Minnesota deed funds specifically the

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drive for five opportunity. This is where we specifically were able to stand up a industry sector partnership around healthcare which is our highest need in Klay County specific to um entry level employees. We were able to not only expand the conversations, stand up this

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this um continuous framework and feedback loop, but also provide in time um programming and discussions related to inclusion and some retention issues. Um also provide some muchneeded hiring resources that really help those medium

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and small businesses. We often in healthcare forget about the uh care facilities that are often in greater Minnesota and and the like. And so really being able to provide their voice and amplify that to secure some follow-up funding that has allowed us to continue this now uh throughout the

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years. In addition, we know that uh an important aspect of workforce is making sure that our that people feel um connected that they belong and through two of our great programs that's also part of our important framework is our community concierge program which is that white glove service providing

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connection for those individuals that are coming into our community. But I think one of the most underceelebrated uh things that we often that often goes behind the scenes related to that connection piece is we have 50 volunteers through our icebreakers program that provide honestly just that

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first connection for individuals. You'll see in your packet just a little a little card that we work with our HR folks across the county to share with individuals that are coming in to so that they can make that connection. We know that a a a job is an incredibly important piece of attracting someone

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here and keeping them here, but those personal connections and that that collab that connection to their community is just as important. And so that's an important piece of our workforce strategy through throughout the chamber and throughout the the um the region. In addition, we have had the

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opportunity, as Shannon mentioned, and and Kayla has alluded to this too, the public private partnership is so incredibly important. We've had the opportunity to access funds through the economic development administration through our good jobs challenge grant. Um just four years ago today it popped up on my social media uh that that was

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announced that we received that large award from the economic development administration. What I can tell you is the numbers on your slide are outdated. As of yesterday, we were able to share that we have upskilled 823

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individuals um in into uh an amazing opportunity into good jobs. So, not only have they been upskilled, but we know those 823 have been placed with over,00 accessing additional training and resources. I want to pull out the numbers for Klay County specifically.

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Just over $1.2 2 million has been awarded to individuals accessing education and training through MState. This is often in collaboration not only um with CAPL LP but also rural Minnesota SEP to provide those individuals that are maybe transitioning from a variety

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of different backgrounds into the workforce. And this has a lot afforded a lot of really great training and education opportunities 18 people at a time and which is which is really exciting and I I think it's under celebrated the opportunity of just

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giving a little bit of education and training to a person how that sets them up for long-term success. Um, so really proud of those programs and and really thankful for MState, Rural Minnesota SE, but also CAP LP and the county for allowing all of those systems to work

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together to provide those opportunities. Um, moving on, I talked the importance of be feeling connected and we're very intentional about those connections. I talked about the the importance of, you know, as a as a newcomer to our community, what does that look like? But

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as a professional, how do we ensure that we're engaging those professionals to feel connected to their communities and uplifting them? We've had over a thousand engagements through our women connect program, our young professionals network, and our leadership FMWF, which I know uh some of you have maybe had the opportunity to to work through. One of

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the things that we're most proud of is what we're doing with our emerging workforce, that young professionals network. We know we have a a great higher education opportunities right here in Klay County and just across the river. How do we ensure that those individuals are considering Morehead,

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Klay County, Fargo, West Fargo, and the like um to be their future home? And so through our young professionals network, we're helping those that are in the in that that emerging professional world to to create those connections. In addition, it is also our emerging

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workforce that we're trying to help through our educators specifically. We know that those influencers are so important. We're really proud of our adventures program which um throughout the past two years has um not only connected educators to business and industry but taken that intentionally

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directly into their classrooms. Uh this this week-long program provides not only professional development opportunities but true connection with business and industry. In addition that emerging workforce, how do we get them to see themselves in the region in the future?

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And that is really through our um career expo that happens every December. Not only are we doing intentional outreach into our classroom, connecting uh not our classrooms with business and industry, which we'll talk about in a second, but also helping thousands see themselves uh converge on the Fargo Dome

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uh from 42 area schools to see what is out there. This isn't a a career fair. This is an expo. So, hands-on uh exploration, everything from repelling from the rafters to sitting in an ambulance to driving heavy equipment. Individual, our young individuals get to

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experience that um on the floor of the Fargo Dome and really get to connect with business and industry partners um an immersive experience. But what we heard um from our business and industry partners about the emerging workforce is they were struggling. uh we heard that through our industry sector

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partnerships over uh that that was consistent across all four of our major sectors is saying that we want to engage with that emerging workforce that that post se that secondary population even the the K6 population but it's confusing we're we're struggling and so what we

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were able to do is again our role at the chamber is not to solve but connect and collaborate and so I was able to call together alongside of all of our partners our our community schools, specifically Morehead P Morhead Area

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Public Schools alongside of West Fargo um and uh Fargo public schools to say our business and industry partners are telling us the onboard into helping students experience work-based learning is complicated and we don't know how to

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do it. And so calling together all of those districts to say how can we do this? Um and working together we were able to set not only uh workforce learning goals but also we were able to ease that transition for business and industry. Um so I'll use the example of

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American Crystal Sugar. They have been a great partner to our workforce efforts. Uh specifically they have accessed the good jobs challenge for upskilling a lot of their individuals that come uh maybe entry level that don't have the skills that they need but they want to employ them. But another way is they were

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helping us understand that they wanted to get more and more students into into the experiencing American Crystal Sugar into the factories um onto the floor. But if they wanted to bring students in, they would have to fill out four

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different forms to make sure that they could access students from across the region. So one for Morehead Area Public Schools, one for the Career Academy, one for Fargo public schools, and one for West Fargo public schools. we that seems like not a big thing, but when you're

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doing that potentially for 10, 12, 20 students, it gets to be burdensome. And frankly, businesses are saying, you know, thanks, no thanks. And so, we were able to streamline that. And so, that's an example of what we've been able to do of everyone now uses the same form. We

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all know how how sometimes that's a hard thing to do. Uh, but we feel really proud of that. In addition, those districts came together and said, "We need to start to set some goals around this and we need to challenge our business and industry partners to come to the table as well to help us provide. It's the chicken or the egg. Do you provide the students or do you provide

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the experiences?" So, we are trying to do both at the same time. So, our our goals have been set. We launched those in April. We're well on our way. And as a chamber, we're going shoulder-to-shoulder with those business and industry partners, especially our small to medium partners to say, "This is how you can do it." Um, I don't want

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to say handholding, but truly it's just once you once you once a business has a intern or does a a job shadow or goes in and does a career talk once, they're more comfortable doing it. So, it's our job to help them feel more comfortable walking into those classrooms, walking into those learning environments. I

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think another benefit on the last slide particularly for this board to be aware of um understanding that only uh Morhead Area Public Schools is noted there but their connection to all of our other rural districts and the work that Dr.

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Lunick is doing to make sure they're working with the DGFS or the Barnesvilles if there are uh youth that have interests that want to attend classes at the career academy trying to figure out how it will work. We've been in strategic meetings with them to

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figure out how just because this is um under the umbrella of one district. It doesn't exclude the add additional Klay County kiddos from going there. And that's an enormous regional benefit >> and and we have worked closely with DGF as well. There's there's interest in in how do we figure out work-based learning, you know, coming to the I want

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to say the metro, but making that transition even though they're part of our our region, transportation is a concern, but I know Dr. Lunac has done a great job of of trying to figure out how do we solve some of those even scheduling issues. They've they've shifted a bit of their some of their scheduling as well. And so

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we feel very fortunate. This really truly has been a regionwide discussion. >> And then the next opportunity that we're really leaning into is how do we make this more accessible for our rural um students and our our rural youth? Can we use video and technology for some of the

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experiential components of that? how do we help to um work with our other partners like the Barnesville Chamber EDC to help uh with those companies connecting more seamlessly into the schools. So, we've got a very significant interest in um the the next

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iteration of that will include a lot more of our rural communities as well. >> So, again, a systemswide approach. We're trying to be thoughtful. Uh it's often behind the scenes. And so, I I feel very fortunate to be able to share some of those great outcomes with you today. and I'll I'll turn it back over to Shannon

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to talk more about what what the future holds. >> Great. So, we're really excited as you can tell uh today uh again thanks to the great work that Kale and Jane do each and every day along with the rest of our team. We stand very very committed uh to walk alongside you to continue to

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advance growth and prosperity of our region. So, hopefully you found our presentation beneficial. Um one thing that I'd leave you with is that the work we are doing is intentional. It is strategic and it's impactful. Uh but we cannot do it without you. We also

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recognize the difficult budget decisions that you have in front of you and the very um and the commitment that you have to be very strong stewards of the taxpayer dollars. That's why we're very intentionally not asking for an increase of uh any in any means. But while the

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cost of delivering this work continues to rise, we are committed to finding additional partners and additional funding to help us augment that. So, we very respectfully request the same amount of $100,000 investment by Klay County uh that you've made in the

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previous years uh prior uh so that we can continue to recognize the fiscal uh realities and responsibilities that you face. But keep in mind the in the request we're bringing to you today isn't just an investment in the chamber. It truly is an investment in the regional partnerships and the

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competitiveness of our region. Uh your investments extremely important, but your leadership is equally valuable. So uh again, a very heartfelt thank you uh for uh the trust that you put in uh the work that we do, the commitment that you've continued to have, and the

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partnership that we look forward to in the future. So we're happy to take any questions that you may have for us. Thank you to all of you. Questions? >> And let me just reference one thing. Sorry, Commissioner Mojo. Um, uh, Ryan Wall, VP of administration from American

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Crystal Sugar, had every intent of being here. He actually text me when you said, "Do you have anyone else coming?" uh he got hung up at the Morehead plant, but he is more than happy uh to and will be sending you uh a little bit more of the private sector thoughts on support of uh

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uh and really appreciation of your investment. So, if there are additional questions, he's happy to answer those as well. So, >> thank you, Commissioner Kavanagh. >> Yeah, thank you. I just uh wanted to make a couple comments. Uh I wanted to hear the workforce piece um before I

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spoke. Um uh just a huge thank you um you know working with you over this past year uh I I just really appreciate the um the comprehensive scope that you use uh whether it's toward legislation

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whether it's toward the building and workforce um personally I feel like every time that we're together working it makes us all and me uh personally feel bigger meaning um more engaging

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when we're uh the people we're interacting with. You know, it's just more than just this board. It's, you know, it elevates our whole community and here then also the collaboration uh in the public private that you

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mentioned. I mean that just each of those pieces in that collaboration elevates every single business and every and and the indiv individuals involved and I fantastic work. That's all all

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I'll say. >> Thank you. Um, I I think the work that you guys do is amazing. And you know, for the people who might be watching today, I you know, the county

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typically is tasked with serving a lot of um a lot of our residents who are in need. Um, but what I hear from you people is and and what you do is you try to rise people up through whatever efforts that

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you have. And um, so anyone watching this to to they should be able to see today the the commitment to community that you have, the caring for both employers and employees

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and engaging with the community and local partners. Those are critical components to being a successful community. And when you ask us for $100,000 a year when we have a levy in the $40 million

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range is a it's a drop in the bucket. And it's it's it's something that uh I I think it's an investment on our part so that you continue to do what you do.

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uh because without you I think there would be um a drastic difference. Your involvement with helping uh establish entre entrepreneurs, these small businesses is incredible. The workforce piece that you talked

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about, that's the first I've heard that in-depth work that you do uh for the with the chamber. So I um I'm going to 100% support your your request. Um I know we we are in real difficult

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budget times. Um all this all this is about economic development and you know Klay County h you know we you know we keep hearing well we're the you know largest growing

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community you know uh in the state pretty much and that doesn't h happen by happen stance. There's there's a lot of effort that goes into that and the ability to encourage businesses to be in Morehead or Klay County and for and for

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a workforce that may not even work in North Dakota but establish residents in Minnesota and Klay County is a real positive thing for our for our county. And it's so I guess what I'm saying is we ha we have to be a partner in

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investing something to make sure this stays successful and I think um I think you've done an amazing job between between the work that you do with the local chamber and we've we've also seen some really positive things come out of

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the more business association though I think you've been really good partners with them as well in a lot of areas and with your efforts that you do with St. Paul. Um, this is this is an investment that's um

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it it brings back many times over in in what we're paying. So, I want to thank you all for for what you do. >> Thank you, Commissioner Campbell. Uh, I just want to reference one thing. We really do see the same thing that you do, right? Our region is successful

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because of the assets that we have on both sides of the river. And often times uh that gets overlooked, right, where there is scrutiny um on the Minnesota side. I will tell you that that's what makes this region unique is that we have

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significant strengths uh on both sides of the river. And we are very committed to continuing to elevate those and tell the story of what does this look like uh when we have a an active vibrant region. uh and there are great assets that all of you continue to invest in, but we're

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really committed to this work. So, thank you for the comments. >> I could tell. Thank you. >> Well, I I just want to highlight I you know, I grew up um my grandpa said you always uh treat the employees as well as you do the CEOs. And I have been in meetings with the chamber in which we're

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talking about a five plus billion dollar company that is potentially looking at coming to Klay County while also hearing that there is a small business in Klay County that is having difficulty or misunderstanding um what the new regulations from the state is and your

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organization sent someone to contact them the same day. And I think that really speaks to how you strategically look at all of us in the region as a whole. Uh to not just look at huge growth, but also to look at the the smaller components that could be looked

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at as barriers or challenges is really where the benefit is for for all of us to not just look at recruiting new, recruiting new, trying to look internally and figure out how we strengthen what is already existing, how we uplift, particularly with the workforce piece. uh that's a huge

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challenge in the housing and all of the issues that en encompass that. So um just from uh just a resident's perspective, thank you for being such a team player with all of the different groups, but uh in serving in this capacity, our dollars are very very well

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spent in partnership with your organization and I concur with uh my colleagues that it is uh money that is is very well utilized and >> thank you. Thanks for the opportunity. Thank you both. Thank you all.

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>> Okay, we will move into our budget presentation. We have our public health director, Jessica Mickelson with us. She also has Brandon Nelson with Good morning. >> Good morning, Madam Chair and

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commissioners. Let me pull up our slideshow here. All right, there we go. >> Thank you for having us both this morning. Uh Brad and I are excited to be here to present the 2027 public health

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budget overview. Uh so we have a comprehensive um PowerPoint in front of you um where we'll hit some highlight information and then Brandon will go into a little bit more indepth with uh specific uh budget items. And then we

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also wanted to share a little bit more um information about our partnership for health grants. Um, I know our CHB commissioners um hear that information often, but we wanted to make sure that the whole Klay County Commission um was

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um aware of the grants that we work with on a daily basis. So, uh you should have before you two handouts. Uh so, one is the PowerPoint and then one uh is the budget packet that was provided to Lori and Steve. So, got it.

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>> Okay. All right. Uh so our first slide here is an overview of the higher impact items. Uh so the top um box there is a comparison of our 2026 levy request which was uh

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just over $2 million. Um our 2027 levy request is 1.383 million or I'm sorry1,383,249. So, uh it is a reduction um from 26 to 27 by $634,000

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or 31%. Our um current fund balance is also listed there. Uh we did have one potential new request. Um as you all may recall, Rory Beal had come to the board back in March to request um approval to

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apply for the drug-free communities grant. Uh had we been awarded that grant, we would have been looking at adding a new grant coordinator position. Unfortunately, we found out yesterday that we were not awarded the grant. So, uh we did not have time to update our

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slides and update the packet for Sarah. So, that is unfortunate news. So, I actually have a um salary worksheet in here later too that I'll just >> Jessica, can I ask what region of the state the award went to? if that's a >> uh we know Horizon Public Health

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received a grant, but this that was a renewal for them. They had received one in the first five years. Um there was only 50 of these grants being awarded nationwide. Um so we really don't have any more information. The um letter

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informing us that we were not awarded the grant was very vague. Uh, so Jason and Rory have sent a followup um, email just to inquire more. >> And Horizon is Douglas, >> uh, Douglas, Pope. Um, there's five counties there. Grant,

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>> it's nice to see an out metro. >> Yeah. >> So, uh, and then the bottom box here is just um some of those kind of, uh, larger um, impact items that are affecting the 2027 levy request. Uh, so

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you can see we had a reduction of $471,681 in staff salary and benefits from 26 to 27. And we'll get into more detail on each of these items later in the presentation, but I just wanted to kind of have a highlight page for you guys to

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uh kind of see um some of the larger impact items. So, uh, and then, uh, our grant allocations actually rose from 26 to 27. And Brandon will go into more in depth on in each of those areas. Um, but

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really by splitting from the 4count CHB to the 2count CHB, we saw a little positivity with um the financial allocations with just not having to share those grants across four counties. Uh and then you're all very well aware

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um we the men choices program primarily moved into social services. Uh so that had a positive impact the public health levy request. Um we requested earlier this year a 6 wick position. So that had

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a negative impact. Um our environmental health fees that we had come to prior this year. Um we are anticipating additional revenue of about $40,000 in that program area. Um

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clinic hours um we will see uh some reduced cost um by reducing those um those days to just uh the Tuesday Thursday and I'll talk about that a little bit more uh and then our contract changes that I was just recently um here

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to discuss with you all. So, uh, overall these highlighted program areas, um, are having a positive impact to our levy of $473,000. Um, and this is just another overview. So, just to kind of highlight here that

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our 27 levy request is 1.38 million, which is a reduction of $634,000 or 31%. Uh this mainly is really due I think the bottom line is staff salaries and um benefits.

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Um obviously that's our largest expense in our budget. Uh and by making some of the strategic moves that we've made throughout the year um we were able to shift that. Um and I'll talk about that um how that's still impacting social services, but we have some good news

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there as well. Uh but we also had five staff um tenur staff retire um in 26. So obviously replacing those staff staff at um lower steps um has a has a positive impact as well. And then we had two

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administrative positions that were reallocated as well. So all of that combined um had an impact of about $471,000. >> Commissioner Kavanagh. So of those positions, were they all refilled?

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>> Yes. >> Okay. So it was about the just different steps then. >> Well, I shouldn't say they were all were refilled. One was refilled in social services, >> right? >> So the per the staff had been a men choices assessor, >> right?

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>> So she retired in public health and then moved that position was transferred. >> Thank you. >> Yes. Uh, so this was my wage calculator for our potential new position that I'm going to just skip over because it is

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now null and void unfortunately. Uh, and then I just wanted to go a little bit more in depth to talk about kind of what brought us to these decisions for these program changes and how it's having an overall impact for public health's budget. Um, so obviously

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Men Choices is the largest piece there at $438,000. So Quinn and I and uh Susie Ordnik had gotten together in late 2025 to discuss the swap of women choices and SMB between the two departments. We knew

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that both benefits would be kind of short-lived for one year. Um the social services time study produces more revenue for the county throughman choices than what public health was able to receive through the local

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collaborative time study because we participate in different time studies. Um so it really made sense to move the program at that time. However, alongside that, we knew that the 2025 legislature had made some changes um regarding men choices with potentially looking at

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removing men choices completely from the social services time study. I spoke to Quinn about a week ago about this and there has been no new news from the legislature or AMC or MAXA um on what that flat rate reimbursement for men

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choices would be. Um, so he is budgeting that the men choices program is staying in the social services time study for 2027. So that actually, you know, we were anticipating this move to really only have a one-year positive impact.

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Hopefully it'll have at least two years. Um, and I know Quinn will be discussing that more when he comes to present before the board. Um, another strategic move that we made was we renegotiated our Mshow and MSC Plus contracts. Uh, so

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this had to do with um, Medicica taking over the UKare contracts for Klay County. Um, so we used to receive um, for MSC plus $78 per member per month and for Mshow we received 109 per member

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per month. Under our Medicica rates, we will be getting 125 for MSE Plus and 135 for Mshow. So, we're anticipating about $103,000 in additional revenue for that.

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Uh, and then earlier this year, um, Liz and Brandon and I had come to the board to request restructuring our clinic. Um, at the time, the, um, clinic just was not very busy. uh we felt that we could

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use utilize that staffing time more um beneficial in other program areas. Um so we've made the adjustment of having the clinic only open on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Uh we also had a tenure staff retire.

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We've hired that position. Um the person who is um primarily working in the clinic is doing an excellent job. >> We are seeing Commissioner Campbell has a question. What on the change of the hours to Tuesdays and Thursdays, have

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have you received any public feedback? >> We have not received any negative comment comments. >> No. >> Um, we have been a lot busier. So, having just the set two days, they are filling all appointments available

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for those two days. We're currently booking out about three weeks. Um, so Liz and I have discussed if we get to a point where appointments are booking out longer than a month, uh, then we may have to come back and discuss adding a third day. But it's been really

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interesting how having that consistency has really increased the traffic in the clinic. So, and then the other benefit to that was that staff person on her non-clin days is in a revenue generating

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position. So, it's actually produced an $83,000 benefit to the levy making that little switch. So, uh and then we also were here earlier this year to um request um changes to

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our environmental health fees. Um, so as you all know, some of those fees hadn't been adjusted since the late 90s, uh, going into the early 2000s. So, uh, we came before the board and requested that both our delegated and non- delegated

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environmental health fees be adjusted. Uh, and by making those, um, slight adjustments, um, in some areas, a little bit heavier in others, but to align with the amount of work, um, being done by the staff in those program areas, we're

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um, anticipating about $40,000 in increased revenue. um and that brings that program pretty close to covering the costs of of their program. So, uh two negative um areas that I just wanted to point out, um because they

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were pretty significant, I guess, um is we did add the 6 wick position. Um so, at for 2027, we're anticipating um a cost to the county of $15,000 approximately for that. we are offsetting quite a um

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large amount of that salary um and benefits for that staff person by um one of our um federal grants that is ending at the end of 2027. So we'll only have that um capability of using that grant to assist with paying for that position

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for one year. Um and then also you're all aware of the SMBC contract changes. So with um Medicare or I'm sorry Medicica taking over our UKare contract uh we saw a reduction um in our per

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member per month uh rate from 185 to 135. Um so based off what we had um anticipated in our 26 budget to 27 that's having about $176,000 negative impact to our to our budget.

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Any questions there before I turn it over to Brandon? Questions? Okay. >> All right. Well, thank you Jessica for that overview here. So, I'll break it down um into our program areas now that

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we um want to dig a little bit deeper. Um we did provide the full budget overview. Um I won't go every line by the 25 pages that we have here. Um so, I'll try and summarize it here. Um so first off we have our administration. Um

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we have the 2026 revenue and expenses. Then we have the 27 revenue and expenses. So then we can see where our county ask landed last year and then going to 27. And then the last column that you have is if it is a net increase

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or a decrease to our uh 2027 levy ask. Um so we'll start at the top with administration. Um we did see a slight increase in revenue. um due to um our local public health grant increasing but also adding in a communications grant um

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that we have. So that provides communication support for the CHB. Um so that um our actual ask for 2027 is 525,000 which is a decrease in the levy ask from last year of 35,000

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um for that for that program area. Next we have the CDC infrastructure grant. Um, this is a budget neutral grant. Um, so we went from 41,000 projected in 2026 down to 2027. Um, as Jessica noted, uh,

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we are using the CDC infrastructure funds to fund other program areas. Um, and as she noted that that grant does end in November, November 30th of 2027. Um, so we do have to utilize it or we lose it. Um, so that's why we're planning on using it for other program

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areas to make sure that we spend all of those funds that are available to us. Um, so that one is budget neutral. It was last year and it will be for um this upcoming 2027 year. Um, so there's no levy impact for that program area. Next, we have uh foundation of public health

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responsibilities. Um, last year we did have a county ask um to fund some of these program areas. As Jessica noted, um we didn't quite get the uh benefit of the increased grant award for 2027. We do have a rollover period. We're not

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expected to use all of our funds this year, and it does roll over until June 30th of 2027. Um so, we do have some funds available that will be rolling over into 27, and we do expect to utilize all of those funds. Um we are we did add some staff to this program area

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due to um one of our grants um dis being discontinued um and not not being um you know our 5-year period ran out. So um we're trying to find other funding for that. Um but luckily with this rollover period we're able to supplement that um at least for the time time being now.

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Um, so our county ask for the foundational public health responsibilities grant uh this year is $1,863 which is a net net levy decrease of $30,771 for that for that program area.

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Does anyone have any questions for that? >> Questions for Brandon? >> Okay. >> I think we're just in shock. We don't often see updates with this many swings. Great work. I it was yeah it took a lot to lot to get here and you know we analyzed it line by line going through

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it. So >> great work. >> Yeah. Um so next we'll go down to kind of our uh prevent infectious disease um category. So we grouped the immunizations flu and DPN DP uh disease prevention and coordination. Um as you

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can see our revenue looks to be decreasing year-over-year. Um that's just due to the amount of u immunizations and and flu shots that we've been giving in the clinic. Um and we do have that re reduced expenses by going down to the two-day clinic as

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Jessica mentioned. Um so our county asked to fund these this program for 2027 is $32,857 but that is decrease of 37,541 from last year. Um so those kind of reduction of expenses in the clinic has

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you know flown through to the end here in our levy ask for reduced levy ask. Next just kind of piggybacking off of that this is our uh public health clinic actual um as Jessica noted we have had higher utilization of the clinic by just

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going to those two days. kind of created a sense of urgency for people to go online, get their appointments um and making sure that they stick to those appointments. Uh so we are projecting that we will get a slight um insurance um reimbursement increase um just due to

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having you know more appointments and being higher utilization there. Um and you can see that we do have reduced expenses there uh by quite a bit by not having a a tenur staff in there but also reducing it down to those two days rather than the five days. Um so our

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clinic you know our clinic ask has decreased um in 2027 our our levy is uh decreasing by $97,037 there. Um next we have our family home visiting

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area. Um we do we are um anticipating that we will have some slight revenue increases. Uh we are also utilizing $7,500 from another grant that we have uh to supplement some of these costs which is our um CESUP grant um that

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we'll get to later. Uh but we are looking at you know increasing revenue on our family home visiting program as Jessica mentioned we have we do have um the individual who's working in the clinic. We did we are able to have her three days in a revenue generating role.

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Um so we will see an increased um revenue number for 2027 um just due to having more staff available and performing those services for the county. Um so for our 2027 net um levy ask we are decreasing our ask by

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$217,060. Next we have our refugee health program. Um this is our this is a grant that we get for um you know providing refugee services for um new immigrants to our community. Um this is this is a mandated program and we h you know it's not able

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to cover the full cost of the program. Uh but it is a mandated program that we have to you know provide a service for the community. Um so our net our levy ask for 2027 is uh $4,562. Uh we did get more expenses in this

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program just due to um allocating more staff time to it based on what our actuals are seeing the actual hours that are put into this program. Um next we have our school health program. Um this is our contracts with DGF and also Yulan hitter. Um we have

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been in the process of you know looking at these contracts and negotiating them. Um but obviously we run on a two-year term with this. Um, and we're also not able to really fully realize our full expenses in this without raising the contract by too much. And we don't want to put that burden on the school yet.

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And it's we're trying to find uh fine balance of uh where you know our costs are being offset at a reasonable amount and we're providing that service to the school. Um so it's something that we have been actively looking at um and we will continue to do so. Um so as a as a

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whole for our prevent infectious disease programs um we're looking at decreasing our county ask by 334,358 um in 2027. Questions? Next we'll go to our wick program women infant and children. Um we are

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anticipating a slight increase in revenue. Um this program is uh reimbursed based on our participation rate. Um it's $21. it went up from $20 the previous year. So, big increase there. Um, but we hope to based on our participation numbers that we've been

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seeing this year, we're hoping to, you know, continue to achieve those and when we get our next grant award, then we'll see that um increased grant award then based on our participation numbers. Um, so hopefully we can continue to achieve those numbers throughout the year and then that our our award will be

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increased next year. Um, and >> just to that I, you know, I that one I appreciate that we're tracking it and it that one will be interesting to see how the additional staff component plays into, you know, lower case loads. Will

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that um will that make a reflection in regards to participation rates and outreach? >> I'm hoping it will and I think it will. Yeah, I know that's Sue's plan as soon as she's able to kind of transition her

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case load off to um our new staff um that she works on kind of more of that promotional stuff and recruitment and and working to to increase participation. We already have very high participation in Klay County, but uh

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this is Sue's passion and her entire team are they're very passionate about it and uh so they're going to do all that they can to support women this population in our county and um they'll continue to work on increasing their outreach efforts as well. Great.

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>> And this is also an area that we are supplementing with our CDC infrastructure funding. Um we do have we are half funding that new position that just started. Um so that is um we do have increased revenue from that. Um but hopefully like you said with the

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outreach and the participation we can you know uh fully supplement that in future years here. Um so our wick ask this year is 117,758 which is an uh levy increase uh of 33,457. Next we'll go to our emergency

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preparedness um programs. So emergency preparedness we have our FEP uh CRI and RSG award. Uh we are seeing increased funding in that area as well. um year-over-year our RSG and our FEP grant awards have increased um slightly but

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they still have increased so that is a very very good sign. Uh we'd love to see increased money rather than decreased. Um so we'll always take that and this is also another area where our CDC infrastructure funding is um supplementing some some of our staff time. um our staff in this program is

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getting uh tenured or getting you know has had longevity in the county uh which is always a good thing um having that experience on the county um but it does put a strain on the budgets when we don't uh get that same level of increase in funding. Um so we were able to

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supplement um most of the funding for this year. Um our county ask for this program is $833 uh which is mostly just conference registration travel. Um so that will decrease our levy ask by $12,871

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um this uh in the 2027 budget cycle. Um next we have the EMS uh system management which is the ambulance. This is uh the Barnesville ambulance that we have. Um so our our approved budget last

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year was 20 or 35,000 for 2026. Uh we put that same number in for 2027. Uh so that 35,000. So there is no um there is no levy increase or decrease for 2027, but we are asking for 35,000 um to fund

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that program in 2027. >> Yes, Commissioner Bear. >> So they're going to come here and ask for some money as well. Does that come out of your budget or does that is that additional? >> Madam Chair, Commissioner Bear, no. That the request from from Barnesville

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actually goes in the budget. So that is the request. It's in their budget already, >> right? >> And that historically we've never cut that. That has remained. There have been some request increases, but that has been a constant that this board was. >> Oh, we we have increased it.

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>> I said cut. >> Yeah, >> we have increased the the amount for we've never made any cuts, but we have done increases over the over the years. >> I believe last year the request was 70,000, but we stuck with the same request from 2025. I just wanted to

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there's been some comments in the community that this board has continued to support it's an earmark that's remained constant. >> Yeah, that's always been included in our budget um as far as my knowledge since I've been here. So that 35,000 is

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remaining constant from 26 to 27 there. Um so there is no net in net net increase um at least in our budget inputed in our budget right now. Um so for that disaster preparedness and response um section for our budget we are asking for uh $12,871

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or that'll decrease our levy ask by $12,871 um in our 2027 budget. Next we'll go down to our environmental health section. Um so for clay food pool and lodging uh we are expecting an increased fees um as

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Jessica mentioned at the beginning of the presentation um increasing our base fees but also having some um you know vacation home rental um income in there to offset some of that. We do have higher expenses in this program due to allocating more um director time in this

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in this program area. Uh but as you can see, our net uh levy ask is decreasing by $5,371 for this program area. Um so with that increase of revenue, we're able to supplement more of the director's time in there. Um and also, you know, not

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have that come out of the county ask. Um next we have our on-site sewage treatment systems. Um this has been inc increased um this is increased due to our permits that are generating more revenue due to those increased fees. Uh

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but we also have decreased expenses in this program having um you know a staff that has been um lower lower tenure in there and is able to take over that program and we're able to remove some of the director's time in there um to lower our total expenses in that program area.

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Um, so that does decrease our county ask by $34,741. And then next we have uh our demolition landfill inspection uh program. We are expecting a slight decrease of $1,000 in the revenue um just being generated by

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our landfill landfill usage permits that we're um that we're um handing out. Um but we and we are seeing some slight increase uh for expenses due to allocating that new new staff person having more time spent in that program

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area. Um so that will increase our county ask by $9,92. Uh but overall for environmental health um year-over-year we are decreasing our levy ask by $31,20 that program area. Next we'll move down to our healthy communities healthy

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behaviors. Um so the first first program area here is our SHIP statewide health improvement project. This is u with the four counties still with Ottertale and Wilin. Um that grant has remained constant throughout the throughout the years. Um but that that program funds

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all of the staff salaries and fringe that are in there allocated there but also uh funds material supplies, travel outreach um and also the projects that that um program wants to do throughout the year. So that is a budget neutral program

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uh for health promotions. Um as you can see you know year-over-year it looks like our you know revenue and expenses have decreased pretty substantially. Uh that is because they have our PCN program positive community norms program um in that is grouped up in that area.

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Um that grant ended after the 5-year term there. Uh we're unfortunate to see it go. Um but it was a very you know positive positive program you know pun intended there. Uh but we do we did we have seen a reduction throughout throughout this program area. Um this

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year our county asked it's budget neutral. We're not asking for anything for our uh budget to fund this program area and that uh relates to a $35,000 decrease in our 2027 levy ask. >> Commissioner Kavanagh

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>> along that line uh that it's been very effective. Is there something in the works to uh replace that? >> Um, Commissioner Kavanagh, the drug-free communities grant would have uh stepped in and picked up working in the DGF

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school district. So, uh we're very uh sad that we did not get that um grant award. Uh but with moving Jason into the foundational public health uh responsibilities grant or FPHR is the

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acronym we use um he is able to do kind of a wider variety of very similar work and potentially spread that across more than just the one school district. Okay. Uh, so that's the goal and that's why we moved him from PCN into FPHR and with

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the intent of hiring somebody new so that Jason could kind of be the trainer, >> right? >> Um, and working with multiple school juristics and not just be tied to the one. >> Okay. And the social sources of strength program that still got a little life to it. Yeah,

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>> that is continuing. Yes. >> Yeah. >> Yep. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yep. That is that's wrapped up in that health promotions bucket there that source of strength program. >> Yeah. Yep. >> Okay. >> Yep. >> So that uh so that just uh we are so we are budget neutral for 2027 for those

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programs and our uh 2027 levy is decreasing by 35,000 for those programs. Um next we have our tobacco license program. Um you know this is just doing compliance checks from the community uh when when needed or requested. um you

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know we generate generate you know roughly $2,000 and we we offset that by just having staff time um being allocated to that. So there is no county ask um was there was none for last year and there's none for this year. So that's but a budget neutral program. Um

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next we have child and teen checkup program um that outreach and screening. Uh we the award has stayed the same year-over-year. Um and that that is able to fund all of the expenses of the program such as um you know staff salary and fringe also the travel, the

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outreach, the postage um and the materials and supplies that they're able to purchase. Um so that is budget neutral. It was last year and it is this year. So there's no no ask for 2027. Opioid settlement. This is just the funding that's been um you know received

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through the opioid settlement funding. Uh we do request some of the funds to be utilized for staff time, but it's also for materials and supplies for the community um that we hand out. Uh we did decrease our ask this year um in that in

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for those funds um by about $15,000. Uh but that is budget neutral as well. Um so there is no county ask uh for 2027. Uh next we have that controlled substance use and prevention which is the CEUP grant. Um we didn't budget it

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for last year because uh we didn't know if we were going to get another budget period. Uh but they've already let us know that we're going to have budget period three for next year that's going to be uh coming. So that'll be going that grant runs um it it starts November 1st and it runs through October 31st. Uh

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so it's kind of an unusual calendar year for that grant. Uh but they have already let us know that we will be receiving budget period 3 funing. So that'll be going through a majority of next year until October 31st and hopefully we'll get a budget period for at that time. Uh but that program is uh fully budget

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neutral. Um so there is no county ask in 27. And then next uh there is that drug-free community grant. As Jessica mentioned, we that's one we're not going to be receiving. So that was going to be $125,000. Um that PCN grant that did end that was

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180 thou 185,000. So that would have offset, you know, a majority of that revenue that was lost. Uh but unfortunately, we did not receive that. So hopefully we can get some communication on, you know, why we didn't and we can, you know, better have we can have a better grant um application or process next time so we

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can receive those funds. Um so overall, u for the healthy communities, our ask um has decreased by $35,000 uh for our 2027 levy. Next we'll go down to our adult health services programs.

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Um so this is uh next we have our case case aid program. Uh we are anticipating a slight uh revenue increase in in this program um due due to just billing insurance but also having um you know more utilization in that program area.

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Um and we do have some decreased expenses in there due to staff realignment um in that program area. Next we have case management. Uh we do have a slight increase in revenue year-over-year um due to just

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um some of our insurance is changing getting that higher reimbursement rate. Um and we were able to keep our expenses uh relatively the same even with you know increasing expenses with the cola and having salary infringe benefits there. Um, so we were we have been able

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to, you know, reduce our county ask by $136,156 in this program area with the increased revenue and decreased expenses. Um, next is the SNBC program. As Jessica mentioned, that's one of our largest changes that have happened due to the

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insurance contracts that uh we're projected to get for next year. uh we will see some pretty significant decreased revenue um in this program area along with increasing expense increasing expenses. Um that program is

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still um generating you know a profit I guess you could you could say. Um we are projected to have you know $16,41 um to offset our other program areas. They all kind of work in tandem together. Um, but that does increase our county ask for that specific program for

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SNBC by $479,961. Um, and that is also part partly due to h um adding staff into this program um to realign where um staff falls under the different programs. Um next we have MN choices. This is um

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the revenue that we get from this is from the uh the time study that Jessica mentioned where we perform the services and we get reimbursed through the state but also federal uh revenue source. Um that we took out all of the expenses in this program area and reallocated them up to the programs listed above. Um as I

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mentioned they all work in tandem together. Um so we just we you know wanted to realign the people um in the programs that best suit them the work that they're doing currently. Um, so for that program, we are, you know, we're projecting that we're going to decrease

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our county ask uh by $438,148. So in total for um adult health or and healthy services, uh we're decreasing our county ask by $188,359. Um so all of that summed up, you can see that at the bottom. We're decreasing our

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county ask by $634,09 uh throughout all of our programs. Any questions on that? >> Any questions from the board? >> Looks good. >> Commissioner Ebinger.

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>> Yeah, I'll just throw this in um as an observation. I'm I'm the chair of the Partnership for Health this year. Um beginning of the year, we were looking at what I thought were considerable challenges.

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Uh, I think when we when we sat down and got together and worked through this, it was brought to me that our staff was looking at it as opportunities and

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I am happy to see the direction we're going. We are under uh additional scrutiny by the state in our auditing system because of the fact we've gone from four counties to two. I was disappointed when we had the vote.

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We're two counties left. Right now, I think we've got a partnership that is solid. There's trust there. Obviously, you just saw Brandon is meticulous in keeping the numbers and our partners know that. And we get one of these every

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time we meet. An explanation of what the grant's for and where where it stands. Jessica has come in there as she has in a lot of things and with with fresh eyes and sees where we can make some changes

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and adjustments and I am very happy with it. I feel like we've got um what could have been a real problem for us in dealing with with the grants and dealing with a limited partnership

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has turned into an opportunity. So, uh Jessica's new new in the in the in the difficulties here, but she understands what's going on. Brandon has really had some challenges over the last couple of

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years and he's risen to it and he's viewed with a great deal of credibility by our partners in Becker County and uh I just think that needs to be part of our considerations and all of this. Not to mention they're come they're coming in with a pretty healthy cut to their

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ask. >> Can I just add Oh, >> go. Well, I just wanted to add that I do really appreciate your comments, Commissioner Eringer, and just the collaboration that we have with Becker County and the fact that Rory Beal and

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Amanda Koopa have risen to become the CHS administrators for Partnership for Health, whereas previously it had been Kathy McCay um and Jod Lean from Ottertale County. So, not only did we have, you know, two counties leave, we

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had two new people step up into those significant leadership roles and they've done an amazing job and Amanda has been absolutely fabulous to work with as well as her team. Uh there's a lot of collaboration that goes on. I mean, we

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probably talk to Amanda five to six times a day. Um and so she's been very supportive and she's done a lot to help me with my onboarding process as well. So um you know there is a little bit of a struggle going from where we have all

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you know staff from four counties to do this work >> and now down to two counties. Um so we have had to kind of pull people in different directions. Um but our partnership for health staff and both Clay and Becker County have really risen to that challenge. So, we're really

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appreciative of everyone being so flexible. >> Commissioner Kavanagh. >> Yeah. I want to come back uh if we may. There's what you mentioned the first page had to do with our u staff and the salaries and that and you mentioned you

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had five retirees. Is that correct? >> Of those five, how many took the uh early retirement? Do you know? Um I think just one >> just one. Okay. >> What the reason I was asking the

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question was just a little bit of effectiveness of that. Uh also when these retirees uh the other retirees let's focus on that. Um, do you typically see back fill into those positions or um

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and and I'm wondering how how it creates that lowest step and and then last what kind of challenges are along the way when that happens >> you know I don't think that we have the back fill

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I don't know if I should say issue but you know coming from social services when one position opens it creates creates this huge trickle effect from people moving um all over departments. Um I haven't seen that since coming to public health. We um you know have had

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to do quite a bit of outside hiring. Uh one of the staff who retired worked in Brandon's department, so that was an outside hire. Our new clinic nurse was an outside hire and she's been absolutely fabulous. They both have um we brought on a new SMBC care

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coordinator who is also an outside hire. So, um, we haven't seen a ton. We did just have an opening, um, in Suz's department and that was an internal transfer. Uh, but again, we were able to hire pretty quickly for, um, the person

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who was moving. So, >> we've been pretty fortunate. Um, we've had to be a little bit more creative >> um, with where we're posting positions and things like that to get um, good nurses to apply and just to get the word out there. um we've spent a little bit

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of that CDC funding money um to to um focus on recruitment so that we're hiring the right person. >> Okay. Well, thank you very much for that. Yeah, I just was curious about the the balance of all of it. So, yeah. Thanks.

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>> Questions or comments? just want to highlight uh your in your summary you talk about what the 2027 budget uh looks like and you do name the fact that there's a levy request reduction of about 31% but I think the

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most important component in it is that we're maintaining the core public health services that are really important throughout our communities while also maximizing those state and federal grants. I think this um cross-section of budget really shows how successful grant

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writing and implementation can help us in reduction of what the levy burdens are. So uh great work as you continue to look through this. Commissioner Campbell, >> I just want to, you know, I and I think going part of that 31% I think it it

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might say that in in some ways we were subsidizing the four counties versus going to two. Would I be would I be correct in that? >> Uh there there's a little bit of that because there there are some grants um as I'll mention on this next page here that you know we have gotten a higher

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allocation due to um only being two counties rather than four. Um so we are seeing an an increase in those numbers as well >> or the allocation didn't change and so now it's split by two instead of four >> right >> so >> it's beneficial to us >> it has been beneficial

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>> other than the increased workload >> and that that was unforeseen to us you know as we were going through this transition we didn't know kind of how everything was going to end and now that we've got our grant award letters and we're able to see where everything landed um it has been pretty beneficial

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um for us, I'd say. So, any other questions? So, I just talked a little bit about where the programs landed. Um obviously, there's a lot of grants that go into these different programs. Um so, we'll just uh look at some of the big changes for act for our

361
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actual grants that we've been allocated. Um I won't spend too much time on this because I've, you know, we've gone through all the program areas and everything like that. Um but I just want to highlight some of the big changes here. Um, so as as noted previously, the uh positive community norms grant that we've got, that one ended after our

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five-year term. Um, that was almost $185,000 there. Um, so pretty significant um loss there for for our program, but we have been able to, you know, make that up in other areas uh where we have been fortunate enough to receive that extra funding. Um, so that that's the PCN

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loss. And then we also had our TANF block grant, which is temporary assistance to needy families. um that did decrease slightly by $5,000 year-over-year. Um but we do have other grants that um increased more than that to make up for that reduced funding. Um

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so the CA uh the cannabis prevention one um that one was one that we didn't budget for in 26, but we have um gotten word that that will continue on. Um there is legislative funding for that. Um so we did include that. So that that is a change of 92,500.

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um FPHR uh foundational public health responsibility that is the one that we've had benefits from of going from a 4ount to a twocount. Um so we've seen increased funding in that regard. Um and then also you know strong foundations for our um uh family home visiting

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program did increase as well. Um and that regional communications grant that we got that is a new grant that we've got. So that is new funding that is coming into public health of $27,223. Um, so that always helps offset some of our salary infringe costs that we have for the program. Um, so that's kind of

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our major shifts for grants that are happening from 26 to 27. Um, and as you can see, just kind of breaking everything down. Um, you know, you can see the changes from year-over-year, but we've kind of already been over a majority of those changes. Um, so is

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there any questions on kind of the grant allocations? Qu Commissioner Cabin. >> Yeah, just uh curious about the cannabis uh prevention. >> Is that based on a um a formula from the

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state or is it part of tax or >> how does that figure come about? >> Let's see. >> Sure. >> Yeah. Okay. We'll we'll have to get back on the funding formula. I can tell you that it's split out between um Clay and Becker. uh split out between a base

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funding, there's a population component, and there's also a SVI component, which is uh select vulnerability index formula. Um so based on those three components, that's how we break out the funding. Uh we receive the funding from the state and then that's the formula that we use to break it out between Clay

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and Becker, okay, for the allocations. >> Thank you. >> Any additional questions or comments? >> Right. And then very quickly, I'll just say this is so this is just an overview sheet that we want to put in a table form for everybody. Um we colorcoded it

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based on the different components of uh where it lands in our budget. So we have the top is administration, then we have emergency preparedness, um an environmental health grant that we have, then a family health grant, and then also a health promotions grant that we have. Um so you can just kind of see

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where those land in the budget and the grants that those programs do receive. Anything else? Fantastic. Thank you so much. You want to highlight that? I I've already summarized it for you.

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>> Okay. All right. No. Do No, that's fine. Great work, everyone. >> Excellent. >> All right. We are scheduled for a five minute break. We will be back at 10:16. Okay, we are back. We are on to item number seven, which is uh discussion

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identifying upcoming AMC policy conference priorities. The intention of this is to walk through uh not only the policy uh platforms uh that AMC as a whole has, but specifically if there's any identified issue that uh you on all

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of your individual policy committees felt like would be worth uh pushing forward uh as we move forward to the um fall policy conference in September. I know m um

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uh what is our commissioner bear our rural Minnesota MRC uh Minnesota rural counties will have our uh priority meeting in Alexandria coming up this fall felt like it was really important for this to board to discuss.

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And thank you, Madam Chair. In your in your packet today, I have the information that was approved last year at the annual budget uh or excuse me, annual meeting. Um both from the from the legislative policy perspective and also uh from the policy positions. The

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policy positions are are specific things that each of your identified uh committees have have shown to be areas of concern. Sometimes they shift, sometimes they rise up to the legislative policy priority, and sometimes they they disappear uh depending on the needs of the state. And

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so it's hard to believe that uh here a little over a month we're going to be setting setting those priorities for the upcoming legis legislative session. Uh but uh but again your the first document shows where the focus uh for the legislative priorities were technology

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modernization uh SNAP and Medicaid uh and also the Minnesota African-American Family Preservation Act uh and child welfare disproport disproportionality act or the act as they we go by normally. Um and so

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we did see some positive steps forward obviously in technology. Uh this board was very active in uh in advocating for those funding uh funding sources uh through your meetings with legislators through letters uh to uh to our local

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legislators uh and and were part of that succession. The SNAP and Medicaid uh we certainly have some some challenges there that was were highlighted earlier some of the work that has continued to happen after the session with our federal counterpart Congress uh Congress

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people. uh hopefully that we'll be able to make some impacts there and then also uh the act uh will be I I assume something that we continue to look at uh as a as a policy a legislative policy priority. Again,

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just looking for your impact and feedback on on where we stand in your thoughts from the legislative policies. Uh and then also if there are any different areas within the the position of the legislative policy positions that you'd like to see uh us push forward

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moving moving up next month. I think also important to highlight is that we sit on some subcommittees of uh the AMC uh designation. Extension will have theirou that is up for deliberation over the next budget cycle as well. So that's

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something that extension uh individuals will be uh working through. uh MCIT, which is the Minnesota County's Intergovernmental Trust, is also one that I believe Commissioner Campbell attends in that capacity. And I think it

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would be worthwhile sending a letter from this body in regards to um the direction of uh of the trust to make sure that we're continuing to be flexible as counties are uh creative in

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streamlining services to our residents and curious if this board would support sending a letter to MCIT uh to those effects. >> Yes. You want do you want that as a motion, >> Commissioner Ebinger? And then

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>> yeah, I think we've had two examples this year um to where they've not been responsive to innovations that have taken place to in one case provide services and another to provide services with a out ofstate

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agency or agencies to the to the benefit of everybody in a quarter million population. uh that extends into both states. So I think a letter would be highly appropriate. >> We have a motion. Is that in the frame of a motion?

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>> That would be a motion. Yes. >> Will that be a second? >> That'll be a second. >> I think that's a good start. Any other comments on that? >> All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I. >> I. >> Opposed. Same sign. Carried.

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Well, I I also feel like um maybe we can walk through and just highlight maybe um the commit the committees that we are on just so the public knows that we have different designation. I'm on uh environment and there's a good summary

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of what our uh priorities have continued to be um in regards to how it affects DNR and MPCA and and Bowser. one thing that continues of support that um you know I don't see anything on here that Klay County specifically doesn't support

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in that umbrella but one thing that is going to continue to be a priority for us is the solid waste management tax allocation and making sure that uh we are able to um reallocate the majority

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of that to its true intention for the creation. I know that Commissioner Campbell and I um talk about this frequently, that one specifically. And then the other one, as we continue to work through the public waters inventory last week, Commissioner Bayer

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and I uh met with staff, as you know, Klay County has already went through our process, but it is quite cumbersome, and there's some um proposals that we had to streamline and make it more user friendly for our residents. In regards to legislation, I I don't

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have any additional ones to put forward in regards to amendments. >> Anyone else's policy committee areas? Yes, Commissioner Ebinger. >> Yeah, public safety. Just a couple of things that I think have been recurring

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that are worth considering. One is the supervision section of that. We've really tried for years now to get support full funding of community supervision formula. Uh in other states that's a given that that's a state

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function and should be funded by the state. Um, a lot of this is uh our parole uh system that we have in the in the state where the counties end up with a a pretty considerable bite, but also

401
01:49:05.360 --> 01:49:22.400
additional funding for jails and for um compensating people for for convicted offenders that normally would go to a state prison but often are are will do their sentencing at various levels of community punishment and that type of

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01:49:22.400 --> 01:49:37.760
thing in in our jails. So, that's a priority. And we're also we're kind of vague in in how it's defined right now, but we are going to move into a post armor uh which is our our um regional

403
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emergency communication system. There's a lot of discussion about where that's going in light of additional costs for next generation 911 and moving into where we're actually going to have video issues with people. they're

404
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calling in and want to send a video of what's what's taking place and that may be very beneficial, but there's going to need to be uh an entirely fresh look at how the 911 funds are are spent and how

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armor and and uh it the systems and everybody that works with it are funded. I don't think we're ready. It's not ready for prime time yet, but in next couple of years, this is something we should be ready to to address. >> Commissioner, I I have a couple items

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that I know you and I have talked about, but might be worth um pushing forward an amendment. One is um challenging in regards to the deciphering the rule making pro rules in the rule making

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process for jails. And I understand they've closed their comment period already, but you know that continues to be something that there's a lot of variance and determination of of what the actual rule is in regards to splitting hairs, which I think has been challenging for counties all across the

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state, but particularly as Klay County, you know, we're in a place where we have a great facility, but at some point that won't be a new facility anymore, and there will continue to be pieces. So, keeping that on your radar. And then the second piece is wondering if um AMC or

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um the legislature would also look at some sort of cap. Um there's variances in regards to health insurance requirements and and treatments available for um uh occupants of the jail and

410
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>> yeah and juvenile as well. >> Right. And so at at some point um that becomes quite cost burdensome and and what does that look like? Um if there's any appetite for a cap or looking at additional resources that are available

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to bill additional health insurance. Um you know that's that's your area of expertise, but I know that that can create million-doll swings for counties very quickly. We're looking at one now. And every time a you you get a prisoner who's been injured, shot, something like

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that, the clock starts ticking on trying to get a determination of who's going to take responsibility for that. We had a situation like that here where luckily u there was a US attorney that intervened quickly and took it into federal court

413
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because it was a series of crimes that took place over two states. Um, I think that ultimately there I think what we've always discussed is a desire that medical assistance

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not be cancelled when somebody is is in custody and being held on charges. uh that the at least the public insurance aspects particularly with juveniles continue and let that cover the bills and not uh

415
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assign this prisoner as a as a ward of of the county. >> Well, and I I think that maybe it's working through Alio on that to see if now is the time that's right. I understand arguments on both sides, but uh when you regard when you look at what

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it costs the community um oftentimes to not allow billing of a health insurance can make those costs go up 50 times. So >> true. >> Maybe that might be an area for priority. >> It's it's been discussion since I got on

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the well since before since with the chief's association. It never seems to to get any traction, but that's all the more reason maybe we ought to I agree give it some consideration here is and I'll talk to Amelio about making it

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>> any other committee platforms areas. Yes, >> I'll I said on transportation. I'll just touch on a little bit. The AMC supports a statewide uh transportation system across Minnesota to move goods around and I believe this county also supports that wholeheartedly.

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That's that's most what we talk about is just keeping and finding funding for it to keep that sustainable. >> Commissioner Kavanagh >> regard committee work toward is public health and human services. I think the

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three priorities that were in last last year will continue. Um the tech uh technology modernization again uh the amount of money they have it while it's

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very good and uh they'll they'll refine that to get that rolling out but they're just at the very beginning of that and that'll be funding and building on that for several years to come. SNAP Medicaid, of course, that's very urgent

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uh where we're at. So, I see that being really strong. The act we talked about again clear definitions and guidance. And then the last thing I know it comes up almost every meeting is also the lack

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of treatment facilities uh uh for uh people for mental illness in the state and and um uh what a shortage we have. So building on that it'll be those four areas

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>> to that uh I agree I think a continuation of really the top three priorities is important but um when we Steve when we worked through we had a bill working through to address the the perdm rate allowable for facilities and uh DHS

425
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um tanked it said it was a no-go. Wondering if we could resurrect that language and maybe have Commissioner Kabanov propose that. um in regards to a supportive supported legislation platform um that's an issue across the

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state particularly for us >> that might be worth >> yeah I agree with you and yeah why don't we work on that so I'm prepared >> I think it's a good idea we can talk with Steve Summers is from solutions is a good advocate there we could work with

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him also >> commissioner >> yeah I um general government I Um I don't have any um suggested amendments to what the platform is at this point in time. I think general government often times

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kind of crosses over uh to all the other departments you know whether it's broadband because broadband is both through um general government and highway transportation and several other things. So, I I guess I don't really

429
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have anything to propose right now um in terms of changing or prioritizing what um the county did last year. >> Well, this is a leave living breathing document really. Uh I see that AMC has

430
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policy platform maybe a lunch and learn and how to format that. My understanding is they will be asking folks to have at least one co-author so it's not just uh one county driven. It looks like it's more a regional approach. But uh this is really helpful and then once we get to

431
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uh September if there's any tweaks we can have a reminder to the public this isn't our um capital investment priorities. This is policy level uh components and then encourage our department heads if there's any issue that has come up that might uh be

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helpful with policies uh to put forward to us. Any else? All right. >> Thank you. >> Great. Thank you. Uh committee reports, Commissioner Abinger. >> Yeah, I've got some oldies but goodies here.

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>> Okay. on the uh okay on on the Tuesday the 4th of August uh I attended the West Central Regional Juvenile meeting >> 4th of July.

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>> Oh I'm off a month. I've been gone. Let me find my notes. >> I was like, I think today is the 4th of August. >> Okay, this is for today's meeting. I didn't put the date down. >> That's okay. >> Okay. On the 14th of July, I attend the

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West Central Regional Juvenile uh center meeting uh or a meeting uh with Commissioner Campbell and James O'Donnell just reviewing the West Central Regional Juvenile Center budget prep. Um

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on the 15th, I attended the Cass Clay Inter Agency Coalition on Homelessness. We um received a draft of the Cass Clay uh

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comprehensive plan for ending homelessness and had a review of it. It is interesting and I look forward to working with them in the coming year or so. We've got regular quarterly meetings

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set up uh to cons cons continue to discuss this. Basically the framework is four functions that the group needs to look at. One is preventing housing crisis. The other expanding housing opportunities.

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The third is improve system access and performance and the fourth is sustain housing stability. And all those are going to be worked on by various subcommittees. Um, on Thursday, myself and Commissioner

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Campbell attended West Central Regional Juvenile Center uh board meeting. I'm sure he covered that thoroughly in his report two weeks ago. Um, basically the high point was we had a review of the upcoming budget for the

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center. Um, on Friday the 17th of July, uh, myself and Commissioner Bear attended the Partnership for Health meeting in Becker County.

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And as you saw today in his presentation, uh, financial review, uh, was was a, uh, fairly comprehensive part of that. We also discussed legislative updates and

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uh the dental innovation project updates that are taking place right now. And we had a meeting about changing the uh environmental health licensing uh which reflected positively in their

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pro their presentation today. And that completes my report. >> Thank you, Commissioner Commissioner Kavanagh. Thank you, Madam Chair. I uh had one meeting that was uh yesterday with morning planning commission. Um we had

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three public hearings. Uh the one was uh it two of them were in the industrial park. Uh one for Agassy Builders uh requiring a zoning map amendment and and then also a

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comprehensive plan amendment. Uh this is in regard to the development of um uh and continuation of uh some shop condos um growing up in that area right right on right off of Main Avenue. Uh and then

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also within the uh industrial area they we also had a new conditional use permit for a small Boston auto sales conditional use permit. both those passed. And then also then down in

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Partridge Creek, a new development south of 40th Avenue and 14th Street, uh we had um a vacation of a 10-ft utility easement for that addition so they have uh deeper lots. And that concludes my

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report. >> Thank you, Commissioner Kavanagh. Commissioner Campbell. >> Thank you. I only had one meeting last week to report on. On July 28th, I attended the Red River Regional Dispatch Board meeting. Um,

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at that meeting, we we welcome some new members, quite a few new members since the um elections that happened in Fargo and West Fargo. Um then we um

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we updated the u different budget and finance committee memberships based on those new members. So that was all taken care of at that meeting. There was no executive committee report and there was no budget and finance committee report because there was no um meetings held

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that month for those two committees. We had an a facility update and we continue to have um the air conditioning units that were in in that facility are still not working. There's four of them and they need to work in tandem, two and two.

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They have two of them working right now and two not working. And so they're still working on getting that established. And you know, we're we're taking the position that it's not our responsibility to pay for that. And not only that, uh it's our it's our

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position that the warranty period will not even start until those are functional and working like they're supposed to. Uh we had a little discussion regarding Brian's assistant position, which is that technology specialist that we approved

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um that is scheduled uh for the 2027 budget. And I just asked for the timeline of when we're going to start um looking for that position. It can be a key position. Brian has been around there for a long time as Commissioner Erin is well aware and very knowledgeable, but uh a succession plan

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needs to be in place where we can have somebody ready to take over when when he does retire, which will probably be sooner rather than later, you know. So, and then uh we we got a report that we currently have 34 full-time uh

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dispatchers of the 38 that were authorized. There was one part-time retired and there are also two resignations that are going to be in August. Uh the good news though is that there's a pipeline of of additional um ones in the works that are

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going through the process of the training and then ultimately the background checks. So I think they're pretty confident that we're not going to um fall below where we need to be in our staffing for dispatchers. So that

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concludes my report. >> Thank you, Commissioner Campbell. Commissioner Barry. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I only had one meeting. It was about the public water inventory. We had AMC reach out to us to discuss how that went in Klay County. So myself, Commissioner Mojo, Darren

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Brooks, and Matt Jacobson sat down and laid out how we how it was handled in Klay County and if there could be changes, what we would we would want to see for other counties going forward. So, we penned a letter and sent that out to AMC. >> That is all my reports. Madam Chair,

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>> thank you, Commissioner Bear. Last week, I had the opportunity to attend one of the civic engagement events with the chamber, uh, the women connect lead from any seat that was held in Morehead. Uh, great opportunity to do

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that. The next day, I assisted at the 4 day camp. They reached out to some members of the uh, extension committee. They were uh short volunteers, so had the opportunity to uh do day camp at DGF, learned about plants.

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The next day, I attended the July public policy update meeting that was held at the chamber. Uh really great updates uh as we wrapped up legislative work. talked a lot about the federal uh bills that are outlining and then had an update from Estaca at the Greater

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Morehead Business Association on their tour to cones. I did request that Estaca worked with county staff. I thought it was a creative way to help our business community during construction projects and as they gather the insight might be

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helpful at our quarterly EDA. She's unavailable next week, but uh wanted to maybe participate with the following uh to work with our our other communities on how we could maybe replicate that. Going back to the 4 day camp piece, that

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uh 08 position is now posted. So, make sure and share that within your networks. I also attended the PWI update that uh Commissioner Bear talked about. All of the uh insights that we provided as feedback were um items that we

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discussed at this board uh just in regards to how we make that a more streamlined process uh and working with our residents. Friday, I dealt with some resident concerns in regards to the roads within this upstream area of Holy Cross Township. That continues to be a

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substantial issue that our highway department is working to address. Uh working with that contractor that we've dealt with. I appreciate Justin's uh availability and quickness to remedy that situation. Yesterday I attended the

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Metrocog executive committee meeting. We did uh talk about a vacancy and that assistant transportation planning planning position uh and then the advertisement for filling it and then general business and updates from the

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agency. Uh, and then one item that I wanted to bring forward to this board. This seems to be a discussion that I'm hearing about a from a lot of different folks. Um, I would would like to ask if this board has an appetite for sending an official letter to the White Earth

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Reservation to have a update on the plan process. I know there's been a lot of questions. We haven't heard um officially in that capacity since the March 2025 uh to just to see if their proposal has

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changed in any way. Um I sit on MetroCog and we talk a lot about the five-year plan and what studies need to be out there to address traffic flow counts and I know that did come up. There was a concern from the transportation technical committee uh with mindot to

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talk about what accesses could look like and just maybe would see if the tribe would be willing to come and present. I also would like some additional feedback from our to our staff. They had a uh their large uh analysis proposal that

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was done and we saw the um the two-pager that came out with some additional impacts. And as Klay County moves forward in addressing our budget areas, I know that there was a substantial increase projection to what the Klay County Sheriff's Office would would need

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to propose, and I just think it would be helpful for all of us to know. Commissioner Campbell. >> Yeah, I I think that's a good idea. I you know and I you know there's all sorts of u public comments and rumors that are out there

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regarding this and and one of them I just want to speak to and that's that uh there's a rumor that the county board has been having closed meetings uh in discussing this project and there there has never been a closed meeting uh this

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board has not I'm commissioner bearer and I are were delegated to be on a committee to discuss this and in in those meetings that have occurred um often times we weren't even invited

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as as commissioners to those meetings you know so and again I think part of that was appropriately so staff was trying to gather information that can be useful for the board in the future but the fact of the matter is we have not had any

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discussion at board level in a long time we have not heard we have not gotten any um p public um discussion with White Earth what what their plans are and it's I think it's

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you know they're in the process of potentially putting this application in for Trust Land and I think we we deserve to to have an update and and be heard and and see go from there. But I I fully

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support inviting them for an update. Mr. Bear, >> I I also support that to see if we can get him to come here and give us an update. >> So, consensus from the whole board. >> Yep.

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>> Steve, >> thank you, Madam Chair. Um last on the 29th uh I met with Matt Jacobson and Brian Melton on a county property issue uh that's upcoming uh on uh was off on

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Thursday and Friday and yesterday met with Jessica uh in public health. We talked through uh some of the transitions as she uh will be shifting to have oversight of withdrawal management and detox uh next uh next

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month. Um, also we went through the solid waste budget with Corey, Lori, and Darren. Uh, and just wanted to provide the board an update. Uh, county statute requires that, um, that the CPA is

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provided by August 1st. Uh, our county program aid for next year, next year that was certified as 5,370,467. Uh that is down uh that is down from 5,524,595 last year. Uh so a majority of that uh

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had to do with the the county tax tax base portion of it. Again, it's two parts. One's based on needs uh needs of aid and that's based on population age of the population. uh some of the offenses that have been committed in your community and also a three-year

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SNAP average. Uh but a significant portion of that uh was based on the the county tax uh equalization uh which again uh that uh could be impacted by in lot of counties that are seeing growth where their tech tax capac capacity

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increases and so the amount that we receive as a county decreases um andor it could be a change of the the entire state's tax capacity uh and then that that formula then shifts uh to all the different different counties. Commissioner Kavanagh.

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>> Yeah, I didn't uh catch all the numbers, but what's the net difference there? >> Uh the net the net difference, I believe, is 154,000. >> Thank you. >> So, the mandates have gone up and the reimbursement has gone down.

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>> Okay, >> that's correct. So, and and I will I would note that I have reached out also to Dan Molly in regards to the White Earth comments and uh City Morhead has also not heard anything uh recently as far as an update. >> Thank you,

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Ryan. >> Darren. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um on Wednesday the 29th, I had a meeting with Steve and Anna uh regarding the detox reorganization. Also, I attended this uh meeting with Steve, Matt, and Brian

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about a nuisance pro property. Um, and a meeting with Stephen Anna on another personnel issue on the 30th. Uh, I had a meeting which was already covered on the public waters inventory update. Um, also dealt with a citizens concern and

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responded to a data request on Friday the 31st. Uh, worked some more on the data practices prog. um submitted the mandatory 2120day union report and had a inquiry from WDAWY about uh the upcoming hunting season and

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the changes. Uh they were more concerned with what the enforcement plans were. So I referred them to the sheriff. On Monday the 3, I had a meeting with Steve for some catchup on some few items. Uh I also had a training on UKG timekeeping

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module which we were uh possibly looking at in the future. And I also attended the pre-budget meeting with solid waste uh Monday afternoon as well. That concludes my report. >> Thank you. Sarah, do you have anything?

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>> Make sure I saw that the registration for fall policy conference, if you have any desire to go there, make sure I can communicate with Sarah. Uh today is night two unite and I see that on the schedule in a few minutes our county sheriff will be participating

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in the burger cookoff. So good luck to sheriff emptying. Our next uh meeting is August 11th. Having uh dealt with all the business before the board, we are adjourned.

Part: 2

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Good morning everyone. It is 8:30. I will go ahead and call today's meeting of the Klay County Board of Commissioners to order. Our first item on the agenda is a approval of the agenda. >> Madam Chair, I'll make a motion to approve the agenda. We have a motion offered from Commissioner Bear to approve the agenda.

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>> Second. >> And a second from Commissioner Ebinger. Any further discussion? Discussion. All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I. >> I. >> Opposed. Same sign. >> Carried. Citizens to be heard today. Are

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there any individuals in the audience wishing to address the county board on any item not on the agenda? Any citizens wishing to be heard? Steve, have you had any online? >> Nothing, Madam Chair. >> Thank you. Our next item today is the payment of

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the bills and vouchers. >> Move to pay the bills and vouchers. >> We have a motion offered from Commissioner Kavanagh to pay the bill. Pay the bills and vouchers. >> Second. >> And a second offered from Commissioner Abner. Discussion.

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Discussion. >> All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I. I. >> Oppos. Same sign. Item carries. The minutes are presented from the July 21st, 2026 board meeting. >> Madam Chair, I'll make a motion to

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approve the minutes from July 21st, 2026. >> We have a motion offered from Commissioner Bear to approve the minutes as presented, a second from Commissioner Campbell. Any further discussion? Discussion. All those in favor of the motion signify

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by saying I. >> I. >> Opposed? Same sign. The item carries. Item two today is a recognition, a proclamation for child support, fraud prevention, and collections appreciation month. We have our social service

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director Quinn with us today. Good morning. >> Morning, Madam Chair and commissioners. Uh yes, I'm here requesting uh the uh motion to approve requesting this month as child support fraud prevention and collections appreciation month. August is recognized nationally as child

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support awareness month and provides an opportunity to recognize our dedicated professionals who administer child support, fraud prevention, and our collections programs within social services. Uh our staff work collaboratively with families, employers, our courts, state agencies, and community partners to establish and

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enforce child support obligations, investigate possible public assistance fraud, recover those public funds, and promote program integrity. Uh their work helps ensure children receive financial support they deserve while protecting public resources and strengthening accountability within public assistance

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programs. Um just to give you some 2025 numbers, uh we had 2,327 child support cases um representing a lot of different families and children. Uh our team distributed over $7.6 million in child support payments. Um and we're very efficient at that work.

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Um, for every $1 spent, uh, we have collected $3.34, which is higher than the statewide average. Um, so with that, I have the attached proclamation, but I'd yield for any questions that you have. >> Any questions for Quinn? >> All right, we'll read the proclamation.

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Commissioner Campbell. >> Okay. Whereas ch children thrive when they receive the financial and emotional support they deserve and strong child support programs help promote family stability, financial security, and

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positive outcomes for children. And whereas child support professionals work diligently to establish parentage, secure child support and medical support obligations, enforce court orders, and assist families in meeting the ongoing needs of their children. And whereas

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fraud prevention and collection professionals protect the integrity of public assistance programs by investigating allegations of fraud, recovering overp payments, and ensuring that limited public resources remain available for those who need them the most. And whereas these dedicated public

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servants collaborate with families, employers, the courts, law enforcement, attorneys, state agencies, and the communi community partners to pro provide fair, consistent, and effective services while treating individuals with

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professionalism, respect, and dignity. And >> whereas the work performed by child support, fraud prevention and collection staff, strengthens public trust promotes accountability, safeguards taxpayer resources, and improves the well-being

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of children and families throughout Klay County. And >> now therefore, be it resolved that the Klay County Board of Commissioners recognize the dedication, professionalism, and commitment of these staff and hereby proclaims the month of August 2026 as child support, fraud

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prevention, and collections appreciation month in Klay County and encourages all residents to recognize and thank these public service public servants for their important contributions to children, families, and our community adopted this

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the 4th day of August 2026 motion. >> Madam Chair, I move to uh approve the proclamation. >> We have a motion offered from Commissioner Ebinger and a second from Commissioner Bear. Any further discussion? >> Quinn, thank you for bringing this

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forward to us. We are really proud of the work that these individuals do on all of the facets that you discussed. Uh really vital service to our residents. We appreciate it. Thank you. They're a great >> Any further discussion? All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I.

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>> I. >> Oppose. Same sign. Carried. >> Thank you. Before you go, really quickly, uh, as Commissioner Bear and I have worked with you and Steve and our elected officials on the SNAP components and how vital

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some issues that need to be addressed in the farm bill will be. Yesterday, uh we did receive word we've been working with Senator Clolobashar's office. Uh the Bosezeman bill did or not Boseman bill, but between her and the collaboration with Senator Boseman uh bill language

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came out. There is a modest one-year delay that's been included in that with the click or the county's concerns. Uh we do have some some other outgoing concerns with that. And if you could really maybe in 30 seconds just highlight the board where some of our

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concerns lie with that. I will be maybe uh entertaining a request for this board to send correspondence to our elected officials on that. >> Sure. Sure. My understanding of the language in that bill would say we get a one-year delay, but then there's a concern that the top end of the payment error rate would increase to 20% instead

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of 15%. So, if the if the statewide error rate is at that highest threshold, that uh payment to the federal government would be higher by 5%. Um that would push uh again based on the preliminary numbers I presented to you before that would push the highest end

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upwards of $3 million per year. Again if the statewide error rate fell in that highest category. I believe the hope behind this legislation would be with a year delay it gives the state enough time and opportunity to really drive down the error rate. But I also believe that this legislation would have a

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stipulation in there that says you can no longer choose between the two years of your error rate. would lock in whatever 2026's error rate to be what we are essentially graded on as the state. >> Can you explain why Klay County has an

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error rate of 1.5% and the state is at 15? >> We do a great job. Um but also at the same time they audit a very small amount of cases. um we're very accurate with what we do, but if you're only looking at a small sample size, um you know, I believe they looked at 11 cases out of

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Klay County's 3,000 plus. Um so if you we're told that they pick complex and difficult cases, not just kind of easy run-of-the-mill ones. I'm not aware of like any sort of formula that they use to choose those cases. >> I would think the sampling should be the same. I >> I believe it's prrated. I know like uh

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Wilin County had two had two cases that were audited. So, I think if you're uh a county that has a high error rate, it's a multitude of different factors. You could either have poor performance in terms of actual data entry, you could have um information that's not returned to clients, or you could have had

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probably the worst cases selected for your audit. Um again, I believe the rationale behind it is if they're picking the most difficult cases and you do well, those are the hardest ones to administer. So if you're doing well on difficult cases, it's reasonable to assume that you do even better on more

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simple cases. >> Does staffing have anything to do with that? >> Absolutely. Yep. The higher the case load is, the more difficult it is to juggle all of the uh tasks that are required and the timelines that are required. Um that said, our staff have pretty high case loads and do a fantastic job. Uh we really lean on each

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other a lot um to make sure that they're getting everything done and they pride themselves in entering the work accurately. Um, another component which I know this board is aware of is the system modernization issue. Um, there's a lot of workarounds and uh, digital

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processes that are old and difficult and require a lot of duplicate. An address here, an address here, an address here. Well, if you typed it in incorrectly the third time, that could count against the error rate. >> Any further I know you weren't prepared to maybe update the board. Any further

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questions on that? To the questions that Commissioner Campbell posed, uh, Commissioner Bear and I have discussed what is the equitable review and what is the numbers? How does it correlate with the different counties? We're really proud

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of your staff, a 1% rate in and having $59 that weren't even didn't even go out the door, but uh is a very small amount and we're really proud of the work. And also to note that we met with Congresswoman Fishbach last week to

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highlight uh that um the issue and we're hoping we'll get a meeting with her towards the end of this month as well to update. >> Thank you Quinn. >> Thank you for the advocacy on this on this. It's it's very important because it has a really significant fiscal impact for us here. So

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>> appreciate Commissioner. I just want to make me make me make me make me make me make me make me make me make me make me make mention I'm glad you're on the task force be if you will for that modernization. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, >> it'll be uh it'll be good to to give our input directly to be at the table from Klay County's perspective.

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>> Thank you. >> The next item today is a uh request approval to reduce retainage on SAP 014-602-031 to 1%. Our county engineer Justin Sora Justin Sorum is with us. Good morning. >> Good morning. So yeah, this is the urban

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reconstruction project through Comtock. I know we did talk about this project a lot throughout the last couple years. Would say it definitely started with some very unique challenges, but once the project was bid, it it did go really really well and Selene Brothers did a

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fantastic job. There is some minor um work to be done this fall once harvest is completed just kind of around the elevator area. Um and the value of the work remaining is less than 10,000 and at 1% retainage we'd be withholding more than 40.

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So I feel comfortable with that request. Y >> move to approve the retainage. >> We have a motion offered from Commissioner Campbell to reduce the retainage to 1%. >> Second. >> A second offered from Commissioner Ebinger. Any further discussion? >> There's one question. What do we normally retain until the work is done?

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>> Uh so the standard is 5% until um I would say substantial completion and usually it's only on these urban jobs where things get kind of drawn out just because of concrete warranties and stuff. So it's not uncommon to reduce it

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to 1% once we're at substantial. >> Any further discussion? Really glad that we were able to get this done. And this was a vital component that was sitting out there for a while. So, thank you. >> Definitely. >> Any other discussion?

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All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I. >> I. >> I. >> Oppose. Same sign. >> Car. >> Thank you. >> We're three minutes ahead. Are you waiting on anyone else? Okay. All right. Item three today is the budget presentation. We have the Fargo Morehead

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West Fargo Chamber of Commerce with us today. We have uh president and CEO Shannon Fo, Kale Dun Woody, vice president of workforce, and Jane. >> Yeah, >> good morning to all of you.

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>> Good morning, Chair Mojo and commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity to be with you today. Uh uh before I begin, I just want to start with a simple thank you. Thank you for your continued leadership and partnership with us. Uh, one of the greatest strengths of our region, uh,

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the Fargo Morehead region, has always been our willingness to work across political boundaries, county lines, uh, different sectors. Whether it's the flood diversion, uh, public, uh, safety partnerships workforce uh economic development, we've consistently

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demonstrated that our region accomplishes more when we work together. Klay County has been an instrumental and important part of this success and we sincerely appreciate your continued confidence in the chamber and in the regional partnership. The investment is much more uh though

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than about funding programs as you see on this slide. It creates the conditions that allow the economy to thrive whether that be uh policy stability, workforce development, regional coordination or quality of life. Most importantly, uh the investment that Klay County has uh

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continued to give us uh demonstrates leadership. We know that when government invests, the private sector uh builds it builds confidence in the private sector to invest alongside you. Public investment opens the door. Private investment multiplies our impact.

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Together, we create a return that neither sector could do alone. And that's clearly been demonstrated by the public private partnership success that we've had in this region. It truly is a differentiator for us. Uh one of the funding requests uh or the two funding

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uh one funding request with two core offerings. Uh it supports two of the most critical regional drivers uh for our competitiveness. First, public policy ensures that Klay County as well as our region has strong and consistent voice at the local, the state, and the

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federal level. While workforce develops, attracts and retains the talent that our employers need, which drives growth and allows us to increase tax base. These are interconnected. Strong policy creates opportunity while strong workforce creates growth. And we know

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how much you appreciate opportunities and growth for this region. Together, uh we will continue to strengthen the regional econ economy. I'm really fortunate uh today to have two extraordinary leaders that lead this work day in and day out. We're going to start with Kale Dunwy, our VP of public

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policy, followed by uh Jane Bnesh, our VP of workforce uh and uh talent. So, go ahead Kale. >> Perfect. Well, good morning, chair and commissioners. Appreciate the opportunity to be before you to talk a little bit further about our public policy efforts at the chamber. I'm

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really echoing Shannon's comments of gratitude, not only for your investment for but for your continuous uh advocacy and your continuous showing up uh and being a part of the discussions that we're we're convening throughout our public policy and center for civic engagement efforts. Um our public uh our

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public policy partnerships with you are really focused on three main areas. Legislative engagement, advocacy and leadership uh and advocacy and leadership, regional education and convenings, and our center for civic engagement. and really starting with um our legislative engagement and advocacy efforts. One of the things um we

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continue to say is you a region can't be competitive without a strong unified public policy and advocacy strategy and and really that's uh where we fit in uh in both our advocacy in St. hall in Washington DC and together uh we've been able to secure uh uh funding for numerous projects like the flood

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diversion, the juvenile detention facility and the PRTF and so really uh really excited to talk further about uh that. Additionally, on behalf of the business community, we've been able to uh find some some wins u maybe small or

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minor but uh still significant wins when you look at defeating property tax proposals uh and increases. I'm sorry. Uh tax increases um and mandates. Uh we've been able to work collectively to to help uh mitigate those while also

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passing federal tax conformity at the state level. Really making sure that our business community is being well served across uh Klay County. And as you know, these uh policy wins mean real impact to businesses right here in Klay County. And so just really appreciate the collaboration. I know we've been in St.

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hall multiple different times together uh advocating uni in in a unified fashion and we couldn't do this without this partnership uh with with you all and so we really appreciate that. Um when we look at this last legislative session a few things I just want to highlight is um you know overall we

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tracked about 130 bills really leaned in on 13 different policy priorities and saw about a 62% success rate but as you know um that work is not done it's a continued grind out in St. Paul. Um, and these last two legislative sessions haven't been the easiest to navigate

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with the uh with the uncertainty and the the various political dynamics that are taking place. And so we're committed to continuing to improve that success rate and working collectively with you all um uh in this next legislative session to continue to advocate uh in a unified

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fashion for our region. Moving on to the education and convenings. Uh just want to talk a little bit more about our direct advocacy in St. Paul. And again, this is where we um we bring the broader community together. We engage businesses in the conversation. Um and so in your

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packets, you'll find several different uh nonpartisan resources that we've put together to help educate members and the general public as they enter into these convenings and these conversations, whether that be here locally or St. Paul or Washington DC. Um and this education really turns into impact for us. were

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able to um we were able to bring it together just uh this past year over 350 business and community leaders for policy conversations. Again, that's roundts uh direct conversations where we're having conversations with the governor about flood protection or having conversations with Senator

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Clolobashar about uh federal issues or whatever it may be. And so really really looking at the impact that those have uh on our region. convenings also look like our flood mitigation meetings that we hosted uh bi-weekly during the legislative session to really make sure that we're collaborating across all

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political entities uh here locally. Um and then also our Klay County leaders roundt where we're able to bring leaders uh together on a quarterly basis just to make sure that we know what's going on. and the left hand knows what the right hand is doing because we often always get busy in our work and sometimes we need to uh to all get together and just

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really talk about the wins and talk about the strategy to move forward uh against some challenges and so again just appreciate you all for showing up in those conversations. I think that's that's what great partnership looks like as we show up for one another and so we appreciate uh the alignment that we've

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created. Um and really I think the at the end of the day the value of these convenings isn't just by the number of people or the number of meetings that we're holding. It's really about the conversations that we're having, the relationships that we're building again with elected officials, uh, agency leaders, and really building those that

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continuity and building that um, that trusted relationship amongst our region and those uh, elected or appointed leaders. Some more convenings I just want to mention uh, is our is our days at the capital, our DC flyins, things like that. Again, appreciate you all for for

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taking part in those opportunities, coming out to St. Paul. Uh, again, I know you're out in St. Paul a lot, but it's really um really important when we can bring 50 business and community leaders to to Washington DC and into St. Paul and really show a regionalized voice. Again, not just Shannon and I

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talking at legislators, but really the business and community leaders talking to elected officials and sharing their their firsthand input and their firsthand knowledge of what's taking place, talking about the opportunities and challenges that they're seeing in the legislation. One of the unique things that we did this legislative

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session with our uh day at the capital uh we were able to partner with the Detroit Lakes Area Chamber uh to do this jointly. Again, really elevating the voice of greater Minnesota, elevating the voice of our region, really everywhere from from uh across Highway 10. Uh we were able to bring people

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together to to advocate effectively for our region. And so, um that further further engagement just really helps elevate our priorities and help helps elevate greater Minnesota. And again, just appreciate the the folks uh on this commission that have been able to attend those. Again, I know you have a lot of different priorities, so we appreciate

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your time uh in that. And then again, uh session priorities dinner, going out, building relationships with elected officials before we get to legislative session. Move to the next slide. One of the things I just also want to touch on a little bit further is our

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center for civic engagement. Um and really when we're looking at our center for civic engagement um we're not seeing uh seeing anybody across the nation doing this um doing this the way that we're doing. And it really is because of the systematic approach that we've been able to create looking at candidate

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cultivation, employer engagement, voter education, and fostering the future. And that's really kind of think differentiator is we're looking at this holistically. A lot of folks across different communities are doing one or one or the other, but they're not doing it systematically. And we've been able to strategically put these things

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together um and lean into this and really see that civic engagement is something that is also vital to the success and the competitive nature of our region. When we look at good policies, you have to have good elected officials out there advocating for your region. And so through our center for civic engagement, we've been able to

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really um really lean into that further. And it kind of starts with what we're calling a ladder philosophy. It's really when you look at the Center for Civic Engagement and you look at civic engagement overall, our job is to move folks one rung up that civic engagement ladder. Somebody that's maybe never voted before, maybe they just got out of

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high school, how do we get them to show up in the general election? Or somebody that's voted in every single general election, how do we get them to show up in a primary election, moving one rung up on that ladder all the way to when they're raising their hand to run for office sitting at this DAS or other dascese across the the community. And so

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really looking at how we're moving folks in our our community again on both sides of the river, one rung up on that civic engagement ladder. Now just diving a little bit more into the the facets obviously candidate cultivation. One of the things is you have to get good people to run for you just have to get people to run for

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office. In our uh in Minnesota, one in every 241 individuals have to run for some type of government leadership role. That obviously gets narrowed down for a rural community like or a a greater Minnesota community like ours. And so really being intentional about how we're again, we're not picking candidates.

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We're just saying we need more folks to run for office. Let's offer them the tools, workshops, whatever it may be to to run for office. And then when we look at um employer engagement, oftentimes there's three people that have to say yes uh for somebody to run for office. The individual themsel, their family,

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and their employer. How can we as a chamber of commerce really work with that employer so that they see the value in somebody running for office and they can see uh see a champion for you multiple different policy priorities sitting at a dis. One of the other uh things is you can have the best person run for office,

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their employer can say yes, but if nobody shows up to the polls, it doesn't really matter. And so really leaning into voter education uh and voter engagement like our vote FMWF resource which uh I know several of you have utilized in the past. Uh and so really a great initiative where we can see

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individuals uh getting more educated about what's on their ballot. Oftentimes those lower ballot races uh struggle to get as much attention as some of those higher ballot races like the US Senate race, US Congress, whatever it may be. But really making sure that voters know who they're voting for. And then the

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last um the last thing I'll mention on that actually is uh last election we saw about 11,000 views on vote FMWF. that was throughout the entire year. Um, just in the June primary for North Dakota, we elevated that to 76,000 views and we're

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going to continue to work on uh for this primary coming up next week, elevating that impact and that viewership to make sure that folks across this community can see this nonpartisan resource as an asset to them as they enter the polls. The last thing I'll mention for civic engagement is just fostering the future.

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And that's really leaning into our um young uh young professionals, our K through2 and higher education students. Ultimately, they're they're the folks that'll be sitting at this DAS in 20 years. And so, how are we preparing them working alongside our educational partners to make sure they're prepared to enter civic engagement in an

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effective manner. So overall, uh we're continue to publish these resources like the employer toolkit um and add additional get out the vote opportunities um and and just really appreciate um uh the support that we received from from this body uh for our

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center for civic engagement and again kind of tying a bow on our center for civic engagement. Nobody else is doing this across the nation. We're uh we were just uh fortunate enough to be in New Orleans a couple weeks ago to talk at our national conference uh for chambers of commerce and we uh we've been getting

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out, you know, overwhelming support and overwhelming questions about how are you doing this? How can we integrate this into our chamber of commerce? We're trying to crack this nut. How do you how are you guys doing it? We love your approach. And so we just feel very fortunate for the support from this body uh and private businesses across the

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community to help elevate our impact. And so with that, I'm going to turn it over to our VP of workforce, Jane Vgnesfr. And if you have any questions for me, I'm happy to answer those at the end. >> Jane, if you just a moment, just any questions in regards to Kale's presentation.

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Well, I I know that we have all of the items that you talked about, Kale. Uh, one of us or multiple times had uh participated in it from the the civic engagement component to the legislative piece to the the quarterly meetings.

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Thank you. uh as we look towards how legislation really affects the work that we do in our corner of the state. Uh you've been handinand with us, your entire organization, and I I I really heartfelt want to thank you for that

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work. Uh p on the the broader the Morehead uh Detroit Lakes Day, which I think really should be Clay Becker Day. uh the comments that we hear from legend we'll >> consider that >> in regards to um how often do you see uh

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private sector municipalities counties the business sector all there advocating together it doesn't happen and um to my colleagues uh that's something that the capital uh elected

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officials are taking notice at so when we are down there it really speaks with a huge voice and and just the tracking piece. I um unfortunately for Kale or fortunately I think Kale and I talk daily throughout the legislative session, things are happening so quickly and so to have a partner to be able to

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share information on what they're hearing and keep on top of it is why we had so much success at the capital. >> Thank you. >> Yes, Commissioner. I just like to make an observation having run for office um

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and and when you have a position like county commissioner a lot of people don't know what to do. uh there's a lot of misinformation sometimes within the community about one candidate or the other and you afforded

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in four or five different U venues afforded me an opportunity to go out and explain to people what we do and explain to people what my view of that position is and it's a nonpartisan position. It should be a reasonable thing where

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people have confidence in in the person they're voting on. you provide a venues for us to get out there and show what our position is and to subject ourselves to some scrutiny which I I think now more than ever the political system

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needs. So, I found it to be a really uh at times challenging, but uh overall just a really good gift to our to our community to give them the opportunity to look at these

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positions where there's not a whole lot of information out there and there's probably more misinformation than there is information and give them a chance to come in, scrutinize us, and even direct questions to us. So, I was impressed with what Kale's doing and Shannon's

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under your leadership. It's really a valuable contribution to to our region. >> Commissioner Ebinger and the the rest of the commission, thank you for that comment. I think one of the biggest things that we're really leaning into is we understand that awareness drives

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alignment and alignment drives action. And I think that's the biggest thing is if we can continue to increase the awareness uh at every level of government and opportunity, uh we'll just have more educated voters. We'll have more opportunity for people to see themselves in those positions and we're

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really concerned about the void uh in leadership in the future in all of the levels whether it's school board, county commission, state level. Uh so uh we're excited about this work but again can't do it without great partners like you. So, thank you for the comment. >> Anything else,

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>> Jane? We'll yeah >> go into yours. >> Well, much like and and thank you commissioners for allowing the opportunity. I know you interface with with Shannon and Kale a lot. Uh often my programs are somewhat behind the scenes, but much like what Shannon and Kayla have talked about alignment and

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opportunity and connection, that's what really our workforce system is about. And I'm really proud to share some of our outcomes related to uh what we've been doing to ensure that we have a thriving region through a a very vibrant workforce. And you know, we have really

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tried at the at the um at the chamber level, but frankly at the regional level to make sure that this is a system that we're not operating as two separate states, that we're not operating as two separate things. And apparently we also are operating with a very interesting way of spelling

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workforce up there. So, I'll just point that out. >> I've noticed it's realigned it in the packet. It's correct. >> Well, that's that's great. >> Keep you on your toes. >> Got to love technology. >> Um, but but through the investment in workforce, we have been able to build an interconnected system. And the the heart

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of that is ensuring that we have a framework that provides our business and industry partner alongside our workforce activators and navigators in collaboration with our training and education partners a way to have conversation. And that is what we're incredibly proud of. We've been able to

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stand up a framework over the past two and a half years called uh through our industry sector partnerships. Our main sectors are healthcare uh which I'll talk about in a moment uh cyber security, IT, advanced manufacturing and

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agriculture. Our four major industries within the community. Through those industry sector partnerships, we've had been able to convene and collaborate over 500 individuals from across those sectors, but across those support systems to have those conversations about what is really needed. What as a

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as a former higher education administrator, I can say that our training and education partners do a great job of once a year bringing in our uh business and education part or business business and industry partners to say what do we need to do better? Uh we need that more frequently. we need

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that also with the to the table of those that are suppiding providing that support. So we feel really good about some of that industry sector alignment that that we've been able to do and one of the ways that we've been able to do that is through a partnership that we had with rural Minnesota SEP accessing some Minnesota deed funds specifically

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the drive for five opportunity. This is where we specifically were able to stand up a industry sector partnership around healthcare which is our highest need in Klay County specific to um entry level employees. We were able to not only expand the conversations, stand up this

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this um continuous framework and feedback loop, but also provide in time um programming and discussions related to inclusion and some retention issues. Um also provide some muchneeded hiring resources that really help those medium

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and small businesses. We often in healthcare forget about the uh care facilities that are often in greater Minnesota and and the like. And so really being able to provide their voice and amplify that to secure some follow-up funding that has allowed us to continue this now uh throughout the

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years. In addition, we know that uh an important aspect of workforce is making sure that our that people feel um connected that they belong and through two of our great programs that's also part of our important framework is our community concierge program which is that white glove service providing

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connection for those individuals that are coming into our community. But I think one of the most underceelebrated uh things that we often that often goes behind the scenes related to that connection piece is we have 50 volunteers through our icebreakers program that provide honestly just that

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first connection for individuals. You'll see in your packet just a little a little card that we work with our HR folks across the county to share with individuals that are coming in to so that they can make that connection. We know that a a a job is an incredibly important piece of attracting someone

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here and keeping them here, but those personal connections and that that collab that connection to their community is just as important. And so that's an important piece of our workforce strategy through throughout the chamber and throughout the the um the region. In addition, we have had the

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opportunity, as Shannon mentioned, and and Kayla has alluded to this too, the public private partnership is so incredibly important. We've had the opportunity to access funds through the economic development administration through our good jobs challenge grant. Um just four years ago today it popped up on my social media uh that that was

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announced that we received that large award from the economic development administration. What I can tell you is the numbers on your slide are outdated. As of yesterday, we were able to share that we have upskilled 823

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individuals um in into uh an amazing opportunity into good jobs. So, not only have they been upskilled, but we know those 823 have been placed with over,00 accessing additional training and resources. I want to pull out the numbers for Klay County specifically.

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Just over $1.2 2 million has been awarded to individuals accessing education and training through MState. This is often in collaboration not only um with CAP LP but also rural Minnesota SEP to provide those individuals that are maybe transitioning from a variety

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of different backgrounds into the workforce. And this has a lot afforded a lot of really great training and education opportunities 18 people at a time and which is which is really exciting and I I think it's under celebrated the opportunity of just

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giving a little bit of education and training to a person how that sets them up for long-term success. Um, so really proud of those programs and and really thankful for MState, Rural Minnesota SE, but also CAP LP and the county for allowing all of those systems to work

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together to provide those opportunities. Um, moving on, I talked the importance of be feeling connected and we're very intentional about those connections. I talked about the the importance of, you know, as a as a newcomer to our community, what does that look like? But

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as a professional, how do we ensure that we're engaging those professionals to feel connected to their communities and uplifting them? We've had over a thousand engagements through our women connect program, our young professionals network, and our leadership FMWF, which I know uh some of you have maybe had the opportunity to to work through. One of

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the things that we're most proud of is what we're doing with our emerging workforce, that young professionals network. We know we have a a great higher education opportunities right here in Klay County and just across the river. How do we ensure that those individuals are considering Morehead,

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Klay County, Fargo, West Fargo, and the like um to be their future home? And so through our young professionals network, we're helping those that are in the in that that emerging professional world to to create those connections. In addition, it is also our emerging

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workforce that we're trying to help through our educators specifically. We know that those influencers are so important. We're really proud of our adventures program which um throughout the past two years has um not only connected educators to business and industry but taken that intentionally

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directly into their classrooms. Uh this this week-long program provides not only professional development opportunities but true connection with business and industry. In addition that emerging workforce, how do we get them to see themselves in the region in the future?

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And that is really through our um career expo that happens every December. Not only are we doing intentional outreach into our classroom, connecting uh not our classrooms of business and industry, which we'll talk about in a second, but also helping thousands see themselves uh converge on the Fargo Dome uh from 42

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area schools to see what is out there. This isn't a a career fair. This is an expo. So, hands-on uh exploration, everything from repelling from the rafters to sitting in an ambulance to driving heavy equipment. Individual, our young individuals get to experience that

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um on the floor of the Fargo Dome and really get to connect with business and industry partners um in an immersive experience. But what we heard um from our business and industry partners about the emerging workforce is they were struggling. uh we heard that through our industry sector

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partnerships over uh that that was consistent across all four of our major sectors is saying that we want to engage with that emerging workforce that that post se that secondary population even the the K6 population but it's confusing we're we're struggling and so what we

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were able to do is again our role at the chamber is not to solve but connect and collaborate and so I was able to call together alongside of all of our partners our our community schools, specifically Morehead P Morehead Area

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Public Schools alongside of West Fargo um and uh Fargo public schools to say our business and industry partners are telling us the onboard into helping students experience work-based learning is complicated and we don't know how to

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do it. And so calling together all of those districts to say how can we do this? Um and working together we were able to set not only uh workforce learning goals but also we were able to ease that transition for business and industry. Um so I'll use the example of

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American Crystal Sugar. They have been a great partner to our workforce efforts. Uh specifically they have accessed the good jobs challenge for upskilling a lot of their individuals that come uh maybe entry level that don't have the skills that they need but they want to employ them. But another way is they were

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helping us understand that they wanted to get more and more students into into the experiencing American crystal sugar into the factories um onto the floor. But if they wanted to bring students in, they would have to fill out four

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different forms to make sure that they could access students from across the region. So one for Morhead Area Public Schools, one for the Career Academy, one for Fargo public schools, and one for West Fargo public schools. we that seems like not a big thing, but when you're

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doing that potentially for 10, 12, 20 students, it gets to be burdensome. And frankly, businesses are saying, you know, thanks, no thanks. And so, we were able to streamline that. And so, that's an example of what we've been able to do of everyone now uses the same form. We

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all know how how sometimes that's a hard thing to do. Uh, but we feel really proud of that. In addition, those districts came together and said, "We need to start to set some goals around this and we need to challenge our business and industry partners to come to the table as well to help us provide. It's the chicken or the egg. Do you provide the students or do you provide

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the experiences?" So, we are trying to do both at the same time. So, our our goals have been set. We launched those in April. We're well on our way. And as a chamber, we're going shoulder-to-shoulder with those business and industry partners, especially our small to medium partners to say, "This is how you can do it." Um, I don't want

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to say handholding, but truly it's just once you once you once a business has a intern or does a a job shadow or goes in and does a career talk once they're more comfortable doing it. So, it's our job to help them feel more comfortable walking into those classrooms, walking into those learning environments. I

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think another benefit on the last slide particularly for this board to be aware of um understanding that only uh Morehead Area Public Schools is noted there but their connection to all of our other rural districts and the work that Dr. Lunick is doing to make sure they're

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working with the DGFS or the Barnesvilles if there are uh youth that have interests that want to attend classes at the career academy trying to figure out how it will work. We've been in strategic meetings with them to figure out how just because this is um

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under the umbrella of one district. It doesn't exclude the add additional Klay County kiddos from going there. And that's an enormous regional bet >> and and we have worked closely with DGF as well. There's there's interest in in how do we figure out work-based learning, you know, coming to the I want to say the metro, but making that transition even though they're part of

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our our region, transportation is a concern. But I know Dr. Dr. Lunik has done a great job of of trying to figure out how do we solve some of those even scheduling issues. They've they've shifted a bit of their some of their scheduling as well. And so we feel very fortunate. This really

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truly has been a regionwide discussion. >> And then the next opportunity that we're really leaning into is how do we make this more accessible for our rural um students and our our rural youth? Can we use video and technology for some of the experiential components of that? how do

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we help to um work with our other partners like the Barnesville Chamber EDC to help uh with those companies connecting more seamlessly into the schools. So, we've got a very significant interest in um the the next iteration of that will include a lot

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more of our rural communities as well. >> So, again, a systemswide approach. We're trying to be thoughtful. Uh it's often behind the scenes and so I I feel very fortunate to be able to share some of those great outcomes with you today. and I'll I'll turn it back over to Shannon to talk more about what what the future holds.

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>> Great. So, we're really excited as you can tell uh today uh again thanks to the great work that Kale and Jane do each and every day along with the rest of our team. We stand very very committed uh to walk alongside you to continue to advance growth and prosperity of our

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region. So, hopefully you found our presentation beneficial. Um one thing that I'd leave you with is that the work we are doing is intentional. It is strategic and it's impactful. Uh but we cannot do it without you. We also recognize the difficult budget decisions

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that you have in front of you and the very um and the commitment that you have to be very strong stewards of the taxpayer dollars. That's why we're very intentionally not asking for an increase of uh any in any means. But while the cost of delivering this work continues

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to rise, we are committed to finding additional partners and additional funding to help us augment that. So, we very respectfully request the same amount of $100,000 investment by Klay County uh that you've made in the previous years uh prior uh so that we

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can continue to recognize the fiscal uh realities and responsibilities that you face. But keep in mind the in the request we're bringing to you today isn't just an investment in the chamber. It truly is an investment in the regional partnerships and the competitiveness of our region. Uh your

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investments extremely important, but your leadership is equally valuable. So uh again, a very heartfelt thank you uh for uh the trust that you put in uh the work that we do, the commitment that you've continued to have, and the partnership that we look forward to in

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the future. So, we're happy to take any questions that you may have for us. >> Thank you to all of you. Questions. >> And let me just reference one thing. Sorry, Commissioner Mojo. Um, uh, Ryan Wall, VP of administration from American Crystal Sugar, had every intent of being

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here. He actually texted me when you said, "Do you have anyone else coming?" Uh, he got hung up at the Morehead plant. but he is more than happy uh to and will be sending you uh a little bit more of the private sector thoughts on support of uh uh and really appreciation

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of your investment. So if there are additional questions he's happy to answer those as well. So >> thank you Commissioner Kavanagh. >> Yeah, thank you. I just uh wanted to make a couple comments. Uh I wanted to hear the workforce piece um before I spoke. Um uh just a huge thank you um

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you know working with you over this past year uh I I just really appreciate the um the comprehensive scope that you use uh whether it's toward legislation whether it's toward the building and

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workforce um personally I feel like every time that we're together working it makes us all and me uh personally feel bigger meaning uh more engaging when we're uh the people we're

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interacting with. You know, it's just more than just this board. It's, you know, it elevates our whole community and here then also the collaboration uh in the public private that you mentioned. I mean that just each of

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those pieces in that collaboration elevates every single business and every and and the indiv individuals involved and I fantastic work. That's all all I'll say.

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>> Thank you. Um, I I think the work that you guys do is amazing. And you know, for the people who might be watching today, I you know, the county typically is tasked with serving a lot

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of um a lot of our residents who are in need. Um, but what I hear from you people is and and what you do is you try to rise people up through whatever efforts that you have. And um, so anyone watching

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this to to they should be able to see today the the commitment to community that you have, the caring for both employers and employees and engaging with the community and

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local partners. Those are critical components to being a successful community. And when you ask us for $100,000 a year when we have a levy in the $40 million range

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is a it's a drop in the bucket. And it's it's it's something that uh I I think it's an investment on our part so that you continue to do what you do. uh because without you I think there

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would be um a drastic difference. Your involvement with helping uh establish entre entrepreneurs, these small businesses is incredible. The workforce piece that you talked about. That's the first I've heard that

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in-depth work that you do uh for the with the chamber. So I um I'm going to 100% support your your request. Um I know we we are in real difficult budget times. Um all this all this is

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about economic development and you know Klay County had you know we you know we keep hearing well we're the you know largest growing community you know uh in the state pretty much and that doesn't h happen by

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happen stance. There's there's a lot of effort that goes into that and the ability to encourage businesses to be in Morehead or Klay County and for and for a workforce that may not even work in North Dakota but

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establish residents in Minnesota and Klay County is a real positive thing for our for our county. And it's so I guess what I'm saying is we ha we have to be a partner in investing something to make sure this stays successful and I think um I think

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you've done an amazing job between between the work that you do with the local chamber and we've we've also seen some really positive things come out of the more business association though I think you've been really good partners with them as well in a lot of areas and

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with your efforts that you do with St. Paul, um, this is this is an investment that's um, it it brings back many times over in in what we're paying. So, I want to thank you all for for what you do.

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>> Thank you, Commissioner Campbell. Uh, I just want to reference one thing. We really do see the same thing that you do, right? Our region is successful because of the assets that we have on both sides of the river. And often times uh that gets overlooked, right, where

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there is scrutiny um on the Minnesota side. I will tell you that that's what makes this region unique is that we have significant strengths uh on both sides of the river. And we are very committed to continuing to elevate those and tell

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the story of what does this look like uh when we have a an active vibrant region. uh and there are great assets that all of you continue to invest in, but we're really committed to this work. So, thank you for the comments. >> I could tell. Thank you.

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>> Well, I I just want to highlight I you know, I grew up um my grandpa said you always uh treat the employees as well as you do the CEOs. And I have been in meetings with the chamber in which we're talking about a five plus billion dollar company that is potentially looking at

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coming to Klay County while also hearing that there is a small business in Klay County that is having difficulty or misunderstanding um what the new regulations from the state is and your organization sent someone to contact them the same day. And I think that

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really speaks to how you strategically look at all of us in the region as a whole. Uh to not just look at huge growth, but also to look at the the smaller components that could be looked at as barriers or challenges is really where the benefit is for for all of us.

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To not just look at recruiting new, recruiting new, trying to look internally and figure out how we strengthen what is already existing, how we uplift, particularly with the workforce piece. uh that's a huge challenge in the housing and all of the issues that in encompass that. So um

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just from uh just a resident's perspective, thank you for being such a team player with all of the different groups, but uh in serving in this capacity, our dollars are very very well spent in partnership with your organization and I concur with uh my

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colleagues that it is uh money that is is very well utilized and >> thank you. Thanks for the opportunity. Thank you both. Thank you all. >> Okay, we will move into our budget presentation. We have our public health

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director, Jessica Mickelson with us. She also has Brandon Nelson with Good morning. >> Good morning, Madam Chair and commissioners. Let me pull up our slideshow here.

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All right, there we go. Thank you for having us both this morning. Uh Brand and I are excited to be here to present the 2027 public health budget overview. Uh so we have a comprehensive um PowerPoint in

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front of you um where we'll hit some uplight information and then Brandon will go into a little bit more indepth with uh specific uh budget items and then we also wanted to share a little bit more um information about our partnership for health grants. Um, I

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know our CHB commissioners um hear that information often, but we wanted to make sure that the whole Klay County Commission um was um aware of the grants that we work with on a daily basis. So, uh you should have before you two

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handouts. Uh so, one is the PowerPoint and then one uh is the budget packet that was provided to Lori and Steve. So, >> got it. >> Okay. All right. Uh so our first slide here is an

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overview of the higher impact items. Uh so the top um box there is a comparison of our 2026 levy request which was uh just over $2 million. Um our 2027 levy request is 1.383

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million or I'm sorry1,383,249. So, uh, it is a reduction, um, from 26 to 27 by $634,000 or 31%. Our, um, current fund balance is also listed there. Uh, we did have one

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potential new request. Um, as you all may recall, Rory Beal had come to the board back in March to request um, approval to apply for the drug-free communities grant. Uh had we been awarded that grant, we would have been looking at adding a new grant

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coordinator position. Unfortunately, we found out yesterday that we were not awarded the grant. So, uh we did not have time to update our slides and update the packet for Sarah. So, that is unfortunate news. So, I actually have a

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um salary worksheet in here later, too, that I'll just >> Jessica, can I ask what region of the state the award went to? if that's a >> uh we know Horizon Public Health received a grant, but this that was a renewal for them. They had received one in the first five years. Um there was

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only 50 of these grants being awarded nationwide. Um so we really don't have any more information. The um letter informing us that we were not awarded the grant was very vague. Uh so Jason and Rory have sent a followup um email

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just to inquire more. horizon is Douglas. >> Uh Douglas, Pope, um there's five counties there. Grant, >> it's nice to see an out metro. >> Yeah. >> So, uh and then the bottom box here is just um some of those kind of uh larger

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um impact items that are affecting the 2027 levy request. Uh, so you can see we had a reduction of $471,681 in staff salary and benefits from 26 to 27. And we'll get into more detail on

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each of these items later in the presentation, but I just wanted to kind of have a highlight page for you guys to uh kind of see um some of the larger impact items. So, uh, and then, uh, our grant allocations actually rose from 26

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to 27. And Brandon will go into more in depth on in each of those areas. Um, but really by splitting from the 4count CHB to the 2count CHB, we saw a little positivity with um the financial

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allocations with just not having to share those grants across four counties. Uh and then you're all very well aware um we the men choices program primarily moved into social services. Uh so that had a positive impact the public health

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levy request. Um we requested earlier this year a 6 wick position. So that had a negative impact. Um our environmental health fees that we had come to prior this year. Um we are anticipating

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additional revenue of about $40,000 in that program area. Um clinic hours um we will see uh some reduced cost um by reducing those um those days to just uh the Tuesday

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Thursday and I'll talk about that a little bit more. Uh and then our contract changes that I was just recently um here to discuss with you all. So, uh, overall these highlighted program areas, um, are having a positive

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impact to our levy of $473,000. Um, and this is just another overview. So, just to kind of highlight here that our 27 levy request is 1.38 million, which is a reduction of $634,000 or 31%.

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Uh this mainly is really due I think the bottom line is staff salaries and um benefits. Um obviously that's our largest expense in our budget. Uh and by making some of the strategic moves that we've made throughout the year um we were able to

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shift that. Um and I'll talk about that um how that's still impacting social services, but we have some good news there as well. Uh but we also had five staff um tenur staff retire um in 26. So obviously replacing those staff staff at

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um lower steps um has a has a positive impact as well. And then we had two administrative positions that were reallocated as well. So all of that combined um had an impact of about $471,000. >> Commissioner Kavanagh.

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So of those positions, were they all refilled? >> Yes. >> Right. So it was about the just different steps then. >> Well, I shouldn't say they were all re were refilled. One was refilled in social services, >> right?

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>> So the per that staff had been a men choices assessor, >> right? >> So she retired in public health and then moved that position was transferred. >> Thank you. >> Yes. Uh, so this was my wage calculator for our potential new position that I'm

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going to just skip over because it is now null and void unfortunately. >> Uh, and then I just wanted to go a little bit more in depth to talk about kind of what brought us to these decisions for these program changes and how it's having an overall impact for

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public health's budget. Um, so obviously men choices is the largest piece there at $438,000. So Quinn and I and uh Susie Radnik had gotten together in late 2025 to discuss the swap of women choices and SMB

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between the two departments. We knew that both benefits would be kind of short-lived for one year. Um the social services time study produces more revenue for the county throughman

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choices than what public health was able to receive through the local collaborative time study because we participate in different time studies. Um so it really made sense to move the program at that time. However, alongside that, we knew that the 2025 legislature

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had made some changes um regarding men choices with potentially looking at removing men choices completely from the social services time study. I spoke to Quinn about a week ago about this and there has been no new news from the

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legislature or AMC or MAXA um on what that flat rate reimbursement for men choices would be. Um, so he is budgeting that the men choices program is staying in the social services time study for

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2027. So that actually, you know, we were anticipating this move to really only have a one-year positive impact. Hopefully it'll have at least two years. Um, and I know Quinn will be discussing that more when he comes to present before the board. Um, another strategic

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move that we made was we renegotiated our Mshow and MSC Plus contracts. Uh, so this had to do with um, Medicica taking over the UKare contracts for Klay County. Um, so we used to receive um,

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for MSC plus $78 per member per month and for Mshow we received 109 per member per month. Under our Medicica rates, we will be getting 125 for MSE Plus and 135

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for Mshow. So, we're anticipating about $103,000 in additional revenue for that. Uh, and then earlier this year, um, Liz and Brandon and I had come to the board to request restructuring our clinic. Um,

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at the time, the, um, clinic just was not very busy. uh we felt that we could use utilize that staffing time more um beneficial in other program areas. Um so we've made the adjustment of having the clinic only open on Tuesdays and

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Thursdays. Uh we also had a tenure staff retire. We've hired that position. Um the person who is um primarily working in the clinic is doing an excellent job. >> We are seeing Commissioner Campbell has

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a question. What on the change of the hours to Tuesdays and Thursdays, have have you received any public feedback? >> We have not received any negative comment comments. >> No. Um, we have been a lot busier.

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So, having just the set two days, they are filling all appointments available for those two days. We're currently booking out about three weeks. Um, so Liz and I have discussed if we get to a point where appointments are booking out

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longer than a month, uh, then we may have to come back and discuss adding a third day. But it's been really interesting how having that consistency has really increased the traffic in the clinic. So, and then the other benefit

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to that was that staff person on her non-clin days is in a revenue generating position. So, it's actually produced an $83,000 benefit to the levy making that little switch. So,

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uh and then we also were here earlier this year to um request um changes to our environmental health fees. Um, so as you all know, some of those fees hadn't been adjusted since the late 90s, uh, going into the early 2000s. So, uh, we

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came before the board and requested that both our delegated and non-delegated environmental health fees be adjusted. Uh, and by making those, um, slight adjustments, um, in some areas a little bit heavier in others, but to align with the amount of work, um, being done by

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the staff in those program areas, we're um, anticipating about $40,000 in increased revenue. um and that brings that program pretty close to covering the costs of of their program. So, uh two negative um areas that I just wanted

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to point out, um because they were pretty significant, I guess, um is we did add the 6 wick position. Um so, at for 2027, we're anticipating um a cost to the county of $15,000 approximately

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for that. we are offsetting quite a um large amount of that salary um and benefits for that staff person by um one of our um federal grants that is ending at the end of 2027. So we'll only have that um capability of using that grant

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to assist with paying for that position for one year. Um and then also you're all aware of the SMBC contract changes. So with um Medicare or I'm sorry Medicica taking over our UKare contract

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uh we saw a reduction um in our per member per month uh rate from 185 to 135. Um so based off what we had um anticipated in our 26 budget to 27 that's having about $176,000

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negative impact to our to our budget. Any questions there before I turn it over to Brandon questions? Okay. >> All right. Well, thank you Jessica for that overview here. So, I'll break it

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down um into our program areas now that we um want to dig a little bit deeper. Um we did provide the full budget overview. Um I won't go every line by the 25 pages that we have here. Um so I'll try and summarize it here. Um so

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first off we have our administration. Um we have the 2026 revenue and expenses. Then we have the 27 revenue and expenses. So then we can see where our county ask landed last year and then going to 27. And then the last column

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that you have is if it is a net increase or a decrease to our uh 2027 levy ask. Um so we'll start at the top with administration. Um we did see a slight increase in revenue um due to um our local public health grant increasing but

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also adding in a communications grant um that we have. So that provides the communication support for the CHB. Um so that um our actual ask for 2027 is 525,000 which is a decrease in the levy ask from

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last year of 35,000 um for that for that program area. Next, we have the CDC infrastructure grant. Um, this is a budget neutral grant. Um, so we went from 41,000 projected in 2026

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down to 2027. Um, as Jessica noted, uh, we are using the CDC infrastructure funds to fund other program areas. Um, and as she noted that that grant does end in November, November 30th of 2027. Um, so we do have to utilize it or we

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lose it. Um so that's why we're planning on using it for other program areas to make sure that we spend all of those funds that are available to us. Um so that one is budget neutral. It was last year and it will be for um this upcoming 2027 year. Um so there's no levy impact

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for that program area. Next we have uh foundational public health responsibilities. Um last year we did have a county ask um to fund some of these program areas. As Jessica noted, um, we didn't quite get the, uh, benefit of the increased grant award for 2027.

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We do have a rollover period. We're not expected to use all of our funds this year, and it does roll over until June 30th of 2027. Um, so we do have some funds available that will be rolling over into 27, and we do expect to utilize all of those funds. Um we are we

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did add some staff to this program area due to um one of our grants um dis being discontinued um and not not being um you know our 5-year period ran out. So um we're trying to find other funding for that. Um but luckily with this rollover

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period we're able to supplement that um at least for the time time being now. Um, so our county ask for the foundational public health responsibilities grant uh this year is $1,863, which is a net net levy decrease of

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$30,771 for that for that program area. Does anyone have any questions for that? >> Questions for Brandon? >> Okay. >> I think we're just in shock. We don't often see updates with this many swings.

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Great work. I it was yeah it took a lot lot to get here and you know we analyzed it line by line going through it. So >> great work. >> Yeah. Um so next we'll go down to kind of our uh prevent infectious disease um category. So we grouped the immunizations flu and DPN DP uh disease

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prevention and coordination. Um as you can see our revenue looks to be decreasing year-over-year. Um that's just due to the amount of u immunizations and and flu shots that we've been giving in the clinic. Um and we do have that re reduced expenses by

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going down to the two-day clinic as Jessica mentioned. Um so our county asked to fund these this program for 2027 is $32,857 but that is decrease of 37,541 from last year. Um so those kind of

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reduction of expenses in the clinic has you know flown through to the end here in our levy ask for reduced levy ask. Um, next, just kind of piggybacking off of that, this is our, uh, public health clinic. Actual, um, as Jessica noted, we

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have had higher utilization of the clinic by just going to those two days. There's kind of created a sense of urgency for people to go online, get their appointments, um, and making sure that they stick to those appointments. Uh so we are projecting that we will get

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a slight um insurance um reimbursement increase um just due to having you know more appointments and being higher utilization there. Um and you can see that we do have reduced expenses there uh by quite a bit by not having a a tenure staff in there but also reducing

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it down to those two days rather than the five days. Um so our clinic you know our clinic ask has decreased um in 2027 our our levy is uh decreasing by $97,037 there.

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Um next we have our family home visiting area. Um we do we are um anticipating that we will have some slight revenue increases. Uh we are also utilizing $7,500 from another grant that we have uh to supplement some of these costs

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which is our um CEUP grant um that we'll get to later. Uh but we are looking at you know increasing revenue on our family home visiting program as Jessica mentioned we have we do have um the individual who's working in the clinic. We did we are able to have her three

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days in a revenue generating role. Um so we will see an increased um revenue number for 2027 um just due to having more staff available and performing those services for the county. Um so for our 2027 net um levy ask we are

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decreasing our ask by $217,060. Next we have our refugee health program. Um this is our this is a grant that we get for um you know providing refugee services for um new immigrants to our community. Um this is this is a mandated program and we h you know it's not able

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to cover the full cost of the program. Uh but it is a mandated program that we have to you know provide a service for the community. Um so our net our levy ask for 2027 is uh $4,562. Uh we did get more expenses in this

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program just due to um allocating more staff time to it based on what our actuals are seeing the actual hours that are put into this program. Um next we have our school health program. Um this is our contracts with DGF and also Ulin Harddall. Um we have

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been in the process of you know looking at these contracts and negotiating them. Um but obviously we run on a two-year term with this. Um, and we're also not able to really fully realize our full expenses in this without raising the contract by too much. And we don't want to put that burden on the school yet.

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And it's we're trying to find uh fine balance of uh where you know our costs are being offset at a reasonable amount and we're providing that service to the school. Um so it's something that we have been actively looking at um and we will continue to do so. Um so as a as a

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whole for our prevent infectious disease programs um we're looking at decreasing our county ask by 334,358 um in 2027. Questions? Next we'll go to our wick program, women, infant and children. Um we are

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anticipating a slight increase in revenue. Um this program is uh reimbursed based on our participation rate. Um it's $21. it went up from $20 the previous year. So, big increase there. Um, but we hope to based on our participation numbers that we've been

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seeing this year, we're hoping to, you know, continue to achieve those and when we get our next grant award, then we'll see that um increased grant award then based on our participation numbers. Um, so hopefully we can continue to achieve those numbers throughout the year and then that our our award will be

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increased next year. Um, and >> just to that I, you know, I that one I appreciate that we're tracking it and it, that one will be interesting to see how the additional staff component plays into, you know, lower case loads. Will

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that um will that make a reflection in regards to participation rates and outreach? >> I'm hoping it will and I think it will. Yeah, I know that's Sue's plan as soon as she's able to kind of transition her case load off to um our new staff um

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that she works on kind of more of that promotional stuff and recruitment and and working to to increase participation. We already have very high participation in Klay County, but uh this is Sue's passion and her entire team are they're very passionate about

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it and uh so they're going to do all that they can to support women this population in our county and um they'll continue to work on increasing their outreach efforts as well. Great. >> And this is also an area that we are supplementing with our CDC

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infrastructure funding. Um we do have we are half funding that new position that just started. Um so that is um we do have increased revenue from that. Um but hopefully like you said with the outreach and the participation we can you know uh fully supplement that in

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future years here. Um so our wick ask this year is 117,758 which is an uh levy increase uh of 33,457. Next we'll go to our emergency preparedness um programs. So emergency

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preparedness we have our FEP uh CRI and RSG award. Uh we are seeing increased funding in that area as well. um year-over-year, our RSG and our FEP grant awards have increased um slightly, but they still have increased. So, that is a very very good sign. Uh we'd love

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to see increased money rather than decreased. Um so, we'll always take that. And this is also another area where our CDC infrastructure funding is um supplementing some some of our staff time. Um our staff in this program is getting uh tenured or getting, you know,

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has had longevity in the county uh which is always a good thing. um having that experience on the county. Um but it does put a strain on the budgets when we don't uh get that same level of increase in funding. Um so we were able to supplement um most of the funding for

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this year. Um our county ask for this program is $833 uh which is mostly just conference registration travel. Um so that will decrease our levy ask by $12,871

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um this uh in the 2027 budget cycle. Um next we have the EMS uh system management which is the ambulance. This is uh the Barnesville ambulance that we have. Um so our you our approved budget

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last year was 20 or 35,000 for 2026. Uh we put that same number in for 2027. Uh so that 35,000 so there is no um there is no levy increase or decrease for 2027 but we are asking for 35,000 um to fund

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that program in 2027. >> Yes, Commissioner Bear. >> So they're going to come here and ask for some money as well. Does that come out of your budget or does that is that additional? >> U Madam Chair, Commissioner Bear, no that the request from from Barnesville

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actually goes in the budget. So that is the request. >> So it's in their budget already >> and that historically we've never cut that. That has remained there have been some request increases but that has been a constant that this board >> was. >> Well we we have increased it.

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>> I said cut >> we have increased the the amount for we've never made any cuts but we have done increases over the over the years. I believe last year the request was 70,000 but we stuck with the same request from 2025. I just wanted to

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there's been some comments in the community that this board has continued to support it's an earmark that's remained constant. >> Yeah, that's always been included in our budget um as far as my knowledge since I've been here. So that 35,000 is

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remaining constant from 26 to 27 there. Um so there is no net in net net increase um at least in our budget inputed in our budget right now. Um so for that disaster preparedness and response um section for our budget we are asking for uh $12,871

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or that'll decrease our levy ask by $12,871 um in our 2027 budget. Next we'll go down to our environmental health section. Um so for clay food pool and lodging uh we are expecting an increase fees um as

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Jessica mentioned at the beginning of the presentation um increasing our base fees but also having some um you know vacation home rental um income in there to offset some of that. We do have higher expenses in this program due to allocating more um director time in this

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in this program area. Uh but as you can see, our net uh levy ask is decreasing by $5,371 for this program area. Um so with that increase of revenue, we're able to supplement more of the director's time in there. Um and also, you know, not

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have that come out of the county ask as well. Um next we have our on-site sewage treatment systems. Um this has been inc increased um this is increased due to our permits that are generating more revenue due to those increased fees. Uh

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but we also have decreased expenses in this program having um you know a staff that has been um lower lower tenure in there and is able to take over that program and we're able to remove some of the director's time in there um to lower our total expenses in that program area.

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Um, so that does decrease our county asked by $34,741. And then next we have uh our demolition landfill inspection uh program. We are expecting a slight decrease of $1,000 in the revenue um just being generated by

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our landfill landfill usage permits that we're um that we're um handing out. Um but we and we are seeing some slight increase uh for expenses due to allocating that new new staff person having more time spent in that program

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area. Um so that will increase our county ask by $9,92. Uh but overall for environmental health um year-over-year we are decreasing our levy ask by $31,020 that program area. Next we'll move down to our healthy communities healthy

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behaviors. Um so the first first program area here is our SHIP statewide health improvement project. This is uh with the four counties still with Ottertale and Wilin. Um that grant has remained constant throughout the throughout the years. Um but that that program funds

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all of the staff salaries and fringe that are in there allocated there but also uh funds material supplies, travel outreach um and also the projects that that um program wants to do throughout the year. So that is a budget neutral program

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uh for health promotions. Um as you can see you know year-over-year it looks like our you know revenue and expenses have decreased pretty substantially. Uh that is because they have our PCN program positive community norms program. Um in that is grouped up in

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that area. Um that grant ended after the 5-year term there. Uh we're unfortunate to see it go. Um but it was a very you know positive positive program. You know no pun intended there. Uh but we do we did we have seen a reduction throughout throughout this program area. Um this

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year our county ask it's budget neutral. We're not asking for anything for our uh budget to fund this program area and that uh relates to a $35,000 decrease in our 2027 levy ask. >> Commissioner Kov

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>> along that line u that it's been very effective. Is there something in the works to uh replace that? >> Um, Commissioner Kavanagh, the drug-free communities grant would have uh stepped in and picked up working in the DGF

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school district. So, uh we're very uh sad that we did not get that um grant award. Uh but with moving Jason into the foundational public health uh responsibilities grant or FPHR is the

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acronym we use um he is able to do kind of a wider variety of very similar work and potentially spread that across more than just the one school district. Okay. Uh, so that's the goal and that's why we moved him from PCN into FPHR and with

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the intent of hiring somebody new so that Jason could kind of be the trainer, >> right? >> Um, and working with multiple school juristics and not just be tied to the one. >> Okay. And the social sources of strength program that still got a little life to it. Yeah,

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>> that is continuing. Yes. >> Yeah. >> Yep. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yep. That is that's wrapped up in that health promotions bucket there. That source of strength program. >> Yeah. Yep. >> Okay. >> Yep. >> So that uh so that just uh we are so we are budget neutral for 2027 for those

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programs and our uh 2027 levy is decreasing by 35,000 for those programs. Um next we have our tobacco license program. Um you know this is just doing compliance checks around the community uh when when needed or requested. um you

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know we generate generate you know roughly $2,000 and we we offset that by just having staff time um being allocated to that. So there is no county ask um was there was none for last year and there's none for this year. So that's but a budget neutral program. Um

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next we have child and teen checkup program um the outreach and screening. Uh we the award has stayed the same year-over-year. Um and that that is able to fund all of the expenses of the program such as um you know staff salary and fringe also the travel the outreach

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postage um and the materials and supplies that they're able to purchase. Um so that is budget neutral. It was last year and it is this year. So there's no no ask for 2027 opioid settlement. This is just the funding that's been um you know received through

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the opioid settlement funding. Uh we do request some of the funds to be utilized for staff time, but it's also for materials and supplies for the community um that we hand out. Uh we did decrease our ask this year um in that in for

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those funds um by about $15,000. Uh but that is budget neutral as well. Um so there is no county ask uh for 2027. Next we have that controlled substance use and prevention which is the CEUP grant. Um we didn't budget it for last

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year because uh we didn't know if we were going to get another budget period. Uh but they've already let us know that we're going to have budget period three for next year that's going to be uh coming. So that'll be going that grant runs um it it starts November 1st and it runs through October 31st. Uh so it's

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kind of an unusual calendar year for that grant. Uh but they have already let us know that we will be receiving budget period 3 funding. So that'll be going through a majority of next year until October 31st and hopefully we'll get a budget period for at that time. Uh but that program is uh fully budget neutral.

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Um so there is no county ask in 27. And then next uh there is that drug-free community grant as Jessica mentioned. We that's one we're not going to be receiving. So that was going to be $125,000. Um that PCN grant that did end that was 180 thou 185,000. So that would have

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offset, you know, a majority of that revenue that was lost. Uh but unfortunately, we did not receive that. So hopefully we can get some communication on, you know, why we didn't and we can, you know, better have we can have a better grant, um application or process next time so we can receive those funds. Um so overall,

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u for the healthy communities, our ask um has decreased by $35,000, uh for our 2027 levy. Next we'll go down to our adult health the health services programs. Um so this is uh next we have our case

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case aid program. Uh we are anticipating a slight uh revenue increase in in this program um due due to just billing insurance but also having um you know more utilization in that program area. Um and we do have some decreased

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expenses in there due to staff realignment um in that program area. Next we have case management. Uh we do have a slight increase in revenue year-over-year um due to just um some of our insurance is changing

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getting that higher reimbursement rate. Um and we were able to keep our expenses uh relatively the same even with you know increasing expenses with the cola and having salary infringe benefits there. Um, so we were we have been able to, you know, reduce our county ask by

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$136,156 in this program area with the increased revenue and decreased expenses. Um, next is the SNBC program. As Jessica mentioned, that's one of our largest changes that have happened due to the insurance contracts that uh were

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projected to get for next year. uh we will see some pretty significant decreased revenue um in this program area along with increasing expense increasing expenses. Um that program is still um generating you know uh profit I

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guess you could you could say um we are projected to have you know $16,41 um to offset our other program areas. They all kind of work in tandem together. Um but that does increase our county ask for that specific program for SNBC by $479,961.

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Um and that is also part partly due to h um adding staff into this program um to realign where um staff falls under the different programs. Um next we have MN choices. This is um the revenue that we get from this is from the uh the time study that Jessica

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mentioned where we perform the services and we get reimbursed through the state but also federal uh revenue source. Um we took out all of the expenses in this program area and reallocated them up to the programs listed above. Um as I mentioned they all work in tandem

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together. Um so we just we you know wanted to realign the people um in the programs that best suit them the work that they're doing currently. Um, so for that program, we are, you know, we are projecting that we're going to decrease

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our county ask uh by $438,148. So in total for um adult health or and healthy services, uh we're decreasing our county ask by $188,359. Um so all of that summed up. You can see that at the bottom. We're decreasing our

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county ask by $634,09 uh throughout all of our programs. Any questions on that? >> Any questions from the board? >> Looks good. >> Commissioner Ebinger.

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>> Yeah, I'll just throw this in um as an observation. I'm I'm the chair of the Partnership for Health this year. Um beginning of the year, we were looking at what I thought were considerable challenges.

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Uh, I think when when we sat down and got together and worked through this, it was brought to me that our staff was looking at it as opportunities and

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I am happy to see the direction we're going. We are under additional scrutiny by the state in our auditing system because of the fact we've gone from four counties to two. I was disappointed when we had the vote

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where two counties left. Right now, I think we've got a partnership that is solid. There's trust there. Obviously, you just saw Brandon is meticulous in keeping the numbers and our partners know that. And we get one of these every

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time we meet. An explanation of what the grants for and where where it stands. Jessica has come in there as she has in a lot of things and with with fresh eyes and sees where we can make some changes

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and adjustments and I am very happy with it. I feel like we've got um what could have been a real problem for us in dealing with with the grants and dealing with a limited partnership and has turned into an opportunity.

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So uh Jessica's new new in the in the in the difficulties here, but she understands what's going on. Brandon has really had some challenges over the last couple of years, and he's risen to it, and he's

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viewed with a great deal of credibility by our partners in Becker County. And, uh, I just think that needs to be part of our considerations and all of this. Not to mention they're come they're coming in with a pretty healthy cut to their ask.

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>> Can I just add Oh, >> go. Thanks, >> Jess. Well, I just wanted to add that I do really appreciate your comments, Commissioner Eringer, and just the collaboration that we have with Becker County and the fact that Rory Beal and

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Amanda Koopla have risen to become the CHS administrators for Partnership for Health, whereas previously it had been Kathy McKay um and Jod Lean from Ottertale County. So, not only did we have, you know, two counties leave, we

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had two new people step up into those significant leadership roles, and they've done an amazing job, and Amanda has been absolutely fabulous to work with, as well as her team. Uh there's a lot of collaboration that goes on. I

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mean, we probably talk to Amanda five to six times a day. Um and so she's been very supportive and she's done a lot to help me with my onboarding process as well. So um you know there is a little bit of a struggle going from where we

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have all you know staff from four counties to do this work >> and now down to two counties. Um so we have had to kind of pull people in different directions. Um but our partnership for health staff and both Clay and Becker County have really risen to that challenge. So, we're really

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appreciative of everyone being so flexible. >> Commissioner Kavanagh. >> Yeah. I want to come back uh if we may. There's what you mentioned the first page had to do with our uh staff and the salaries and that and you mentioned you

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had five retirees. Is that correct? >> Of those five, how many took the uh early retirement? Do you know? >> Um I think just one. Yes. Okay. Well, the reason I was asking the question was

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just a little bit of effectiveness of that. Uh also when these retirees uh the other retirees, let's focus on that. Um, do you typically see back fill into those positions or um

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and and I'm wondering how how it creates that lowest step and and then last what kind of challenges are along the way when that happens >> you know I don't think that we have the back fill

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I don't know if I should say issue but you know coming from social services when one position opens it creates creates this huge trickle effect from people moving um all over departments. Um I haven't seen that since coming to public health. We um you know have had

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to do quite a bit of outside hiring. Uh one of the staff who retired worked in Brandon's department, so that was an outside hire. Our new clinic nurse was an outside hire and she's been absolutely fabulous. They both have. >> Um we brought on a new SMBC care

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coordinator who is also an outside hire. So, um, we haven't seen a ton. We did just have an opening, um, in Suz's department and that was an internal transfer. Uh, but again, we were able to hire pretty quickly for um, the person

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who was moving. So, >> we've been pretty fortunate. Um, we've had to be a little bit more creative >> um, with where we're posting positions and things like that to get um, good nurses to apply and just to get the word out there. um we've spent a little bit

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of that CDC funding money um to to um focus on recruitment so that we're hiring the right person. >> Okay. Well, thank you very much for that. Yeah, I just was curious about the the balance of all of it. So, yeah, thanks

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>> questions or comments? just want to highlight uh your in your summary you talk about what the 2027 budget uh looks like and you do name the fact that there's a levy request reduction of about 31% but I think the

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most important component in it is that we're maintaining the core public health services that are really important throughout our communities while also maximizing those state and federal grants. I think this um cross-section of budget really shows how successful grant

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writing and implementation can help us in reduction of what the levy burdens are. So uh great work as you continue to look through this. >> Commissioner Campbell, >> I just want to you know I and I think going part of that 31% I think it it

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might say that in in some ways we were subsidizing the four counties versus going to two. Would I be would I be correct in that? >> Uh there there's a little bit of that because there there are some grants um as I'll mention on this next page here that you know we have gotten a higher

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allocation due to um only being two counties rather than four. Um so we are seeing an an increase in those numbers as well >> or the allocation didn't change and so now it's split by two instead of four. >> Right. >> So >> it's beneficial to us. it has been beneficial

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>> other than the increased workload >> and that that was unforeseen uh to us you know as we were going through this transition we didn't know kind of how everything was going to end and now that we've got our grant award letters and we're able to see where everything landed um it has been pretty beneficial

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um for us I'd say so any other questions so I just talked a little bit about where the programs landed um obviously there's a lot of grants that go into these different programs. Um, so we'll just uh look at some of the big changes for act for our

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actual grants that we've been allocated. Um, I won't spend too much time on this because I've you know, we've gone through all the program areas and everything like that. Um, but I just want to highlight some of the big changes here. Um, so as as noted previously, the uh positive community norms grant that we've got, that one

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ended after our five-year term. Um, that was almost $185,000 there. Um so pretty significant um loss there for for our program but we have been able to you know make that up in other areas uh where we have been fortunate enough to receive that extra

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funding. Um so that that's the PCN loss and then we also had our TANF block grant which is temporary assistance to needy families. Um that did decrease slightly by $5,000 year-over-year. Um but we do have other grants that um increased more than that to make up for

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that reduced funding. Um so the CA uh the cannabis prevention one um that one was one that we didn't budget for in 26 but we have um gotten word that that will continue on. Um there is legislative funding for that. Um so we did include that. So that that is a

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change of 92,500. Um FPHR uh foundational public health responsibility that is the one that we've had benefits from of going from a 4ount to a 2count. Um so we've seen increased funding in that regard. Um and then also, you know, strong foundations

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for our um uh family family home visiting program did increase as well. Um and that regional communications grant that we got, that is a new grant that we've got. So that is new funding that is coming into public health of $27,223. Um so that always helps offset some of

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our salary and fringe costs that we have for the program. Um so that's kind of our major shifts for grants that are happening from 26 to 27. Um, and as you can see, just kind of breaking everything down. Um, you know, you could see the changes from year-over-year, but

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we've kind of already been over a majority of those changes. Um, so is there any questions on kind of the grant allocations? >> Quer. >> Yeah. Just uh curious about the cannabis uh prevention. Mhm.

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>> Is that based on a um a formula from the state or is it part of tax or >> how does that figure come about? >> Let's see. >> Sure. >> Yeah. Okay. Well, we'll we'll have to get back on the funding formula. I can

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tell you that it's split out between um Clay and Becker. uh split out between a base funding, there's a population component, and there's also a SVI component, which is uh select vulnerability index formula. Um so based on those three components, that's how we

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break out the funding. Uh we receive the funding from the state and then that's the formula that we use to break it out between Clay and Becker, okay, for the allocations. >> Thank you. >> Any additional questions or comments? >> Right. And then very quickly, I'll just

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say this is so this is just an overview sheet that we want to put in a table form for everybody. Um we colorcoded it based on the different components of uh where it lands in our budget. So we have the top is administration, then we have emergency preparedness, um an environmental health grant that we have,

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then a family health grant, and then also a health promotions grant that we have. Um so you can just kind of see where those land in the budget and the grants that those programs do receive. Anything else?

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Fantastic. Thank you so much. You want to highlight that? I I've already summarized it for you. Okay. All right. No. Do you No, that's fine. Great work, everyone. >> Excellent. >> All right. We are scheduled for a five

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minute break. We will be back at 10:16. Okay, we are back. We are on to item number seven which is uh discussion identifying upcoming AMC policy conference priorities. The intention of this is to walk through uh not only the

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policy uh platforms uh that AMC as a whole has but specifically if there's any identified issue that uh you on all of your individual policy committees felt like would be worth uh pushing

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forward uh as we move forward to the um fall policy conference in September. I know M um uh what is our commissioner bear our rural Minnesota MRC uh Minnesota rural

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counties will have our uh priority meeting in Alexandria coming up this fall felt like it was really important for this to board to discuss. >> Thank you Madam Chair. In your in your packet today, I have the information that was approved last year at the

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annual budget uh or excuse me, annual meeting. Um both from the from the legislative policy perspective and also uh from the policy positions. The policy positions are are specific things that each of your identified uh committees

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have have shown to be areas of concern. Sometimes they shift, sometimes they rise up to the legislative policy priority, and sometimes they they disappear uh depending on the needs of the state. And so it's hard to believe that uh here a little over a month we're going to be setting setting those

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priorities for the upcoming legis legislative session. Uh but uh but again your the first document shows where the focus uh for the legislative priorities were technology modernization uh SNAP and Medicaid uh and also the Minnesota

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African-American Family Preservation Act uh and child welfare disproport disproportionality act or the act as they we go by normally. Um and so we did see some positive steps forward obviously in technology. Uh this board

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was very active in uh in advocating for those funding uh funding sources uh through your meetings with legislators through letters to uh to our local legislators. Uh and and we're part of that succession. The SNAP and Medicaid uh we certainly have some some

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challenges there that was were highlighted earlier some of the work that has continued to happen after the session with our federal counterpart Congress Congress people. uh hopefully that we'll be able to make some impacts there and then also uh the act uh will

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be I I assume something that we continue to look at uh as a as a policy a legislative policy priority. But uh again uh just looking for your impact and feedback on on where we stand in your thoughts from the legislative policies uh and then also if there are

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any different areas within the the position of the legislative policy positions that you'd like to see uh us push forward moving moving up next month. I think also important to highlight is that we sit on some subcommittees of uh

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the AMC uh designation. Extension will have theirou that is up for deliberation over the next budget cycle as well. So that's something that extension uh individuals will be uh working through. uh MCIT, which is the Minnesota County's

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Intergovernmental Trust, is also one that I believe Commissioner Campbell attends in that capacity. And I and I think it would be worthwhile sending a letter from this body in regards to um the direction of uh of the trust to make

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sure that we're continuing to be flexible as counties are uh creative in streamlining services to our residents and curious if this board would support sending a letter to MCIT uh to those effects.

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>> Yes. You want do you want that as a motion, >> Commissioner Ebinger? And then >> yeah, I think we've had two examples this year um to where they've not been responsive to innovations that have taken place to

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in one case provide services and another to provide services with a out ofstate agency or agencies to the to the benefit of everybody in a quarter million population. uh that extends into both states. So I

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think a letter would be highly appropriate. >> We have a motion. Is that in the frame of a motion? >> That would be a motion. Yes. >> Will that be a second? >> That'll be a second. >> I think that's a good start. Any other comments on that? >> All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I.

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>> I. >> Oppose. Same sign. Carried. Well, I I also feel like um maybe we can walk through and just highlight maybe um the commit the committees that we are on just so the public knows that we have

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different designation. I'm on uh environment and there's a good summary of what our uh priorities have continued to be um in regards to how it affects DNR and MPCA and and Bowser. one thing

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that continues of support that um you know I don't see anything on here that Klay County specifically doesn't support in that umbrella but one thing that is going to continue to be a priority for us is the solid waste management tax

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allocation and making sure that uh we are able to um reallocate the majority of that to its true intention for the creation. I know that Commissioner Campbell and I um talk about this frequently, that one specifically.

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And then the other one, as we continue to work through the public waters inventory last week, Commissioner Bayer and I uh met with staff, as you know, Klay County has already went through our process, but it is quite cumbersome, and there are some um proposals that we had

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to streamline and make it more user friendly for our residents. In regards to legislation, I I don't have any additional ones to put forward in regards to amendments. Anyone else's policy

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committee areas? Yes, Commissioner Ebinger. >> Yeah, public safety. Just a couple of things that I think have been recurring that are worth considering. One is the supervision section of that. We've really tried for years now to get support full funding of community

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supervision formula. Uh in other states that's a given that that's a state function and should be funded by the state. Um, a lot of this is uh our parole uh system that we have in the in the

400
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state where the counties end up with a a pretty considerable bite, but also additional funding for jails and for um compensating people for for convicted offenders that normally would go to a

401
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state prison but often are are will do their sentencing at various levels of community punishment and that type of thing in in our jails. So, that's a priority. And we're also we're kind of vague in in how it's defined right now,

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but we are going to move into a post armor uh which is our our um regional emergency communication system. There's a lot of discussion about where that's going in light of additional

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costs for next generation 911 and moving into where we're actually going to have video issues with people. They're calling in and want to send a video of what's what's taking place. and that may be very beneficial, but there's going to

404
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need to be uh an entirely fresh look at how the 911 funds are are spent and how armor and and uh it the systems and everybody that works with it are funded. I don't think we're ready. It's not

405
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ready for prime time yet, but in the next couple of years, this is something we should be ready to to address. Commissioner, I I have a couple items that I know you and I have talked about, but might be worth um pushing forward an

406
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amendment. One is um challenging in regards to the deciphering the rule making pro rules in the rulem process for jails. And I understand they closed their comment period already, but you know that continues to be something that there's a lot of variance and

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determination of of what the actual rule is in regards to splitting hairs, which I think has been challenging for counties all across the state, but particularly as Klay County. You know, we're in a place where we have a great facility, but at some point that won't be a new facility anymore, and there

408
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will continue to be pieces. So, keeping that on your radar. And then the second piece is wondering if um AMC or um the legislature would also look at some sort of cap. Um there's variances in regards

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to health insurance requirements and and treatments available for um uh occupants of the jail and >> yeah and juvenile as well. >> Right. And so at at some point um that becomes quite costburdensome and and

410
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what does that look like? Um if there's any appetite for a cap or looking at additional resources that are available to bill additional health insurance. Um you know that's that's your area of expertise, but I know that that can create million-doll swings for counties

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very quickly. We're looking at one now. And every time a you you get a prisoner who's been injured, shot, something like that, the clock starts ticking on trying to get a determination of who's going to take responsibility for that. We had a

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situation like that here where luckily u there was a US attorney that intervened quickly and took it into federal court because it was a series of crimes that took place over two states. Um, I think that

413
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ultimately there I think what we've always discussed is a desire that medical assistance not be cancelled when somebody is is in custody and being held on charges. uh that the at least the public

414
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insurance aspects particularly with juveniles continue and let that cover the bills and not uh assign this prisoner as a as a ward of of the county. >> Well, and I I think that maybe it's

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working through Alio on that to see if now is the time that's right. I understand arguments on both sides, but uh when you regard when you look at what it costs the community um oftentimes to not allow billing of a health insurance can make those costs go up 50 times. So

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>> true. >> Maybe that might be an area for priority. >> It's it's been discussion since I got on the well since before since with the chief's association. It never seems to to get any traction, but that's all the

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more reason maybe we ought to I agree give it some consideration here is and I'll talk to Amelio about making it >> any other committee platforms areas. Yes, >> I'll I said on transportation I'll just touch on a little bit. The AMC supports

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a statewide uh transportation system across Minnesota to move goods around and I believe this county also supports that wholeheartedly. That's that's most what we talk about is just keeping and finding funding for to keep that sustainable.

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>> Commissioner >> Kabanov regard committee I'm working toward is public health and human services. I think the three priorities that were in last last year will continue. Um the tech uh

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technology modernization again uh the amount of money they have it uh while it's very good and uh they'll they'll refine that to get that rolling out but they're just at the very beginning of that and that'll be funding and building

421
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on that for several years to come. SNAP Medicaid of course that's very urgent uh where we're at. So I see that being really strong. The act uh we talked about again clear definitions and

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guidance. And then the last thing I know it comes up almost every meeting is also the lack of treatment facilities uh uh for uh people for mental illness in the state and and um uh what a

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shortage we have. So building on that it'll be those four >> to that I agree I think a continuation of really the top three priorities is important but um when we Steve when we work through we had a bill working

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through to address the the perdm rate allowable for facilities and uh DHS um tanked it said it was a no-go. wondering if we could resurrect that language and maybe have Commissioner Kavanagh propose that um in regards to a

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supportive supported legislation platform. Um that's an issue across the state particularly for us >> that might be worth >> Yeah, I agree with you and yeah, why don't we work on that? So I'm prepared. >> I think it's a good idea. We can talk

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with Steve Summers is from solutions is is a good advocate there and we could work with him also. Commissioner. >> Yeah, I um general government I u I don't have any

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um suggested amendments to what the platform is at this point in time. I think general government oftent times kind of crosses over uh to all the other departments, you know, whether it's broadband because broadband is both through um general government and

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highway transportation and several other things. So, I I guess I don't really have anything to propose right now um in terms of changing or prioritizing what um the county did last year.

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>> Well, this is a leave living breathing document really. Uh I see that AMC has policy platform maybe a lunch and learn and how to format that. My understanding is they will be asking folks to have at least one co-author so it's not just uh

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one county driven. It looks like it's more a regional approach. But uh this is really helpful. And then once we get to uh September if there's any tweaks we can have a reminder to the public this isn't our um capital investment priorities. This is policy level uh

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components and then encourage our department heads if there's any issue that has come up that might uh be helpful with policies uh to put forward to us. Anything else? All right. >> Thank you.

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>> Great. Thank you. Uh committee reports. Commissioner Abinger. Yeah. >> I've got some oldies but goodies here. >> Okay. on the uh Okay. On on the Tuesday the 4th of August,

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uh I attended the West Central Regional Juvenile meeting, >> 4th of July. >> Oh, I'm off of my I've been gone. Let me find my notes. >> I was like, I think today's the 4th of August.

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>> Okay, this is for today's meeting. I didn't put the date down. >> That's okay. >> Okay. On the 14th of July, I attend the West Central Regional Juvenile uh center meeting uh or a meeting uh with

435
02:39:34.800 --> 02:39:50.800
Commissioner Campbell and James O'Donnell just reviewing the West Central Regional Juvenile Center budget prep. Um on the 15th I attended the CS clay inter agency coalition on homelessness.

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We um received a draft of the cast clay uh comprehensive plan for ending homelessness and had a review of it. It is interesting. I look forward to

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working with them in the coming year or so. We've got regular quarterly meetings set up uh to cons cons continue to discuss this. Basically, the framework is four functions that the group needs to look at. One is preventing housing

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02:40:26.800 --> 02:40:43.200
crisis. The other expanding housing opportunities. The third is improve system access and performance. and the fourth is sustain housing stability and all those are going to be worked on by various subcommittees.

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02:40:43.200 --> 02:40:59.200
Um on Thursday myself and Commissioner Campbell attended the West Central Regional Juvenile Center uh board meeting. I'm sure he covered that thoroughly in his report two weeks ago.

440
02:40:59.200 --> 02:41:16.800
Um, basically the high point was we had a review of the upcoming budget for the center. Um, on Friday the 17th of July, uh, myself and Commissioner Bear attended the

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Partnership for Health meeting in Becker County. And as you saw today in his presentation, uh financial review, uh was was a uh fairly comprehensive

442
02:41:34.319 --> 02:41:51.920
part of that. We also discussed legislative updates and uh the dental innovation project updates that are taking place right now. and we had a meeting about changing the uh

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environmental health licensing uh which reflected positively in their per their presentation today and that completes my report. >> Thank you commissioner commissioner Kavanagh. >> Thank you madam chair. I uh had one meeting that was uh yesterday with

444
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morning planning commission. Um we had three public hearings. Uh the one was uh it two of them were in the industrial park. Uh one for Agassy Builders uh requiring a zoning map

445
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amendment and and then also a comprehensive plan amendment. Uh this is in regard to the development of um uh and continuation of uh some shop condos um growing up in that area right on

446
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right off of Main Avenue. Uh and then also within the uh industrial area, they we also had a new conditional use permit for a small Boston auto sales conditional use permit. both those

447
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passed and then also then a down in Partridge Creek, a new development south of 40th Avenue and 14th Street, uh we had um a vacation of a 10-foot utility easement for that addition so they'd

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have uh deeper lots. And that concludes my report. >> Thank you, Commissioner Kavanagh. Commissioner Campbell. >> Thank you. I only had one meeting last week to report on on July 28th. I attended the Red River Regional Dispatch

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Board meeting. Um at that meeting, we we welcome some new members, quite a few new members since the um elections that happened in Fargo and West Fargo. Um then we um

450
02:43:52.399 --> 02:44:10.399
we updated the um different budget and finance committee memberships based on those new members. So that was all taken care of at that meeting. There was no executive committee report and there was no budget and finance committee report because there was no um meetings held

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that month for those two committees. We had an a facility update and we continue to have um the air conditioning units that were in in that facility are still not working. There's four of them and they need to work in tandem, two and two.

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They have two of them working right now and two not working. And so they're still working on getting that established. And you know, we're we're taking the position that it's not our responsibility to pay for that. And not only that, uh it's our it's our position

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that the warranty period will not even start until those are functional and working like they're supposed to. Uh we had a little discussion regarding Brian's assistant position, which is that technology specialist that we approved

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um that is scheduled uh for the 2027 budget. And I just asked for the timeline of when we're going to start um looking for that position. and it can be a key position. Brian has been around there for a long time as Commissioner Eringer is well aware and very knowledgeable, but uh a succession plan

455
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needs to be in place where we can have somebody ready to take over when when he does retire, which will probably be sooner rather than later, you know. So, and then uh we we got a report that we currently have 34 full-time uh

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dispatchers. of the 38 that were authorized, there was one part-time retired and there were also two resignations that are going to be in August. Uh the good news though is that there's a pipeline of of additional um ones in the works

457
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that are going through the process of the training and then ultimately the background checks. So, I think they're pretty confident that we're not going to um fall below where we need to be in our staffing for dispatchers. So, that

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concludes my >> Thank you, Commissioner Campbell, Commissioner Bear. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I only had one meeting. It was about the public water inventory. We had AMC reach out to us to discuss how that went in Klay County. myself, Commissioner Mojo, Darren

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02:46:24.240 --> 02:46:41.200
Brooks, and Matt Jacobson sat down and laid out how we how it was handled in Klay County and if there could be changes, what would we we would want to see for other counties going forward. So, we penned a letter and sent that out to AMC. That is all my reports. Madam Chair,

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>> thank you, Commissioner Bear. Last week I had the opportunity to attend one of the civic engagement events with the chamber uh the women connect lead from any seat that was held in Morehead. Uh great opportunity to do

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that. The next day I assisted at the 4 day camp. They reached out to some members of the uh extension committee. They were uh short volunteers so had the opportunity to uh do day camp at DGF. learned about plants.

462
02:47:12.479 --> 02:47:29.359
The next day, I attended the July public policy update meeting that was held at the chamber. Uh really great updates uh as we wrapped up legislative work. Talked a lot about the federal uh bills that are outlining and then had an update from Estaca at the Greater

463
02:47:29.359 --> 02:47:46.080
Morehead Business Association on their tour to cones. I did request that Stacia worked with county staff. I thought it was a creative way to help our business community during construction projects and as they gather the insight might be

464
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helpful at our quarterly EDA. She's unavailable next week, but uh wanted to maybe participate with the following uh to work with our our other communities on how we could maybe replicate that. Going back to the 4 day camp piece, that

465
02:48:02.240 --> 02:48:18.319
uh 08 position is now posted. So, make sure and share that within your networks. I also attended the PWI update that uh Commissioner Bearer talked about. All of the uh insights that we provided as feedback were um items that

466
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we discussed at this board uh just in regards to how we make that a more streamlined process uh and working with our residents. Friday, I dealt with some resident concerns in regards to the roads within this upstream area of Holy Cross Township. That continues to be a

467
02:48:35.439 --> 02:48:50.720
substantial issue that our highway department is working to address. Uh working with that contractor that we've dealt with. I appreciate Justin's uh availability and quickness to remedy that situation. Yesterday, I attended

468
02:48:50.720 --> 02:49:06.960
the Metrocog executive committee meeting. We did uh talk about a vacancy in that assistant transportation planning planning position. Uh and then the advertisement for filling it and then general business and updates from

469
02:49:06.960 --> 02:49:23.120
the agency. Uh and then one item that I wanted to bring forward to this board. This seems to be a discussion that I'm hearing about a from a lot of different folks. Um, I would would like to ask if this board has an appetite for sending an official letter to the White Earth

470
02:49:23.120 --> 02:49:41.040
Reservation to have a update on the plan process. I know there's been a lot of questions. We haven't heard um officially in that capacity since the March 2025 uh to just to see if their proposal has changed in any way. Um, I sit on

471
02:49:41.040 --> 02:49:57.200
MetroCog and we talk a lot about the five-year plan and what studies need to be out there to address traffic flow counts and I know that did come up. There was a concern from the transportation technical committee uh with MINDOT to talk about what accesses

472
02:49:57.200 --> 02:50:12.880
could look like and just maybe would see if the tribe would be willing to come and present. I also would like some additional feedback from our to our staff. they had a uh their large uh analysis proposal that was done and we

473
02:50:12.880 --> 02:50:28.960
saw the um the two-pager that came out with some additional impacts. And as Klay County moves forward in addressing our budget areas, I know that there was a substantial increase projection to what the Klay County Sheriff's Office would would need to propose. And I just

474
02:50:28.960 --> 02:50:43.840
think it would be helpful for all of us to know. Commissioner Campbell. >> Yeah, I I think that's a good idea. I you know and I you know there's all sorts of um public comments and rumors that are out there

475
02:50:43.840 --> 02:50:59.040
regarding this and and one of them I just want to speak to and that's that uh there's a rumor that the county board has been having closed meetings uh in discussing this project and there there has never been a closed meeting uh this

476
02:50:59.040 --> 02:51:14.479
board has not I commissioner bearer and I are were delegated to be on a committee to discuss this and in in those meetings that have occurred um often times we weren't even invited

477
02:51:14.479 --> 02:51:29.760
as as commissioners to those meetings you know so and again I think part of that was appropriately so staff was trying to gather information that can be useful for the board in the future but the fact of the matter is we have not had any

478
02:51:29.760 --> 02:51:46.319
discussion at board level in a long time we have not heard we have not gotten any um p public um discussion with White Earth what what their plans are and it's I think it's you know they're in the

479
02:51:46.319 --> 02:52:04.240
process of potentially putting this application in for Trust Land and I think we we deserve to to have an update and and be heard and and see go from there. But I I fully support inviting them for an update.

480
02:52:04.240 --> 02:52:22.240
Commissioner Bear, >> I I also support that to see if we can get him to come here and give us an update. >> So, consensus from the whole board. >> Yep. >> Steve, >> thank you, Madam Chair. Um last on the

481
02:52:22.240 --> 02:52:39.520
29th uh I met with Matt Jacobson and Brian Melton on a county property issue uh that's upcoming uh on uh was off on Thursday and Friday and yesterday met with Jessica uh in public health. We

482
02:52:39.520 --> 02:52:56.399
talked through uh some of the transitions as she uh will be shifting to have oversight of withdrawal management and detox uh next uh next month. Um also we went through the solid waste budget with Corey, Lori, and

483
02:52:56.399 --> 02:53:12.880
Darren. Uh and just wanted to provide the board an update. uh county statute requires that um that the CPA is provided by August 1st. Uh our county program aid for next year next year that

484
02:53:12.880 --> 02:53:35.760
was certified as 5,370,467. Uh that is down uh that is down from 5,524,595 last year. Uh so a majority of that uh had to do with the the county tax tax base portion of it. Again, it's two

485
02:53:35.760 --> 02:53:50.399
parts. One's based on needs uh needs of aid and that's based on population age of the population. Uh some of the offenses that have been committed in your community and also three-year SNAP average. Uh but a significant portion of

486
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that uh was based on the the county tax equalization. Uh which again uh that uh could be impacted by in lot of counties that are seeing growth where their te tax capac capacity increases and so the amount that we receive as a county

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decreases um andor it could be a change of the the entire state's tax capacity. Uh and then that that formula then shifts uh to all the different different counties. >> Commissioner Kavanagh. >> Yeah. I didn't uh catch all the numbers,

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but what's the net difference there? >> Uh the net the net difference I believe is 154,000. >> Thank you. >> So the mandates have gone up and the reimbursement has gone down. >> Okay, >> that's correct.

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So, and and I will I would note that I have reached out also to Dan Molly in regards to the White Earth comments and uh City Morehead has also not heard anything uh recently as far as an update. >> Thank you, Ryan.

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>> Darren. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um on Wednesday the 29th, I had a meeting with Steve and Anna uh regarding the detox reorganization. Also, I attended this uh meeting with Steve, Matt, and Brian about a nuisance pro property. Um, and a

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meeting with Steve and Anna on another personnel issue on the 30th. Uh, I had a meeting which was already covered on the public waters inventory update. Um, also dealt with a citizens concern and responded to a data request on Friday

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the 31st. Uh, worked some more on the data practices prog. um submitted a mandatory 2120-day union report and had a inquiry from WDAWY about the upcoming hunting season and the changes. Uh they were more concerned

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with what the enforcement plans were. So I referred them to the sheriff. On Monday the 3, I had a meeting with Steve for some catchup on some few items. Uh I also had a training on UKG timekeeping module which we were uh possibly looking

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at in the future. And I also attended the pre-budget meeting with solid waste uh Monday afternoon as well. That concludes my report. >> Thank you. Sarah, do you have anything? >> Make sure I saw that the registration

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for fall policy conference, if you have any desire to go there, make sure and communicate with Sarah. Uh today is night two unite and I see that on the schedule in a few minutes our county sheriff will be participating in the burger cookoff. So good luck to sheriff

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emptying. Our next uh meeting is August 11th. Having uh dealt with all the business before the board, we are adjourned.