--------- Good morning everyone. It's 8:30. We'll call this morning's meeting of the Klay County Board of Commissioners to order for Tuesday, September 2nd. Our first item is the approval of the agenda. Do we have any additions or corrections to the agenda? We do not, Mr. Chair. Right,
Mr. Chair, I move to approve the agenda. Second. Right. We have a mo motion by Commissioner Einger, second by Commissioner Bear. Any further discussion? Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying I.
I oppose the same sign. Motion carried. Next we have employee recognitions. Thank you. First we have Darren Skank. Darren, 25 years of dedicated service to Klay County. Thank you very much.
Thank you. And Jerry, you would like to say a few things. Congrats, Darren. Uh, so Darren is an exceptional employee. He really represents everything that you want to see in an employee. Um, his reliability,
his work ethic is really second to none. um he has a unique ability to keep things light-hearted at the jail with his uh quick wittedness, but it's it's something that you need around in that environment. Um best thing I can say about Darren is just he is a guy that
you just want to be around all the time. So, thanks Darren. Congratulations. Next we have Kathy McCay, 25 years. Congratulations, Kathy. Steve, did you want to uh Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh first of
all, I just want to thank Kathy for her 25 years of dedicated service and leadership in public health. Uh she's led the county through some uh pretty challenging times including H1N1, uh several flood events and of course the the nasty seawword. Um we want to thank her for all the work that she's done in
her remarkable career. So congratulations Kathy. All right. [Applause] And we have Satie Albbright, 15 years with social services. And I understand
Satie is not going to be here, but Sandy, you're going to I am accept and say something on behalf of her. All right. So Satie is one of my hybrid workers and today she's working from home and didn't want to make the trek in. But um Satie first started in child
support in Becker County um probably about 20 years ago, then moved to Klay County as an financial worker and then moved into my unit as a child support officer. She has one of the most challenging types of case loads in our
unit. It's one where there's no real way to collect until you build rapport with somebody and make them want to pay their support. So, she does an awesome job with that and we are very grateful to have her with the county. Okay. You tell her thank you and
congratulations on behalf of all of us. I'll do that. All right. Thank you, Sandy. Well, apparently these people didn't come to see us this morning. All right, we'll move on with our agenda. Next, we have the uh citizens comments.
Do we have any citizens comments on items not on the agenda this morning? There's seeing none in the audience. Any online? We do not, Mr. Chair. Thank you. We will then move on to approval of bills and vouchers. I'll make a motion to pay the bills and vouchers. Second the motion.
Have a motion by Commissioner Bear, second by Commissioner Mojo. Any further discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying I. I. Oppose. The same sign. Motion carried. Approval of minutes from August 19th. Move to approve the
minutes. 19. Second. Motion by Commissioner Krabanhoff, second by Commissioner Ebinger. Any further discussion on the motion? Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying I. I.
Oppose. The same sign. Motion carried. Our 835 item is a request approval to hire a motor greater operator. Good morning, Justin. Good morning. So yeah, the item that I have today is requesting approval to hire a motor grader operator and then
per union policy, this position would have to be posted internally for 5 days before we post it to the general public. Any further questions? Yes. So you will be wanting back fill on this? Yes.
Any further discussion? Mr. Chair, I I uh recommend that we motion to approve the hiring of a motor greater operator. A second. All right, we have a motion by Commissioner Abier, second by Commissioner Krabangh. Any further
discussion? Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying I. I. Oppose the same. Motion carried. All right. Thank you, Justin. We'll see you later for highway tracking. Right. All right. Next, we have the request
approval for the housing and redevelopment authority HRE of Klay County to levy a and collect a special benefit tax. Morning, Dura. And you can introduce your guests with you. Good morning, Chair Campbell.
Commissioners, my name is Dara Lee. I'm the executive director of the Klay County Housing and Redevelopment Authority. And with me is Don Bacon, deputy director of the authority and vice chairperson Anthony Dillard uh of the HA Commission. Chair Brassith for
the H Commission may be joining us and is stuck in I94 traffic. So, we will hope. Can't believe that. I know it's shocking. Um, we are here today requesting consent to a special benefit check tax uh of an
HRA levy for the 2026 year. The Klay County HR has a statutory authority to levy to support housing activities. However, this levy does require consent of the Klay County Commission
and each year prior to the H board of commissioners levying at all, they try to carefully balance the needs and the cost to the taxpayer payers against the additional investments that this levy
can create in the community and the housing programs that it can s can support. So this year the levy amount of $300,000 is approximately 17% of the maximum HA levy of almost $1.8 million.
This results in a cost of $3.11 per $100,000 in taxable market value. So, most citizens of Klay County, most households will be paying less than $10 per year um in order to help leverage
and housing resources and deliver those um needed items to the community. One of the items that it supports that you probably haven't heard about much is that we sponsor the Minnesota City's Participation Program for Klay County.
This is a Minnesota housing program that allows Klay County residents to access first-time home loaner lo firsttime homeowner loans, down payment assistance, and lower income loans to fix up their properties. Prior to us
taking this over, it was only available in specific cities within the county of Morehead, Holly, Barnesville, Dworth, and Glendon. And they had to reapply every year. Um, since we've taken that over, it's available to all city uh all
citizens in Klay County. This year, we're on pace to do $8 million in first-time loans and other assistance through Minnesota housing through this program. So, many of our folks who are um paying this levy have also benefited
from being able to utilize this program. It is administered by our local banks. And so anybody who's out there interested to talk to their realators and the local banks about how to access this resource, there's also information available on the Minnesota Housing
website. Can you give the name of that one more time? It's called the Minnesota Cities Participation Program, and it's through Minnesota Housing, and it helps moderate and low-income homeowners access reduced
interest rate funding for their homes, both to purchase down payment assistance and to fix them up. Thank you. Um, but this is one of the things that there's no administrative dollars that come with. The program is extremely quick and easy for us to administer. Uh
but there's no money to do it unless we utilize funds such as levy funds to do that. Um we also make additional investments using these levy funds u for our local homeowners. We uh use primarily the rehabilitation loan program through
Minnesota housing for any extremely lowincome homeowner in the county to make up to $27,000 through state funding plus potentially matching levy funds to make basic improvements to their homes. Typically there's our roofs, siding, windows,
heating systems. Sometimes we have a collapsed sewer uh that comes along. Um and we use direct levy funds to help support this as well as using those levy funds to leverage programs such as the Minnesota deed small cities development
program. Um we're currently working with the city of Dworth um who received $1.2 $2 million to rehabilitate 23 homeowner owns plus I think we've worked with six businesses so far and are encouraging additional businesses in the highway 10
strip to also make improvements to their property. We are eager eagerly awaiting um information on the grant application for the city of Barnesville we submitted for an additional $1.2 2 million and that too
would benefit about 23 homeowners and up to 16 businesses in that community. Klay County uh we used leverage funds plus the state affordable housing aid that was awarded to Klay County in order to use as leverage for that application.
In addition, we use levy funds directly to try to end child homelessness in our community. That is one of the primary uses of these funds and we do that in cooperation with a lot of partners. Um, in 2014, Klay County levy funds were
used to create this program as one of and our chair, Commissioner Bratz joins us. Um, we used those funds to create a pilot program in Klay County in partnership with CAP LP, Churches United for the
Homeless, Klay County Social Services, and after and the Morehead School Districts. Um, we were one of three pilots awarded funding. Our pilot was extremely successful. Uh ours served as the basis for the development of a brand new state
of Minnesota program that went into effect in 2018 called homework starts with home. Uh we are the only entity to be continuously funded under that program. Um and we are able to serve households referred by local school districts who have children who are
facing homelessness in their classes. Um this has been a very effective partnership. We now have partnerships with all the schools within Klay County as well as a myriad of other partners. Um, in fact, CAP LP and us were on a
call last week uh where they increased the investment in Klay County to over a million dollars um per year when uh one of the applicants who'd received uh funding uh declined the award. Um, so we're down to once again three
recipients across the entire state of Minnesota and Klay County HR and CAP LP are one of those three. This is just one of the programs that we have targeted in ending um child homelessness and levy funds are used to
support all of those. Um we also um this is just one of our examples of collaboration. We have worked with a variety of partners in trying to maximize housing supports and resources throughout our community. One of those examples was, as
we all know, um a year ago, Churches United was in somewhat of a dire situation. Um and we were grateful to see the entire community to come to play a part in make sure making sure that that resource continued. One of the ways
that the HRA contributed is they have two permanent support of housing developments, Bright Sky Apartments and Silver Linings that just opened and the HR took over the administration of a program called housing supports in conjunction with Klay County Social
Services. The HA is now providing case management or supportive services to approximately half the residents of those buildings. Uh the HA also provides at least 75 up to 90% of the rental assistance for people to pay their rents
in those units. So those are 43 households at Bright Sky and about 42 I believe at uh at Silver Linings. Um, we have a long history of partnering with and oftentimes sharing
money with Klay County Social Services, CAP LP, Presentation Partners in Housing, CCRI, Lakeland Mental Health Central, Metro Behavioral Health Center, um, the Lotus Center, uh, the FM
Coalition to End Homelessness, the West Central Minnesota Continuum of Care, our local schools, and many others. And these levy funds are what makes that a reality to be able to do. Um we are traditionally able to leverage $ 15 to $20 for every
dollar that the citizens of Klay County pay through their local property taxes in order to get these resources into the community. Um and we do that oftentimes in partnership. uh so that the the numbers that I provide to you are
typically annual or bianual amounts that we are able to to increase but we don't talk about that ongoing commitment. Uh the H brings in over $8 million in federal resources uh that are supported as well as we've discussed a number of
the state resources uh that are also at play. I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have. Yes, Commissioner Bear. How many How many years have you been coming here and asking for this?
The first time we requested the levy was in 274208. And you've been coming every year since. We have not. The H board of commissioners once again takes a look um I don't want to speak on their behalf, but I think they carefully try to
balance the needs in the community versus the costs to the taxpayers. So we have only come in in years that it was really critical and when there were program opportunities in order to leverage significant resources to come
into the community. So we we look for funding in whatever way we can and we're not in this to make any money. We're just trying to stay solvent. Uh this is the 50th anniversary year of the HR. Um,
and you will see we are not having any big celebrations. Um, we're not investing in things that say 50th anniversary because we're looking to just meet the most critical needs and using all of our resources to meet those
needs. I I mentioned about a parking lot pavement last time. Well, it was because we're moving staff back to our main office and uh we only had enough parking spots to uh for our staff and when our board meetings are there, it would leave one spot available which would be
accessible parking. Um and so we we need to be accessible to the community and so we have to make some of these things to be ADA compliant and um be able to actually deliver services. But we try to focus all of our resources. Um we have one of the lowest
administrative overhead costs that you will see. We normally operate at 5 to 7% overhead uh for administrative where typically you know you see 10 to 15% at least within most agencies. So we try to operate lean uh like I said we're not
here I I think my board would never support something um that we were not doing just to try to maintain that sol solveny along with leveraging those resources into the community. Any other questions?
Um, when it comes to the you you had mentioned you're waiting to hear from Barnesville on the 1 point was that is that a grant through deed or Yes, correct. Is federal funds to deed that are then competitively awarded throughout. when all of those things
when those applications are submitted, are there um leverage dollars that are but by those communities that are also being put in? Uh yes, sir. Barnesville has had
back in I say the 70s, 80s and 90s, they had done some of their own um applications until that it kind of became too complex and time consuming. So that they had reached out to us and so for funds that were leveraged back then and have been repaid, they're
putting those in as well. So they and so and they also use staffing resources to assist. For example, the city of Morhead, does the city of Morehead have are they are they putting anything in for leverage dollars towards homelessness?
Uh towards homelessness? Yes. And is it is it through the HR or um last year? I know it was through Klay County. I'm sorry. Churches United, but they also must consent to this levy since I I Yeah, I saw that.
Cities Citizens of Morehead would also I didn't know if they if they do anything similar to this within their own budgets is what I'm asking. Yes, they did award funds to Churches United and then last year they awarded funds to
the HA um to assist with the front desk security I'm sorry with the security at a number of our properties within the city of Morehead. Those included Gateway Gardens, Fieldcrest Apartments, Ber Apartments. I will look to Dawn. They
also have contributed uh over $150,000 for leverage uh for improvements at the um Riverview Heights high-rise. And so the city of Morhead is also making those investments. Yes. Thank you.
Any other questions, comments? Yeah. Uh I'll just make a couple overview comments. So, I'm really uh pleased that I get to hear our monthly meetings. Uh also happy for the um two workg groupoup sessions we have. I
thought what you added today from what we heard last Tuesday Tuesday Tuesday was helpful. Some of it little bit of a repeat, but I picked up on a couple new items. Um I just um I mean I I guess I'm just impressed the way that you can
leverage money and the uh amount of funds that are taking place and the um and the collaboration that I see uh happen mainly between UKAP and and how that feel and churches United I think is
really um kind of settled down some of the uh well certainly some of the pressures that were existing only a few months ago. So, you bring us in a positive direction and congratulations on the new grant that
you picked up also for what was it 1.7 million or whatever the one it was 2 million but okay two million. All right. So, just uh positive comments for your board. If I if I can commission motors and then I'll I just wanted to um comment
briefly. Commissioner Bear raised a question about how often I I remember for quite some time it was like an every other year type of a deal that that request came in. Um it not exact but it's it was that uh I just wanted to
mention on the the availability of funds for homeowners to upgrade their their housing. That's something that I've always supported. Um there's been there
oftentimes that might be the the difference in them staying there and it also might be the difference in that property becoming blighted to the point where it is a distraction to all the neighbors around them. So, so that part of that is I've
always felt is a is a really good program and it helps keep people in their homes. Commissioner Mojo, thank you. Thanks for the presentation. Thanks also for actively being part of our uh meetings every six months. I think it's been really helpful for us to
make sure that we're uh providing feedback and understanding the issues that you're seeing, but also your presence at our small cities meetings. I think having you there has been helpful for the smaller cities to know how to reach out. But I appreciate that you're
helping with the staffing capacity on applications for and navigating really the grant processes. Um you know I I constantly say I go back to my 4 days on what our cost per wear type piece is and um I would challenge all departments
really to make a dollar worth $25 coming in. I think that's phenomenal. that speaks to um how well you know how to apply for those pieces um and how you can take issues that we're seeing in our
county and advocate for them. So, I I really appreciate that. I talked to you this week about making sure that we're using dollars that we receive in the most effective way to affect families in the best possible way to affect retirees, all sorts of folks so they can
stay in their homes. Um, and I spent a lot of time at the Capitol with the um, FM Chamber of Commerce, and one of the biggest pieces for the chamber and workforce development is housing. And we talk critically about how do we um, make
sure we have the housing capacity in our communities to support our workforce needs. And so what you're doing really does that. I uh, really appreciate that. And I think my closing piece is it's not lost on me that I was late to this meeting because I was waiting for a school bus to pick
up my children. And I think a lot of people in our county don't know that there are school buses in Klay County that pick up children at the homeless shelter. And your work, particularly with CAP LP, really goes to strengthen
those um supports for kiddos that are in really challenging situations. Um uh it it's really tricky for someone who is that's not even in their realm of reality to understand how challenging
those outcomes can be and the funds in which you're utilizing to support those families uh really goes to take off a significant burden onto our already demanding social services pieces. Um, and so I I also don't always love that
we have to have levy requests, but most of the levy requests that we're going to talk about today do not bring in $8.1 million with $300,000. I mean, it's just it's the nature of your work. So, um, I always caution us
to make sure, as I said, we're utilizing this in the best possible way to serve the people that we are. Um, I continue to advocate that you work closely with our small cities and when issues arise that we're really responsive to those
issues. Um, but thanks for your work, Commissioner Ever. and just echo some of the thoughts that have been expressed. But um I'm portfolio includes homeless issues and it is a tough not to crack.
The resources we have in this in this community, not just Klay County, but Cass and the immediate area are stretched and often underfunded. and what uh what your your outfit did
coming through for Churches United is acknowledged and appreciated. Uh I was at Silver Linings opening and you know it's you you're not going to cure the whole problem uh all at once. But that was a pretty
big bite out of an area that's hard a group that's hard to house and hard to maintain for them. the funding that you're you're putting on maintaining our older homes is critical. Uh we have an aging uh housing
stock and if they if people aren't afforded the opportunity to keep their houses in repair, you'll see what you see in a lot of communities is these house homes and neighborhoods were developed in the 40s and 50s and 60s are going to start falling apart and we'll
go backwards on our meeting the needs of housing. Um, it's a good investment and it's tough for anybody here on this commission right now. We're looking at at property taxes and we realize
uh Commissioner Campbell's frequently says it's most regressive tax that we've got to deal with and it impacts in a very negative way on a lot of the people that you are serving. people of low income pe uh elderly and workingclass
people that are trying to get into homes. So, we try and keep a lid on the taxes, but there there comes a time where you have to acknowledge the return on investment is is uh very impressive
with the H. So, appreciate the work you're doing. All right. I there's a um maybe a question for Mr. Larson. Is is this something that requires a resolution with the resolution number on it for something? It does not. Mr. Chair.
Okay. I just wanted to make sure of that. Commissioner Krabnoff. Just one more question also. Um so upon uh tell me the process here between us and your other entities. So um
you need approval from us as well as from the small cities or what is it? We will we need a you know as with the H everything's a little bit complicated. Um so under the state statute we need approval from other communities that
have a housing and redevelopment authority. Clearly that's the city of Barnesville. Um, unclearly, it may or may not be the city of Morehead, but as a courtesy, we always do go to Morehead. Um, they have a public housing agency.
I we're not interested in having a legal debate about whether that qualifies or not. So, we go and receive the consent or request the consent um to that um body as well. And that will we're on the agendas for
next Monday for both of those councils. I just if I could follow up. I just I was gratified CAP LP and the HR were on a call with Minnesota housing last Thursday and the staff at Minnesota Housing. Every once in a while it feels
like we're not making progress at all, but they were like, "We have confidence that you guys will be the first ones in the state to actually end child homelessness because of the commitment of all the partnerships, including the county." So, that that was nice to hear
every once in a while. Yes, Commissioner Bear. So, you're you're asking for 300,000 on tax levy. Could you do less? No. Um, if we could, we would. Uh, last year we requested, I believe, 500,000.
Um, and then we were able to work with the county on the state affordable housing aid. Um, like I said, we're not trying to make any money. We're just trying to stay solvent. Um and people have heard me say on a number of occasions that during the pandemic we
sign we experienced significant losses. Um in 2023 our um net uh available for investment uh declined by $180,000. In 2024 it declined by $90,000.
We spent our reserves and if we still had reserves, we would be using utilizing that in an attempt to bring in other outside resources. So no, we would have to stop operating some of these programs that we do believe the return
on the investment is worth it for the citizens. Right. It's the board's wishes. Yeah. Well, I'll make a motion to approve the H the county and collect special benefit
tax of 300,000 for 2026. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Kavanagh, second by Commissioner Ebinger. Any further discussion on the motion? Any further discussion?
Sarah, roll call vote, please. Commissioner Kraven, I. Commissioner Mojo, yes. Commissioner Campbell, yes. Commissioner Bear, no. Commissioner Ebinger, hi. All right, that motion carries and the um
levery request is granted. Thank you. All right. Next, we have a um budget presentation from probation. My paperwork here. Right. Good.
First, I want to say thanks for being patient uh with me and trying to get this together. Um a lot of this information is a little new to me in the last two weeks and I need some time to Can you talk close to your mic? Yep. Sorry. I think this is always my problem.
Um yeah, so thank you uh for giving me some time to put these numbers together so that I can first of all make sense of it myself and be able to provide you something that um hopefully makes sense today. It'll be a little complicated.
I'll ask that you bear with me uh through the presentation. Um and if you have any questions, feel free at the end. All right. Um, so I want to open with the funding formula statute uh 40110
and specifically a uh the funding formula statute for the state of Minnesota started uh July 1 of 2023. the community supervision subsidy paid to each county. Uh the commissioner for supervision of nonCCA jurisdictions
served by the Department of Corrections and to each applicable tribal nation under paragraph E equal to the sum of there's a base funding amount of 150,000 for each county. Uh, and there's a
community supervision formula equal to the sum of. And then there's some language there that I'm going to get into. I'm going to break this down a little bit more so that it's hopefully a little easier to understand. And so, the purpose of the community
supervision funding formula is to reimburse expenditures tied to community supervision and community-based programming and services for persons involved in the justice system. Um so that part of this slide is something I
said last year. Um however the funding formula has changed in the last year to include all of felony and misdemeanor supervision tied together. Um the formula consists of the number of clients on supervision.
Um whether that's felony um you know supervised release and probation. And then uh you take that the new part of the formula it's the average of three years. So 21 22 and 23 that's new this
year times a capitated rate which is 5.62 per individual on supervision and then times per day. Um historically the funding formula was done as a whole for all on supervision. The only responsibility of the county
was 50% of that number for contracted offices. So, misdemeanor, gross misdemeanor, and juvenile. And the funding formula has changed in 2026 to cover any overages and felony supervision. And so, this is new. Um,
the capitated rate has remained constant. And so, why has that changed? Uh based on the 2025 data, the total appropriation needed to fully fund this formula statewide was 155,880,993.
In 2025, the legislature appropriated 143,378,000 or 91% of what was required to cover the the appropriation which fell short by
12,5200 or $52,993. So, um, historically when falling short, uh, the state has covered these costs for felony supervision. Uh, and it's my understanding that this year, um, they
aren't able to do that and so those costs are falling back on the counties. I'll explain how much of a difference this will be and then I'm also going to talk about some of the efforts I've made uh, to reduce this increase. um
as much as I can. Okay. And so you can see for 2024 the salaries agent clerical full and part-time uh 679,83. That includes 4.5 agents that are contracted for gross miser supervision and three county support staff in 2026.
You can see on that side it says 173. That's because we've removed the 4.5 agent positions from the county budget uh because of the difference in the funding formula. I'll explain that in a little bit. Um and then I'm going to explain a little bit later to um how there's a
reduction under SDS, health insurance, PAR, social security, uh rent um totaling. You'll see then that the the expenditure you can't see my mouse up there. the expenditure for 2024 893,350
and for 2026 304,000. And so what that means is I've taken the felony piece out of it now um because the funding formula ties everything together. However, I'm still going to explain the difference should the funding formula never have changed. Okay?
And so this is exactly that the total cost for salaries and what I'm comparing to is 2024 because we don't have all of the information from 2025 yet. And so the best comparison I've got hard numbers from 24. Let's see how 2026
compares. So 4.5 uh contract employee salaries 438. And since the funding formula came out, um, each county within the jurisdiction joint and severally pays for a portion of an OAS senior position because the
OAS senior covers all of the districts um, in the jurisdiction. And then um, the supervisor pay and management and management um, I'll talk about a little bit more about what that what is rolled up in that in a little bit. And so you
pay um um a small subcomponent of those overall costs. And so for 2024 that amounted to $80,000. Um and so for when you tie in the salaries and these management costs in 2024 the county paid 518,000 for uh
contracted supervision. In 2024 they paid nothing for felony supervision. if continued in 2026 utilizing the old formula um including you know cola increases, salaries, raises and
everything else uh 438 would have went to 510 uh OAS supervisor and management would have went to 93 and so that number would have been 604 and so when you think about that difference just over those two years there's been some increases
um and you're looking at roughly there you know 80,000 $78,000 which is something to think about. Um, so the funding formula uh to include all staff salaries, the subsidy from the state, the county subsidy, the base
funding tied all together, the numbers are from a three-year average. And this year for every county in the state, they're paying an ICO cost. Uh, and I'll show that on the next slide. So now on the next slide,
ic it's like uh it's the system that the state utilizes to transfer individuals on supervision from one state to another. And there's a whole there's a whole team that makes up that system that ensures that we're complying
with federal law in that process. And so now there's a cost associated with that. And so on the next slide here now I'm going to break down the funding formula uh the change uh that we're going to see in 2026. And so this is how it works. I showed
this last year. Um people on felony adult supervision probation and supervised release numbers from 2021 to 2023. The average was 650 uh for Klay County times the capitated rate times every day of the year. you end up with
1,333,000 for gross misdemeanor supervision. 281 * 562 * 1 year 576,415.3 and as the statute identifies that is the county's responsibility is 50% of that number. So we take that 576 and
divide that by two to get 288. Historically, when uh the county was paying um under the under the old funding formula, we weren't including any overages and felony supervision. This kickback, this 288 comes back to the county, and I'll show you what you
got in 2024, how that reduced u what the county's respon overall responsibility was going to be. And so, we add these numbers together, we get a total of 1,621,000. The legislature has agreed to not fully
fund to the tone of roughly 92%. In comparison to 24 and 25, they were at 91.5. So it did go up a little bit. Um that's good news. And so but but overall that reduces that 1,600 to 1,400.
we add the base allocation that each county gets within the department of corrections 150,000 times that uh times that 92% and you get 137 um and so and then we also have to minus
as I indicated that ic calculation for clay county the ICOs calculation is different for every county as you can imagine we're border borderline one of the bigger cities outside of Minnesota and so we are top five in the state for the number of interstate transfers that
we do in and out of our district here. It seems like uh adding all of that up 1,618,951 is our subsidy for 2026 in comparison to 2025. A reduction of $9,513. Probably think maybe that's where that
ICOs calculation came in there a little bit. And that's why you're seeing somewhat of a little a little reduction there. So what does the subsidy mean? Before I go there, I want to talk about 2024. In 2024, Klay County received two bills
to from the state totaling 518,000. Um, and then when we added that to the county budget, the total was 8.93 350. We minus that state subsidy. And so in 2024, half of the misdemeanor, gross
misdemeanor and juvenile numbers that we had talked about in the funding formula was 261. And so this year it's 280. So that's went up. So we minus this from uh both the salaries of the contracted staff,
the county budget um and you get a total of 632,06. that was the overall expense for supervision in 2024. So, let's compare it to um some of the
changes that have been made in the last year. Now, since we don't focus solely on county staff, we rope all staff into the funding formula. So, clay count clay felony and contract staff wages totaling 1.8 million.
And that's for 24 agents, six support staff, or I'm sorry, three support staff because the county staff numbers are on a different spreadsheet. Um, the Clay DS OAS senior and management 291753.
The sum of operation expense CE8,68152. And so that totals 2,266206. Um, we also have 1.5 positions that are contracted or not contracted, they're grant-f funded positions through the state and that's uh, you know, our our newly developed DWI court and then half
of our drug court. So, we subtract those costs and we're down to 2,14850. Now, we subtract the state subsidy, the number that's generated by the funding formula, and what you're left
with for the budget in 2026 is 525,899 in comparison to the Klay County expense in 2024, 257266. Now, there won't be as big of a jump as there was when adding the county budget
in 2024 to what those D doc expenses were in 2024. Um, and that's simply because of a lot of changes that have occurred in the county budget. And those changes are 304,586.
And so the total expense uh that we we're going to need to budget for for 2026 is 83485 versus the 63206 from 2024. So it's an increase of roughly 200,000.
Couple of things to take into consideration. Go ahead. Just trying as we go through these numbers, I'm trying to find out where the increases have been concealed. And if we could put the Oh, okay.
on the on the uh clay felony and contract staff wages. Prior to this year, did we pay felony staff wages? Nope. So, that's been added in. A portion of it has been added in as my understanding. Yes. like 8.1 or
for instance, the felony overages for 2025 for Klay County were over $300,000 and the Department of Corrections covered those in 2025 and every year prior. Is there a higher number of felony cases uh given the policies of the uh
Department of Corrections to try and do more community-based u sentencing? Is there a higher number of of felony cases that are being brought into us now than maybe the last five-year average?
No, I would say that uh in in this district the the numbers trend down. You know, it's our goal to follow best practices. Um if somebody is doing very well on supervision, they've completed the conditions for the court. um they're
very motivated and they're confident in their ability to make major life changes. Uh you know, working with the prosecution and the defense, we've moved towards early discharge of supervision.
Um and that's what best practice shows us. For somebody who's extremely low risk on supervision, keeping them on supervision for longer periods of time, um can end up problematic. And I'm paraphrasing, you know, there's a lot of data behind that and stuff.
In effect, that would reduce the number of felony. It does reduce the number of felony people on supervision. Okay? Even if more are coming out, more getting off off probation earlier. People that are low risk of recidiv recidivating in the community, people
that are low risk of continuing their status quo behavior are more likely to get off of supervision early than somebody that's high risk. The increase or the shift of funding for some of these felony cases to the counties. Is
that contained in statute or was that a function of the budget? It's a function of the budget. This there's nowhere in statute that says 8.2 or whatever proportion uh will be shifted to the counties. It's it's a it's a function of the
Department of Corrections. Um and so, you know, the funding formula is very clear as to what those expenses will be for each county. um in in putting that together. There's nothing in statute to my knowledge um that had said that the Department of
Corrections is responsible for those overages. I think it's really unfortunate the budget situation that we're in this year. Um and so this is this is where we're left with. Granted, I found out this in two weeks. Um looking at uh the
situation that we're in, we have a little bit of time before the end of the year. been working closely with Steve and Lori uh to really take a good look at this to see if there's any other um moves that we can make to diminish this as much as possible. I cannot speak to
the future of the funding formula. Um you hear things um and I'll get to that at the end of the presentation here. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. If I could, as Dale said, we've worked closely.
We've run this budget backwards, forwards multiple times and and again under I mean I think this is a a great example of not shooting the messenger. Dale's been great as he mentioned kind of at the beginning of this we were had planned to come to you about a month ago. Uh and uh after we presented um he
he received some information that that there was going to be a tweak and so we've pulled that and been meeting since. I think to kind of one of the points of the of concern uh of this well there are several points of concern but I think one of the challenging parts that's disappointing is the funding's
based on the number of people that are on probation and as Dale's mentioned uh they've received uh a lot of recognition across the state for their ability to take those lowrisisk recidivism rate individuals and move them off. Uh, and
so the ironic part of this and this shift is we're we're almost now as a county being penalized because of the great work that they're doing. So ditto. So how was to that point? How was that vetted or who who does that?
That's a very good question. I don't have the answer to that question. Um, and you know, this is something that I've found out in the last two weeks. Um, I'm my guess would be the commissioner of corrections.
Um, and the powers that be above that is definitely something I could provide you more information on. I think when I've initially received the funding formula information and the changes, I mean, I had tunnel vision. So, trying to work this out
no matter what. I I'm just saying as far as statewide other counties, do you do you feel there's quite a few others in the same spot we are? Yeah, I think um many counties are going to see
an increase this year. Um go ahead. I haven't I haven't really seen any comparison. I we talk about on here we talk about 2026 versus 2024. I haven't really seen anything
comparison for 2026 versus 2025 other than this sheet that you have that that we've got presented to us. I don't know if Steve put that down for us, but when all is said and done, what I'm seeing here, the proposal that we have on here
that says after adjustments for 2026, the expenditures um bless the grants total 755,637. And that compares to the same number of 611,016
for 2025, which means that we're um we're asking it's being asked for an increased levy of 144,641. Does that do those numbers sound I mean that's what that's what's that's what we have in front of us here. So, we have
the county has not yet been build for 2025 and so it's hard for me to make that comparison. Um, you know, I like to work with Lori to get those hard numbers to work with so that I can, you know, the information I'm presenting is
as factual as it possibly can be. Um, and so we're waiting for the end of the billing cycle for 2025. Um, you want a calendar year? What's that? When you say a billing cycle for the state, is that a is that a calendar year? Is it a fiscal year? That
I'm assuming they're fiscal, right? We we bill from January to June and then from July to December. And so on this slide here, I showed you that uh good luck finding it here. It's right
here. From January to June in 2024, your build 26391. from July to December 255619. And the second half of the bill for 2025 the county has not received yet. Correct. Okay.
So the numbers that you have or that we have here they somebody had uh those are budgeted estimations. Those are those are what is anticipated to be the total. Yep. and for 2025, you know, taking into
consideration that um that that was put together under the old funding formula, the overages for 2025 will be covered by the Department of Corrections. It's my understanding. So, this is only the budget for 2026. I do got a couple of slides left. I
Okay, go ahead. Um at the bottom here, you know, something that's new. It's not a budget line item for us. you know, this is more so for the general fund, but the felony uh probation office rent, you know, in the last year, we've moved the felony
supervision into the courthouse. Um that helps kind of alleviate, I would hope to some degree, the overall cost of the county um and to the tune of over 70,000 as well. So, when you think about that,
so what changed in 2025 in the county budget? uh the state ended their STS program. Uh the county was responsible for threequarters uh of the salary of that position. The contract office rent will decrease by
11,000 when we in 2026. Hopefully by the end of October, the contract office will move into the family service center and it's a little bit of a smaller space. I think it'll fit them um their needs well. Um but that's a reduction of 11. Decrease to proposed health insurance.
uh decreased to PARA, decrease to social security. And so we add all of these up um in looking at some of the difference just in the county dollars. Um I'm looking at a relative decrease of around 170,000. So that impacts it too. Um that
200 without some of those changes, you know, you could imagine that we were looking at 350. I want to talk a little bit about the benefits of partnering with the Department of Corrections. Uh just one minute deal. Yep. Yeah. So those rice they look like is it
less employees then? Yeah. That we have one less employee. Okay. Yep. That would have been those costs part of it. Yep. For sure. Absolutely. Um and so the benefits of partnering with the DOC, you pay um a sub component
of these overall costs. Uh CSTS is a software program that we use within the department for supervision. there's cost associated. LSMI is uh our assessment tool in the state of Minnesota. Uh we have an evidence-based practices unit of
trainers. Uh five individuals from the department of corrections. Um employee development, human resources, HR, background checks, recruitment, retention, performance management, FMLA, workman's compensation, housing support unit. Uh we have a work group to support
homeless uh and struggling populations. Uh we have an IT, you know, we have minute. Um they're responsible for the laptops, monitors, servicing fees, uh printer, you know, all of those things. Legal affairs, support of defensive litigation
should the county ever need, uh planning and performance unit, workload studies, recidivism studies, data request needs, um safety administrator, body armor, safety gear for the field, self-defense training, verbal deescalation. We have a support staff or a support and wellness
committee, peer support training initiative to promote a healthy lifestyle. And so these are some of the things that are tied in by contracting with the department um where you pay not a full cost associated with that. That's those are those are some pretty
significant benefits. And finally, I just want to talk about some of the collaborative projects um that we've been working on in the last year. Uh right now I'm part of the or I was we've kind of come to the end of this the CSTS planning phase 3 committee and so the department of corrections has
been working with other districts uh in the state to put our software program together to really meet the needs um of the efforts that we're we have going for evidence-based practices and the DOC has been a major proponent um for these
changes to occur and they align specifically with our case planning with our case planning projects. um domestic violence response committee. I've talked about that in the past. We have a risk needs work group um and a Minnesota pre-screener. So, the
Department of Corrections is working on utilizing a screening tool to screen out individuals on supervision who are ultimately low risk so that we don't have to go through vetting them for the entire case planning process. Saves time um amongst other things. uh we were
working with an IDA pilot um targeting um specific uh individuals who have been convicted of DWI um to focus on what are their drivers uh and reducing their risk. um ACJI uh we've been working with
implementation science and so as you can imagine some of the struggles of any department when trying to change what you're doing in your department uh it it can be really problematic and what we found is you know um going through ACGI and being trained on implementation
science um that's been uh extremely beneficial other EVP initiatives we have an enhanced sex offender supervision roadmap so the strategy ies that we use to target case planning with those convicted of a sex offense. Um has
really been targeted in the last year. We and then that also rolls over into general supervision uh road map DWI court drug court and many of the local you know committees that I'm involved in CAP LP uh suicide substance use
um safe harbor response mental health collaboration. So, new in 2026, uh the contract office will be moved to the family service center, reducing those rent costs. As I talked about, the felony office has relocated uh to the courthouse, providing revenue to the county. And
again, um to your point, Dave, and this is something that I wanted to touch on was the potential legislative changes to the funding formula to benefit early discharge circumstances and department effectiveness are conversations that we're having behind the scenes. you
know, these we're trying to get momentum um because I know um what we're doing here in this county um is extremely effective. So there you go. That is it. Uh any questions at all? Commissioner,
just an observation. Dale, you have come in and your performance since you've come to this has been uh very impressive and this is not a reflection on you. But I have serious concerns
with the ability of something that's not buried in in in an omnimous bill or some sort of legislation we didn't see coming, but an administrative decision. That impacts on every county in this state
and impacts on on our our taxpayers. once again with the most regressive tax system we have in the state to offset either bad bookkeeping or underfunding and it's not our responsibility to bail
them out. Um, we have a legislative uh conference coming up with uh Association of Minnesota Counties and we are going to have a discussion in the public safety
uh panel on this. I would like if you could do it if you could send Steve your slides and Steve if you could get them out to us. I think that it gives some some perspective because this is pretty vague stuff and I think you've you've done um a good
job of working with our auditor and with Steve and trying to identify where the the the uh funding is going and what direction we need to anticipate. But this is not how things are supposed to operate. If we get hit with something
like this on a cost shift and that's what this is, it should be something contained in legislation that's out in the open and there's no transparency in this through no fault of viewers. But I find it very disturbing that the
state can knock counties back on their heels trying to figure out how to pay the bills with something like this. And I think it needs to be discussed openly and the public needs to be made aware. You're doing a good job of helping people turn their lives around and get
back out in the in society, pay taxes, and take care of their families. I get it. And the people in the in the correction uh process need to be given those opportunities, but it also needs to be paid for. And there needs to be an agreement on how
we're going to do that, not just a little September surprise. Yeah. So, I appreciate your presentation, but the concerns are still there. Yeah. And I and I understand that. Um, you know, we've got, like I had said,
some time before 26 comes around. Um, and I'm going to continue to work hard to look on ways to reduce um the impact to Klay County. Commissioner Eringer, I believe Sarah's already sent the PowerPoint by email to everybody on the board.
Thanks. All right. Anything else? Thank you, Dale. Thank you. All right. Next, we have the request approval for the 2026 ancillary insurance offerings.
Good morning, Anna. Good morning. As I mentioned last week, um I'm here today to discuss the 2026 ancillary benefits um and request approval um or support of the insurance committee. So you should all have a packet um that is
we will kind of go through page by page um there should be some red and blue on there. Perfect. Um so the first page is going to be the hospital indemnity insurance. Um so I should back up just a little bit. Um during the RFP process, we went out um not only for health
insurance, which we discussed last week, but all of our ancillary benefits and every single benefit uh for 2026 is being um recommended from the insurance committee for a change. So the first one is hospital um indemnity insurance. This is actually a new offering in 2026 um
completely voluntary to the employee. So, they are not required to take it, but in the event that they are they elect this insurance and they are hospitalized, um they would get a set payment from the insurance carrier. Uh like I said, it's voluntary. There is no additional cost to Klay County. It
would just be the employees cost should they take it. The insurance committee did vote uh 10 to one to recommend adding that insurance for 2026. Any questions on the hospital insurance?
Okay. Uh the next uh insurance offering uh that the insurance committee wanted me to bring forward is going to be critical illness insurance. Um changing from our current carrier Madison National Life to standard in 2026. There is a pretty significant cost savings to
that as well. It is voluntary so the employee does not have to take it and there is no cost to Klay County to offer it. Um that did pass the insurance committee um for standards specifically on a vote from seven to four.
Any questions on critical illness? Okay, we'll keep on going through then. They're all hopefully pretty simple. Um the next one is accident insurance. We currently offer this through Madison National Life. Um suggesting a change to the company standard. There is a savings
on every single policy um every single tier I should say for the accident insurance. Again, voluntary to the employee, no cost to the employer. That passed the insurance committee uh for from a six to five vote. Almost there.
Uh dental. So, this is probably the biggest one. So, we have had Delta Dental for about the last five years. Prior to that, we had Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota. And we are proposing um making a carrier change from Delta Dental to United Healthcare
for 2026. Uh with this change, uh we would be offer or the plan would offer implants. That's been something that the committee and employees have been asking for the last couple years. And then for an additional 97 cents per month, the employee can choose to essentially buy up um or pick a better not necessarily
better tier, but they can um select a different tier of coverage that would include orthodonia coverage for their dependents under the age of 19. So uh one other thing with or with dental, we are currently self-insured. We've been operating claims over revenue. So, we
are um we are in a situation that we'd either have to increase our Delta dental premiums or make this switch. If we make this switch, we would be fully insured with the carrier. So, the carrier would take on that risk. That did pass the insurance committee
with a vote of 13 to zero. Vision insurance, we currently have a visas and we've had a visas for many years. The committee is recommending a change to United Healthcare. uh there would be approximately a 7% savings to the member and one additional um feature that was added to this plan would be the
actual exam. So our health insurance covers the eye exam for any individual that is enrolled on the health insurance. But if you have a dependent that is not on our health insurance, but you cover them on vision, they would now have an exam covered or um with a small co-pay. So um that passed the insurance
committee with a vote from 11 to two. Okay. Um, long-term disability. The insurance committee is also recommending a carrier change from our current carrier of Madison National Life to United Healthcare. And that passed the insurance committee with a vote of 10 to zero. Again, completely voluntary to the
employee, no additional cost to Klay County. And then lastly, short-term disability. Uh the insurance committee is also recommending a change from Madison National Life to United Healthcare um premium savings voluntary to the member and that passed with a 10 to1 vote. With
that, I'll open it up for any questions. All right. Any questions of Anna? I I guess at this, you know, I guess if there's no questions, um I I would like to maybe see a motion to accept the insurance committee's
request on all the ancillary benefits uh for 2026. I make a motion to support the insurance committee's recommendations uh for the 2026 ancillary insurance offerings. I'll second the motion. Right. We have a motion by Commissioner
Krabangh, second by Commissioner Mojo. Any further discussion on the motion? All clear. All right. Thank you. All right. Well, we got to vote this every time. Don't Don't take yet. All right. Any further discussion?
Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Opposed. The same. Motion carried. All right. Now you're good. Okay. I will try not to do that this time. Okay. That's no problem. And then so next then we have the uh discussion and approval for the paid family medical leave.
Yes. So as we are all aware, this has been in the works for the last couple years now. Um the state of Minnesota is passing a paid family medical leave program um with implementation on January 1 of 2026. Um in the state proposal um they do allow employers to
go out and shop the private market. So we did just that for comparison. Um in front of you you guys should see a comparison between United Healthcare, MetLife and Paid Family Medical Leaf. Um the state rate is at a 0.88 and the two proposals that we received from United
Healthcare and MetLife beat that uh state proposal pretty significantly. The one that administration is recommending is the United Healthcare. Not only would that kind of partner um and piggyback off of some of the ancillary plans for kind of a seamless claim process for our employees. Um the rate is coming in at a
71% instead of a 088. So um significant savings there. This data in front of you is based off a point in time. So we ran this about two weeks ago. Um and at that time we had 713 employees. So as we grow or as people um leave that number will
fluctuate a little bit. It is also based off the current wage that the individuals are being paid today, not off of anticipated cola or anything for 2026 since we don't know what that is yet. So, um, the proposed cost for paid family medical leave with United
Healthcare, um, would be $333,000 in compared to the state program of $412,000. That is, um, going to be a 50-50 split between the employer and the employee. So, under United Healthcare, approximately $167,000
to the employer, 167,000 to the employee. again an estimate just because we don't have the 2025 um rates yet. Just for clarification, um Ann and Steve, I I do not believe the
board has taken action on the 5050 split either yet, have we? That that's there's been Yeah, there's been no legislation. It's been our It's been our, you know, what we've been anticipating from the budget standpoint.
But, but I I think there will also need to be board action to actually affirm that. Sure. And I know that um I don't want to speak for Darren here, but I know that in the union negotiation process that's being vetted through all the unions and in the negotiations right now, too.
Okay. But the paid family leave act is outside of the um cafeteria plan. Correct. Yes. No, the uh paid family medical leave has no connection to our health insurance or or the county contribution.
Um there are going to have to be discussions that occur at pick um hopefully in just a couple weeks on if we are going to continue to offer sickly a sick leave donation policy here in Klay County. Right now, employees um that need an extended leave of absence can request donations where their peers
donate time to them. So, under this new program where they could have potentially up to 20 weeks u through the private or the state, we'll have to uh see if that is still something the county wants to offer. And the other thing um that is currently writen in statute is that we cannot require an
individual to if they submit a claim through paid family medical leave, we cannot require them to use their sick or vacation. So they can choose to have being paid by this company and unpaid by Klay County. We can offer them. Um so something that the pick and and the
board will have to decide is if we want to allow the employees to supplement their time and use their acred sick and vacation, but we cannot mandate that. So that'll be going to pick in just a couple weeks. Mr. Chair and Anna, maybe if you could explain the paid family leave
essentially doesn't cover the full amount. Is that's why? Correct. So, um, paid family medical leave, um, will pay up to twothirds of the individual's wage. Kind of depends on their salary and whether they make more than the, um, statewide weekly average or less than the statewide
weekly average, but they will not receive 100% of their pay from the the state or the private plan. When you say that, is it 100% of their gross pay? Correct. Yes. Sorry, I had to think that through for a second. So they um the other reason with the kind of backing up
to the ancillary benefits um with long-term long-term and short-term disability in accident falling under uh United Healthcare. If an individual submits one claim and they have multiple plans, it's one claim and the company takes care of that. They don't have to
submit a claim to each different carrier. So it saves them some paperwork. Um we would still run FMLA concurrently with that. Um, so getting in the weeds a little bit there, but um, they can they will not be paid whether they have these ancillary coverages or not, they will not make more than 100%
of their gross wage. So from a um standpoint of administrative work and choosing the um who we're going to have as the carrier for our paid family medical
leave insurance. Is that something that you would also just assume have sooner rather than later in preparation? I suppose uh auditor's office would like to have it and yes um the one piece with the state program is the state's never done this
before so it's new to them um whereas United Healthcare and MetLife have been um offering a similar like benefit in many other states for many years and so they at least have some knowledge um administratively the paperwork on that side will be
cleaner but from our end yes we do have to make some decisions we have some to make legally have to make policies based off a statute and such too. All right. Action for today, I think, would be then to um accept the administration's recommendation to go with United
Healthcare for the paid family leave insurance. Is that correct, Steve? Yes, that's correct. And Mr. Chair, just to clarify for the board, we had this conversation internally is while this is a two-year contract, it does have the ability. Uh we know there's a lot of uncertainty with paid family medical. And so in the event that something were
to change on the state level, um I guess that most likely that it would dissolve, we would not be responsible to continue to pay uh either of these entities. So thanks Steve. All right. So we have a request to
approve the healthc care for a family medical leave. Yes, Mr. Chair, I I move that uh we approve and move forward with United Healthcare for 2026
and I suppose seven if that uh if it's two-year rate cap. Yep. Okay. All right. We have a motion by Commissioner Eber, second by Commissioner Bear. Any further discussion on the motion?
Further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying I. I oppose the same sign. Motion carried. Oh yes. Yes. Uh thanks Anna for these um these two items. I know that a lot of discussion
has gone forward. So I really appreciate all your work on that. And then my side comment is for the public following along. This is the second agenda item in a row in which we're seeing state shifted um costs onto counties uh in the tune of
200 to 300 to $400,000 just for the members of the public. These are mandates. All right. Thank you, Anna. All right. Next we have the re approval of the to fill the public health administrator position.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh as you mentioned last week, I did receive notice from Kathy McKay of her intent to retire at the uh the end of this month. Uh and so we are we are looking uh to fill that position as in each each
position of in a significant retirement. We took this opportunity uh to take a look at at the administrative role uh and the duties that that were part of and responsibilities that this position held uh and and looked I guess the this item and the next two items or the next
item are kind of a combination of that. And so what uh what we were looking at uh we took the had Darren and Anna look at the job description. They scored it based on the matrix that that we have with with the next item would be having
the the detox withdrawal management director position moved to a standalone. And with that with that adjustment, we would be looking at a an adjustment from a grade 26 uh to a excuse me, from a grade 27 to a
grade 26. Um and so we would uh if you look at the wage calculator uh there is going to be some due to the longevity there's going to be some payout that's going to come with this and so we don't don't anticipate necessarily a savings
this year. Uh we would be looking at uh at uh hiring most likely at a a different step than than grade one with the level of experience that we would be looking for uh in this position. Uh and so uh with that I would yield for any
questions and and Mr. Chair Mr. Administrator and and members the the um pick committee talked about this. We had a special meeting on this and and one of the um
one of the things that was discussed about would be about making detox standalone. And I know it's something that Commissioner Barry, you would you had been bringing up and and we thought, you know, there's that's the best time to do those things is when you see a a
resignation in a department head and you know, so really in order to um make the uh request to prove the public health administrator position, um we there's two things we need to know. Is it going to be under the old
scenario where detox would still be under it or is it going to be without as as he mentioned if detox is going to become a standalone um then the public health director position switches grades by one. Is that correct? That's correct Mr.
So you know so I think that two go hand in hand and so it it um should we Mr. Chair should we do number eight first then? Well, that's and that's kind of I'm thinking maybe that might might be helpful. Um, we're kind of inter combining items number seven
and eight here and and that was kind of uh in our pick committee meeting. I think that was kind of what we were recommending would be that the first step would be to u make detox its own independent uh department. Um and again
we're talking part of the reason for that is there's what some 70ome employees employees involved with that one and and so um so the recommendation recommendation from pick was to do to do that and so I I would agree with you that would probably
be the we should probably do that one first. Well, I think we can um I I just think we can maybe move into item number eight and act on that one first. And I and I don't know if Steve, did you want to give any more? Uh
no, Mr. Chair, I think just a a brief brief comment this also. Then with the with the shift in responsibility, we've we actually as as the chair mentioned, we talked about this in pick previously. uh the the pick felt that again once it
wouldn't make sense to make an adjustment until we had some movement in within uh the the public health uh department. Uh Darren and Anna again took this into uh our our matrix uh with the respon level of responsibility that's changed from the bed capacity to
number of employees. The complexity of the issues uh this position moved from a grade 22 to a grade 25. Uh and so uh the cost impact uh to to this year's budget would be additional $2,450. That uh that's all I have to add. Mr.
Mr. So making this change so we would have um the public health administrator would be a grade difference of one. Uh the the new detox with its director supervisor would go up three grades.
That's correct. because they would become the new supervisor. And just for clarity for the board, there would still be a connection. There would still be need to be a connection both with with public health and to social services as we have now, but the
the uh decision-m portion of that would would sit with the with the director. All right. So, um I guess I would like to like us to maybe act on the
um detox uh as a standalone department first. All right. Then I'll make a motion to make detox and WM a standalone department and reclassify the detox director position. I'll second the motion. Right. We have a motion by Commissioner
Bear, second by Commissioner Mojo. Any further discussion on that motion? One comment, Mr. Chair. Yes. I believe this is the right time to do this with Kathy McCay retiring and separating those two departments, making them two departments. Very good. Any any other comments?
Maybe I'll just ask in that discussion, what do we view the main benefits of the separation? Uh Mr. chair, commissioners, I think that one of the challenges that that we have as with the growth of that facility. I think that uh the streamline
decision- making uh is is extremely important. Again, while there is a connection uh there uh you know, the facility is now located on 15th Avenue North, it's no longer at the family service center. And I think that uh that that position the position there has the
uh probably the need at 75 employees up to 75 employees to be able to make those decisions in a in a much timely fashion. And with that each director will be doing their own hiring of nurses. That's that's correct. He um he's part
of that position currently does does those things. Um and so the from a operation standpoint uh the the major difference will be that uh the director will make the decisions versus channeling some of some of the other facility operation questions through
someone else. Thank you. All right. Any other discussion, Mr. Chair? Yes. Thank you. I might also look at what the cost is in regards to the two departments separating them. And when you think about how valuable our public health director's time is, certainly
that savings will be realized tenfold, I believe, in regards to how that time is managed. Um, especially as large as detox has become. All right. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying I.
I oppose. The same motion carried. All right. Now we can go back to filling the um public health administrator position. Mr. Chair. Yes. Thank you. I'm looking at the notes in the salary calculation worksheet. Um
so my understanding is there will be a the grade will go from 27 to 26 and due to removing is it two or one? uh removing one grade from a 27 to a 26 but because of removing
detox and another or uh detox I I think there's another discussion that will take place probably next week uh that we're continuing to look at evaluating evaluating public health. Okay. We don't have that before you this morning.
Yes. Thank you. I might also just comment um I know we honored Kathy for her years of service today, but I think the work in which uh she or the time and the work that she gave to our county is very valuable. And certainly there was a time
u probably much to everyone's dismay, particularly Kathy, that she had to come every week to give updates to the community on what we were seeing in regards to COVID and the spread of COVID. Uh really appreciate all of the work that she's given. And I know that was a very difficult time, but we
certainly appreciated the presence that public health was throughout Klay County, and I'm just really excited for her in her retirement. All right. So, the um um pick committee uh did make the recommendation to
hire a public health administrator position uh with the understanding of the change in um duties and responsibilities. Commissioner Abinger.
Mr. Chair, I've moved to fill the public health administrator position due to uh Miss McCay's retirement and that's as presented by administrator Larson. Correct. Are we anticipating backfill?
U there potentially would be backfill. So if we could include that that would that would include that in a motion. All right. We have a motion. Is there a second? Second. All right. Motion by Commissioner Abberinger. Second by Commissioner Bear. Any further discussion on the motion? Any further
discussion? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying I. I. Oppos. Same. Motion carried. All right, we will take a fivem minute break. Thank you. All right, we are now in our 9:45 item here, the 2026 budget discussion.
Uh thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh as we uh continue towards prelim setting our preliminary levy on September 16th, uh we're here today to have some additional discussions and and uh guidelines and directives from this board on uh on
where we're at. As you recall, uh, several weeks ago, we came before you with a presentation with, uh, with the requests that we had at the time, uh, and and, uh, anticipated a levy document of 12.75%.
Uh, obviously, you guys said that that was not acceptable. Uh, and so we went back to work. There are several things here that make this a little bit challenging. At the time, we did not have our insurance information, uh, which we now do. Uh we also do not have
a cola uh because we're in union negotiations at this time and so uh that has also provided a little bit of a challenge. I would like to say that generally I have Miss Lori Johnson, our under treasurer with us today. Uh she is helping Cass County, North Dakota hire
their new finance director uh with the interview process and so unfortunately she is not here. Um, I have a a packet of information that I sent out in with the agenda today talking about our fund
balance uh at the end of last year. Uh, the updated summary of 2026 tax levy by funds, a summary of revenues and expenses by departments uh through 66% of 2025 uh is through the end of August. uh and also sales tax through July and
also the non-county requests. And so if I could uh we'll probably get to the fund balance, but if I could skip uh skip to the uh the summary of the 2020 six tax levy document. Um just
wanted to start there with our discussion this morning. Uh as you as you can see uh there was a number of adjustments that uh we're no longer at 12.75. Um there were there were some adjustments that that were made and then
also some that are being uh recommended as a starting point. Uh and so if I could uh just highlight a few of the different items that that have changed andor what is still included uh within within the the new levy net levy
increase which is now at 9.47. 47. Um uh this week based on the or last week based on the board's action of se of accepting the insurance uh with Medicica uh the portion of savings that the county is experiencing uh is $425,97453.
And so we were able to uh back that out of last year's uh 2025's uh cost to the county. uh we did we did not know where we were going to be and so we had about $300,000 set aside anticipated increase for for uh for
insurance and so we were able to then remove that $300,000 uh from the budget. Uh, Miss Johnson is has been watching uh watching uh the uh the in excuse me uh
our interest rates uh adjustments that have happening, our proposed adjustments. Uh but as of right now, she went back and looked at projected increase projected increasing the revenues uh for our investments of roughly $500,000. And so, uh she was able to make that
adjustment. Again, if she were here, one of the things that she'll say, depending on what happens over here in the next three months, uh there could be another uh another adjustment increase if we do not see a a big or significant decrease uh in or change of
change of path in in interest rates. Um we also uh we within this budget there are are some increases or excuse me in inclusions that we have in there. Just to be clear, uh we have we have $250,000 for future insurance needs. Uh this
board roughly four budget cycles ago started putting away $250,000 in anticipation of either going to self insurance or to address any significant significant increase costs once we were done with our four-year uh contract. Uh
it does include $250,000 for paid family medical. We just heard uh from Anna that that could be again a little bit different uh a little bit lower and we'll have that number be able to lock that number in uh come December.
U this bo board uh or this this discussion that we took place the last time indicated that while we don't have a a cola established for the budget, we do have a a 3% uh in there as a
placeholder. Uh and just keeping in mind from the board's perspective that based on our budget or our staffing uh plans, we have uh each cola increase percentage increase uh is $444,756. This includes all county uh this budget
includes all county non-county requests at the asking amount including the chamber at 185 rural routes from CAP at 56,778 and the Barnesdale ambulance at 75,000. There's a handout uh within your packet
that shows the other requests uh that have been made this year. Uh it did. Earlier today, we did have a presentation from Dale from probation. Uh based on what we know of as of right now, uh Lori has put in the increase for for probation as as anticipated within
the budget. Uh and also uh just a note, if you look on the levy sheet, uh as a as a additional revenue, Lori has $500,000 uh use of fund balance. Um, as we as we uh we continue to have
discussions uh moving forward, just keep in mind with the fund balance document uh that in our on our general uh general fund this year, we utilized um $1 million out of the general fund, we've used a half a million dollars out of
public health and $350,000 in social services. Um, if you take a look at the summary of revenues and expenditures by departments, uh, historically we've we've kept up to date with this several
times per year. Overall, our budget looks very solid. Uh, again, this is through August. We have 66%. Uh, again, our revenues generally trail anywhere from six weeks to two months behind. Uh and so our our main focus uh to this
point during these reviews mostly focus around our our expenses. Uh again when we look at the 66 percentile there's different uh areas that we only we only do certain times per per year uh rather than monthly. Uh I think the three areas
that stand out uh here are number one in planning zoning. They're at 93% of their budget. Uh earlier this year, the the board approved the use of riparian aid uh to to purchase pictometry that would benefit multiple multiple departments.
Uh and and so that's that increase. Uh both the grounds and building uh and the county building have are up significant areas. Uh and those relate to the probation area fit up. Uh and again, if you recall, the state is going to be
reimbursing us for some of that fit up. So uh there'll be a revenue there at a later time and emergency management is at 138% uh and ARPA ARPA the last remaining uh dollars of ARPA show up there in the expense piece. So uh with
that uh the other areas look within the time frame those that again that are higher are generally uh either paid on a quarterly basis or an annual basis. And so those that are at 100% uh generally are a one one time one-time payment. So
from from an expenditure standpoint, uh I would say that the county is is in good position with going through. It's about 67% of the year that I'd yield for any questions on the any expenditures or revenues. I think there is a there is an increase if you look at social services
on that second page. There is an income maintenance. We have we're a little higher at 71. Uh again reminder that there's the revenues that come in with that. So as you see we're we're in a situation where uh the expenditures expenditures are higher but so are the revenues as to where we are during the
during the year. All right. Any questions comments? I'll start. Yeah. Go ahead, Commissioner. Commissioner Moshall. Thanks. Uh, okay. Well, I
couple things I said earlier. Uh, cost shifts from the state really suck. And, um, maybe on my soap box, uh, cities are dealing with these, school districts are dealing with these, but I don't know if anyone is dealing with
them in the magnitude in which counties have to. I'll say there's some, you know, I we were happy that some of the legislative pieces seem to re rectify themselves by the end of the session so that the hit on counties was not near
what we thought they were going to be, but they're still substantial. You know, I I know we've communicated with our departments that we wanted to see minimal increases this year because of the hardships that we or the uncertainties rather that are coming
with so many different components hitting counties as they were. So, I you know, I appreciate the 146 seems like a a nominal increase in regards to what we've seen in the past, but the fact is that we're still seeing,
you know, over $4 million in changes from what the 25 was to 26. Four and a half million. Pardon? Four and a half million, right? Uh, you know, and county program aid went down. And so, that's that's tricky. and how do we figure out the
best way to address that? You know, I'm I'm hearing from uh county residents a couple things. They appreciate the level of service that they pro they are provided from county staff. Uh we try really hard
to address those needs, but I'm also hearing from folks enough is enough. we can't take um the burden of tax taxing um to the level that we are seeing. Uh which is why I think Klay County took a more active
stance in in lobbying for legislative changes because we couldn't take any more. Um, I was just in a University of Minnesota uh advisory committee and the university does a lot of the mediation
um between farmers in regards to debt consolidation for um with bankers and they are seeing more cases than they've ever seen of of farmers that are in really challenging hugely significant um
negative consequences with finances. Um, so I I I know that we can't go much more for what is being asked of farmland, but I look look at some of the things and I know we've got till December and I look at some of the things that are
still outlined and they're really significant. I mean, we're talking all of the negotiations with uh our unions and that is a huge piece on this. So, I don't know how, you
know, I don't want I will not support what we're we're projecting in regards to um the final levy, but I don't know how we go much lower for the preliminary knowing all those big pieces that are out there. Um, and then my final piece
is, you know, I think we still need to discuss all of this, but my final piece is, um, you know, I I would like to propose, just from me personally, um, knowing where we're at, 26, um, a 0% increases on our external
agencies. Um, and I know that's tricky for me because I serve on some of these committees and I know that there's tricky for other people, but you know, I just I know some of these folks came to us with um with um reserves and so maybe
this year might be a year to dig into reserves for the external agencies. So, I'll go next. All right, Commissioner Bear. Echoing what Commissioner Mojo said, I've I've also heard it from my
constituents. Enough is enough on raising this levy even higher every year after year. So if we could, you know, figure out a way to right now we're looking at if we'd lock it in at 9.47 force. So I'm knowing that's just
contingency, but if if we could lock that in lower than that and even get it lower than that by December also with exter external agencies, I'd also echo what she said would not to give anybody a raise on there. And if some of those even reduce them
completely, like I'll I'll say it. Cap Cap LP's rural routes transportation program for the bang for the buck on what that costs per rider. I I think that we've tried it. It's been tried many years. It just I I think it works,
but it's it's not worth the dollar amount that the county is subsidizing that program with. So that that could be a cut there. We could save money there. and then the rest of those external agencies cap them from what they got last year if
not reduce them by 5%. Because it is it is a tough year right now for budgets. That's that's pretty much what I'm echoing on this sheet right now. see where we can get from there. And if we have to tap into the fund
balances of social services to help offset some of this levy that I believe there's money in that. Correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Larson, but there's money in there that we could Yeah. tap into off of fund balance.
Mr. Chair, Commissioner Bear, if you take a look at your fund balance document, you know, our our our general fund, our road and bridge, social services, building, internal service, and public health are are part of the excuse me, internal service are part of the levy. Public health is part of the
levy, but it's generally a plug number that uh that is utilized. Uh the the rest of them are outside of that. Uh and so we do have, you know, we do have fund balance that this board has chosen to utilize. uh almost every year over the
last decade. Uh if taking the position if we've asked it asked of our citizens already uh to to look at that I I would note I know again uh Mr. Chair loves when I say this about about the the a
state auditor but they do suggest that we have uh five and a half months uh of general fund dollars or excuse me within the general fund or in each of these funds. Uh we have uh we have a fund balance of $18,121,635 and we've gone into detail. The the the
bottom section down at the bottom of the page shows what those adjustments were based off. A significant portion of it was a mark market adjustment uh in back in our favor that we lost otherwise between 22 and 23. Uh the unassigned
document uh the unassigned funds that we have in the general fund are just under $13 million. From a perspective of the state auditor, the unassigned for 2024 uh where the state auditor would like to have a scene was at 16 million. Uh and
with the with the estimated increase uh for 25 of another 800,000. Keep in mind of that eight 18.1 million uh we utilized one $1 million towards this budget. Uh in social services we used $350,000 of that. Uh and also in public
health we used a half a million dollars uh from uh from the the fund balance in those those and those fund balances still grew. Uh yes, other than social services um they did they did see an increase.
Again, ju just of note, um if Lori were here, she would make sure that I point it out in public health, uh where what we want the board to compare to is the COVID construct COVID and also then construction of the withdrawal management detox facility of looking at
comparing really uh from 2022 to 2024. So, uh that's that. But again, as you pointed out, Mr. Chair, there is an there is an increase there. So um so there are fund there are fund balance dollars uh to to utilize. You've looked
at those uh over the last over the last well like I said 10 years I've had a different different combination uh based on where you felt felt comfortable Steve just real quickly on public health alone. So the numbers that are there,
it's showing 18 million and then there's obviously the uh 2023 2024 detox dollars go out of there and when you subtract that that number gets to 8.8 million. Is that correct? That's correct. And so when you compare 8.8 million to
2022 of 1.7 million. What's Well, so so that's where we we saw some COVID dollars that were brought in. We also started the the Didn't we spend all those CO dollars? Um, we received the CO dollars, but we
spent them over a series of years. And so it depended on when they But the point is we still have $8 million. Well, that that was a that was once we get to the $8 million portion, then we started to get into the the construction
of the of the withdrawal management. But I thought those those are subtracted from the 18 million. So yes. So from the 18 so we have so when you take the the the construction um the the amount that we had that 18
million included the 8.8 million and so when you take subtract the numbers below there that that got us from 18 million to 2.2 when you subtract what from the when you subtract the 9.815 the 5921
and the 8.8 million when you subtract those three numbers why would we subtract the 8.8 8 million because that's because those they just the 8.8 is not the same as the 8.8 from 2023. That's part of the construction the
construction portion of the facility. So if we add the 8 point and let me call it 8.9 and the 9.8 and the 5.9 that's that's that's $24 million. But where's the $7.5 million that we got
from the state for the 7.5 million? The 7.5 was for the resource. Oh, that was re re Okay. That was resource was the grant for detox. Yeah. Yeah. But we took we took um opioid money.
Opioid money. Uh we ended up taking a some money from the general reserve uh for that. Um we did have a $5 million grant that that's part of uh part of that increase uh that's there. So
right so yeah so the remaining that we had at the end of 2024 is is 2.2 too. But again, minus minus 500,000 that I'm gonna I want to go back to can have some more information come come later, but going back to uh Commissioner Mojo's
comments and Commissioner Bearer's comments and what I'm hearing on the street too is enough is enough. And at some point in time, somebody's got to say no to the people who are about to get kicked out of their homes. Whether
it's a farm home or whether it's a home in North Morehead or a Nuland or whatever. I mean, 9.7 a $4.5 million increase at the county level in in one year's time is
really a lot of money. And we're not talking about the needs of the school districts. They're they're having they're actually having to go out for an operational levy if I'm not mistaken coming up. Um be you
know because they're they're already so far underwater. And then we haven't talked about you know the cities that we all live in whether it's Morehead or Barnesville or Holly or whatever. this 9.47 becomes
something a lot more than that. And I just I I can't support this. And I, you know, I think I think back to um going back in my years on here, if if we're starting to talk numbers like this, I think we're going to start
having to have wage freezes again or or position freezes again to to help offset this. I don't I don't know how else we can be doing this. I I just I just don't I you know and I and again I say this
every time I won't support this on a preliminary levy because I have yet to see us ever change our preliminary levy once it's set. And I've talked about that in the past many times that it just once we get okay it's done. And I just I
And again, I'm talking on behalf of I think a lot of people uh that I know that are struggling with um the level of property tax increases and a lot of it I think Commissioner Mojo explained a lot of it and where a lot of it's coming
from is at the state level. But at some point in time, the proper entities have to be held accountable for what they do and they don't do. If if we're putting mandates on our
counties and on our cities or whatever, supply the funds or don't force it onto our regressive tax that we have here as our only source of revenue. That ends my spiel.
And Mr. Chair, commissioners, I wasn't suggesting that this 9.47 would would be something that I would bring uh in two weeks. I but I am looking for if there are different insights that you guys have and I appreciate Commissioner Mojo's comments from the standpoint of
we do have uncertainties uh from the standpoint of our of our colas and and also to include just to remind the board that when we heard from Quinn he also uh does not have anything for the big beautiful bill impacts just because we don't know either way at this point what
the impacts could be. Uh and so um but but from that that point I'm certainly open whether that's today whether you're you know whether there's a you'd like to have a work session to to further vet uh some of these different things uh or um
order have a conversation today to to to get that and I can come back at a next week uh with a with a new number with Lori not here. Commissioner Abiger. Well, the big overview is is been presented, but I'm I'm going to have to agree on
some of the external agencies, and I'd ask uh the other commissioners to look at where your portfolio is. And if you don't see return on investment in some of these things, if it's not something that's working,
um speak up. You know, I I again with the library in a in a year where they're moving offices and trying to trying to negotiate a uh a a lease agreement with the city of
Morehead. It's it's a it's tough to say we're not going to look at the increase there, but it may be necessary in order to get this levy under control. I will be frank and I think uh a number of the commissioners here would agree $100,000
for the uh Fargo Morehead West Fargo EDC uh it's not reflective of the services we're getting and there could be a strong need to look at that the chambers tied in with them for 85 um000
I think there's a is there a typo in the packet so Mr. Chair, Commissioner Mojo, if you look that the the requested amount for for 2025 was 250,000. This board provided 185,000.
Uh and so uh the the request for 2026 is 185,000. No, I the line above my understanding is the chamber got 80 85 and the EDC got 100. Oh yeah, that is backwards. That is correct. Okay. you know, looking
at this particularly with the with the the the uh current and future needs we have in dealing with our legislative issues. I would like to see the EDC remain getting funded at the level we did last
year, which should be 85,000. And I mean the cha the chamber or the chamber, sorry, the EDC I think um our return on investments there is not near what the
payment we're making is reflected and I think we should have a discussion. I think $100,000 is excessive. Mr. Chair, Commissioner Mojo. Thank you. Uh so I agree with um what Commissioner Abinger is talking about. And you know, I struggle in regards to
the Innovate 28 piece. And so I'm wondering if this board would have the appetite to look at pulling the Innovate 28 funding and then talking about specifically funding the EDC and the chamber as separate requests.
I would agree with that. That's a I think there's a consensus on that. I Mr. Mr. Chair, I have a proposal on that, but I want to hear the rest of I don't want to cut off Commissioner Emmer's time. Well, again, when you look at what the Chamber's done, I think continued
funding of them at the level we have in past years is certainly warranted. In fact, I' I'd say after this last session, if we had the money, I'd like to see them funded at a higher level. The same with uh um Downtown Morehead,
Inc., But I don't think we have the money to increase anybody's uh external any external agencies uh funding. I would see um the EDC
we should pay them separately and we should remain as members of that or organization. Uh whether it be on the executive board or not, I'll leave that up to their governance committee. But I really don't see much more than $10,000
as as something that uh we we would meet our return on investment with the the other funding could be to put towards bringing the levy down. There has been some talk about recognizing our rural
cities and their EDAs with some funding and I'm I'm open to that, but again, we're having to cut and it's hard to to as much as you'd like to be supportive, it's hard to even if it's a level of 20,000 to say
we're going to we're going to take on new new expenses. But I'm open to hear what the rest of the commission has to say on this. Mr. Mojo or go ahead. You haven't gone yet. You haven't gone. You haven't gone yet. That's Oh, okay.
Mr. Krab. Well, um, thank you. So, just uh a couple things. Um, I'm definitely um open to breaking down that with the
EDC. And as we just talked about, um I want to make sure it's understood that under cap LP their request uh was for 56,788 and that was a 5%.
Just so we know their number. And then the other piece of that I'm guessing that added to the 121 was what was that number Steve? 664,834 and that's their senior coordinator, right? And I guess
um I need more detail on that. I don't know enough about it to know whether that's uh well, Mr. I might that so um you know I I certainly understand Commissioner Bear's um point and I I'm not I just
want to clarify if his point meant eliminating the senior ride piece and the senior coordination the ride piece the ride piece because the question you have um you know that's the position that Dale Raleigh had in the community for a long long time um that position
does a enormous amount of work in connecting our seniors in our community with all of the Medicaid in components and uh working diligently with our community centers in senior care. Um and
in a year when there's so many unknowns in regards to Medicaid, it certainly seems like that would be a a a huge return on investment. Right. And then the only other one that um just because I have hear the
conversations of it a lot, I I do have to say um I question the need to set aside um $250,000 for self insurance
planning on healthcare. We have a million in the bucket right now. Is that correct? 1.2 to Commissioner Kanghov. Mr. Chair, Commissioner Mo, I also um I did have that star just because I wasn't sure, you know, how far
into this we're we're wanting to continue to go. If there is a year where it's really challenging this year, might might be one on that one, too. Did you have something? Yeah. The only other piece I might have is just a followup on the the chamber
innovate 28 EDC discussion. Um over the last three to four years I've been really really critical on on making sure that Klay County funds are going to help spur growth and development on the Minnesota side of the river. Um boy, uh
just speaking from the chamber, they just have done a phenomenal job in keeping us really up up to speed on what they're um what they're seeing, what the issues are, how we can work together. I was on weekly calls with the chamber, you know, and the chamber's within my portfolio, so I can really speak to
that. Um I I agree. I I've I've sat through meetings, through presentations. I cannot find a tangible piece of work that we've benefited from um with what the funds are for the EDC. My discussion point would be um pulling
the innovate 28 funding uh funding the chamber to the tune of $100,000 for the 26 request with the $85,000 that would have been earmarked for uh EDC Innovate 28 pieces. I would um reduce that to a
nominal amount. I don't know if it's 10. I don't know if it's 15. I think we can talk about that. Um because we've really heard from our small cities and our EDA roundt about the work that they're doing, how they're partnering with Derek Le Point, how they're partnering with the chamber. I would like to propose
funding the small cities EDAs. I believe we have four in Klay County. You can correct me if I'm wrong. Dworth, Glendon, Holly, Barnesville to the tune of $5,000 a piece. And then I think there would be some savings realized with the additional um
out of that 85 if we do 10,000 to the EDC then that would be 75 and then there'd be $55,000 savings if we decide to put that towards lobbying. I don't know but um certainly up to this board.
I would agree with that. We have um the current 2026 budget has zero lobbying dollars in it. U Mr. Chair, I did put a new request for $25,000 and uh I would I'd have to check with
Lori to see if that's captured in the 146681. The new that was the new request line. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. So, so in that new request again just to to clarify, I think that the I know that the two items there are are a social work position
that Quinn presented that had the revenues to cover and I also believe that it has a uh one of the other new requests is from IT department for a cyber security event. All right. So that of that 185
suggestions been 100 to the chamber, 10 to the EDC, 22 to our small EDAs, and potentially 25 then could go towards um lobbyist issues that we have to fund somewhere.
And we're working, we can present that later, but we're working with a lobbying firm. I think we're in the process. We got got those late last week, so we're in the process of getting them. I mean, if those if those numbers were what we were to finally determine,
that's 155. So, there'd be 30,000 savings over the um current budget proposal for that economic development line item. One one comment on the EDC. Is 10,000 gonna get us anything? Is that even
going to get us a foot on a seat at the table? I mean, if we're gonna take them down to that low, why give them any? Because I mean, if we if we're not going to have a seat at the table anymore at that rate, I would look at and just cut them all the way out and save that
money. I think it's worth remaining in and this is just a gut reaction to burning bridges. Um there may come a time particularly
with the growth patterns you see on both sides of the river that we can find some mutual interest and some uh return on investment in the future. And I don't want to leave future uh commissioners who who may have to make the decision in
five or 10 years uh grappling with how to do it. and we keep a hand in there. If nothing else, we'll have the quarterly board meetings. Um, I wish there were some things I could point out where we uh currently
have returned, but I don't see it. And since Innovate 28 came out, the chamber has managed to not only remain a resource for this county, but increase their value. M I have not seen anything
in innovate 28 that is applicable to anything we're doing over here. So I understand the frustration, but I I would like us to at least pay for remaining in as as an organization or as part of the
organization. Um, certainly if if if the majority of the commission feels otherwise, you know, I'm not going to get my feelings hurt, but I think it's worth sticking around. I would support the 10 grand.
I think we need to have our name on it. Well, you know, and again, I'm I'm going to speak to economic development in general. I I think it's it's um it's a very important component of what we
should be supporting. Um you know, I I campaigned on economic development in all my years of being on here as to support ways to get additional businesses and um residents to our county. And um the of course the amount
of tax funds that we can put towards that is minimal, but I I think it it's important for us to whatever table is talking about it that they get the perspective of county government uh in whatever
they're doing. And I don't know that they're going to give us a lot of weight if we're not as at the table, you know. So um so from that standpoint I um and keep in mind uh the the better success we have in economic development
is also a part of that what we see every year in our uh being able to reduce our levy by that 1% or one and a half% for growth. So it still is a it's an important component. Um, so well, and I
how how you how we determine how that goes is is fine, but I I I do think that it's in our best interest to um certainly be supporting the entities who were working on our behalf to see growth in our communities.
Our quarterly meetings have really put a different light on it. Uh there's stuff happening in Holly and Dworth and and Barnesville and Glendon and uh they're they're rolling along and they're making progress and are growing and they should
feel support from the county. All right. So, we've we've managed to maybe alter a resource here. We only got about 4.4 million to go. I also want to just say that I understand that the external agencies is minimal, but I think we need to control
what we can control. And so, back to my comments earlier holding a 0% increase for um the ones here. My only question was uh the Valley Water Rescue, are we anticipating that that's just not come in yet? Mr. Chair, Commissioner Mojo, that comes out of the sheriff's budget. So, I I
would I can reach out to Gabe. Okay. uh on that you know just kind of you know one of the things that we've talked about is a letter did go out uh in June uh to to each of these entities look asking them to look at the their request this year knowing that it was going to
be a challenging year uh you know I think if you take a look at it and star who the areas that either already are didn't ask for the same amount or are a decrease we really just have Barnesville Ambulance
Dancing sky and I think I believe dancing sky is based on a a a formula and so I don't believe that we have the opportunity to to adjust that. Well, you do uh but um uh but and then lake lake
agassy regional library the the cap uh rural rural routes portion uh and then even rape and abuse was a was a was a decrease. And so there's really um from from holding things flat uh to to decreasing uh majority of our of our
external agencies did honor that request. So just again a point on the Lake Agassy Regional Library uh being on the board I'm aware how tight things are. There are funds being cut for them that are
passed through from the state that are federal uh and state funding. Um, I realize that there's there's expenses this year that we didn't anticipate and uh I would appreciate if if their
request were met, but I also understand there's everybody may be in that boat, but having seen what's going on over there, I know the funding is necessary. One one comment on that. Correct me if I'm wrong. They're sitting on a $2 million reserves, correct? They budget
in the deficit every year and this is something I I I I have just been in amazement but they make it work but a large chunk of that uh will be encumbered particularly with some of the expenses we've got but yeah they have they have reserves they
haven't burned through those but they also need to maintain them so you know I'm open with this with this tight budget cycle this is this would be the year to start using up some of those reserves. One one more. Yes.
Sorry. Um can you know I know we have a a road turnback piece on highway. Have have we had discussions about potentially changing that? Are you talking about that 400,000? That 400,000 that once we we paid off,
we made our last payment and then last year we took that 400 and we put it towards striping. I think that's what you're talking about, right? So there be and on in his fiveyear plan, he has it put in for seal coding. I know, but I'm just Yeah. No. Yeah. So So I think uh Mr. Chair,
Commissioner Mojo, Yeah. There's the $400,000 turnback has been in the budget, I think, for uh two different This will be the second year. Uh I think that earlier this year, Justin came before the commission, and I believe that he's striping the he's he got approved to stripe the entire county for
under just under 140,000. Um but as Commissioner Bear mentioned uh through highway tracking it it uh once he received once he received approval last year to maintain that he has had that part of his that is part of his fiveyear plan.
So he has a um part of his five-year plan. One of the things that he was going to also be providing us and I I think we've got that coming up here pretty soon was his new year the updated five-year plan. And one of the things that may work to our benefit there, of
course, is some of the projects and some of the bids that came in on the projects that were in the five-year plan, we saw a considerable decrease. So, and again going to what Commissioner Mojo stated, this might be a year that that we could say, okay, well, let's let's pull that
because and and it's it shouldn't impact your five-year plan because you still have you still have a lot of money that you anticipated needing for prior projects that you saved. So, that that might be another area that we can we're
going to be having a highway tracking here after this meeting today, so we can talk about that. But but I do think that I mean right now I think everything needs to be on the table. So did Commissioner Mojo did you was that and and then my only question was um you
know soil and water has a 2% increase this year. I thought SWCD aid saw an increase with the legislature this year. Does that they did not. They had a they had a decrease of um that number I think was right at
$36,000. Okay. Their aid decreased. Uh their aid decreased and then they didn't the other part they did because they of that happening they had a position open and they are not filling
that position. Okay. So the new request is with that adjustment. Yes. Yep. Okay. Um, can I I just want to ask one last question on the senior coordinator position that 64,000. How was that paid
for before? Um, now Mr. Chair, that is actually it's in Quinn's budget and so um it show normal in the past years we didn't include both of the requests. This is the first year we included both of those requests. Uh
so so lakes and lakes and prairies has a they had a request of 56,778 in 2025 and they want 121 in 202. That's not true. That's just because
they are taking they're just so this board has a better understanding of the external task. We've funded that um senior coordinator piece for a long time through Quinn's budget. It's just on this spreadsheet. It's It's not been realized in the
right. We're showing we're showing the when you asked when this board asked about what what are we paying outside entities we added we added the senior the senior naps position um that 64,834 now and I guess I from comparative purposes
then we should have included that in the 2025 number too because it makes it looks like we're they're seeing a huge increase when they're not. Yeah. Right. So to in her note to us when she was here a couple weeks ago
that number that you see on 2025 is the same 56,778. Yeah. For the ride share part of it. No for no for the other cap for their operation. Yeah. For Yeah. That's more than ride share though, isn't it?
Yeah. There's two two there's two letters that you have within your packet. There's the there's the it came in her request came in two different letters. There's 56,778 for the rural routes. Uh and then there's a the 64,834
my mistake. What was the other number? 64 what? 64834. Thank you. And that's Yep. That's the N and that we've that we've we've always paid that. Yes. That's part of Quinn's and that and that is something that I agree with Commissioner Mojo that that
is extremely important to our seniors. Um, that's a that's a no-go for me in terms of of touching that. That's and again, that's another one of those components that helps them get down the right avenues
that can keep them in their homes. Yeah. So, yeah, that's not that's a no-go if they're talking about cutting that in in my opinion. I don't I don't think, Mr. Chair, anybody was talking about cutting that one. Okay. Okay. Mine was the ride share component.
Okay. Yeah. And that's I guess what is what's the usage been on that? 270 in the last year. And we hear we hear time and time and time again that um transportation in our
rural communities is a is a major issue and we can't ignore that. But and again I think going to your comments if we had 200 and some people using that for 60some,000 is that the right way uh and the right use for those for those funds we have to
have that conversation. It's you know so but I mean again that's one one other thing Mr. chair on these external agencies, the Barnesville Ambulance Service. I I would like us to see us to wean oursel off that
completely in the next three years because I correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there's another county that actually subsidizes an ambulance service. I think it's put more on the cities and the townships. And with Barnesville Ambulance, they don't even receive any money from Wilin County
itself. and they provide about a third to two fifths in that area of their areas in Wilin County and they do not receive any money from Wilin County. So I would like us if it's a slow 10,000 a year for three years and put it on to them to go to their townships and the
city to cover that bill. So it's not a one big hit, but I would I would like us to see us wean ourselves off of that external agency. I might Yes. Commissioner Mojo. So, uh, we
had a meeting with the city of Barnesville after the ambulance presentation. Um, I think it's understood and appreciated that we went from 30 and 24 to 35 and 25 because I think we had it was even lower in 22 23. Um,
I so after that conversation um had done some research in regards to how do we help them? you know, what additional grants are out there. This is a big legislative issue that we've talked about. I um I don't know if there's the
capacity to put that additional cost on that because they to the townships because they still are operating in a deficit. Now, I think we should also gently encourage them at our small cities meeting that a conversation with Wilin really does need
to be happen, you know, really does need to happen. And I think if there's not a shared partnership, that would really make any going forward with what we are fully fully um providing challenging. Now, you know, I've said this before. Um
it's interesting to me that Sanford provides such a phenomenal service to northern Klay County. There is a major def desert in regards to ambulance service in southern Klay County. um you know and and I just you know at what
point are we willing to be okay with reduced service to those critical areas? So hopeful that um you know if we can can keep the $35,000 for 25 in for 26. Um
hopeful hopeful that we can help with that but that's a ch that's going to be a challenge to cut that any further. M. Yes, Commissioner. This has been a major discussion point with public safety at AMC.
Um, this is not an isolated incident or situation. It is a it is a statewide problem. There was a band-aid that passed, I think, the session before this
one. Uh, and it's really incumbent on the the area. I don't know if they can come up with an agreement with Sanford. I don't know what the details are. I don't know what's been tried, but there's going to have to be some other partners in there
besides the city and and the county to uh help keep this ambulance running, this service provided. And if if a large portion of it is in Wilin County, Wilin needs to step up.
All right. If we're still doing this, Mr. Chair, I got one other one here. The ID department, the cyber security event training for $45,000. Now, I understand it and cyber security are top of our thing to fund, but with
that one being just a that training, I I don't quite understand what it's all for. And if is it just a snapshot of how how we're working on that and then within two weeks, it's already gone and passed. I maybe we should have Rory come back and
explain that ask to us a little bit better because I know that was one of the very first budgets that we heard. So maybe invite him back to explain that and walk us through how that how that ask would work next year. Um I know Steve your calendar you had
down in here that you were hoping to have that preliminary levy on the 16th. Um got a ways to go before the 16th. Um, you mentioned maybe about a workg groupoup session. I we've spent an about
an hour here talking. I think maybe maybe we should look at a workg groupoup session next week because we got to we got to get we got to figure some some things out here. Um, and and I guess uh what I would suggest
is let's let's try a let's are we all available next next week for workg groupoup session? Right. Let's let's maybe schedule a work workg groupoup session for uh next uh uh 1:00 if we can.
Um and in the meantime, Steve, hopefully um you can maybe would it be possible at 1:30? Okay, sure. Yeah. Is that okay? Yep. I'm a doctor's appointment. All right. 1:30.
and let's plan that and um any revisions that you can bring back at that time too will be helpful but yeah this is going to require a lot more conversation and I don't know Lor's schedule but um but I will hope hopefully she's there
and I know that in the past when you guys have made suggestions she's able to have her laptop there and can give you real time so I think that'll be helpful and that date will be the Yes. Yeah. Well, a week from today, the ninth
nth. Yeah. N. So, do we have a clear number from Dale? Is it um on probation? What number should we be using? Well, so the the number the number that that Lori had in there, I believe, was
was the number he provided. They've been work they've been working closely together. 145 something. It was more than that. I think it was 250 250 but I I can get clarification on that from Lori and send it out to you. But I do know based on what he presented today
uh that is included uh included in that 847. Do you think in a week we'll have better guidance on the unions? Uh no no we won't. I mean I'm not anticipating that we're going to have anything settled. Uh the second meetings
have started or will be starting uh as as far as that have started. Uh but we won't uh we still haven't even had our first meeting with the attorney. All right, let's um Thank you. Move on. Yeah, thank you. All right. Um committee reports. Ezra,
would you like to start this morning, please? I had no committee reports that from last week, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Commissioner Everinger. Thank you. Last week attended the work session uh
with Klay County HR which was uh discussed today. Um later that day I had the Red River Regional Dispatch Center Board of Authority meeting. Um,
basically the the uh I've got a lot of notes here, but none of them are it's kind of getting into the weeds, but the uh facility update we had u looks like we're still on on path for a uh October November opening. there's going to be a
transition between the current facility and the new one and they'll be effectively doing it one console at a time. Um we will be having hopefully an open house at our next meeting. Was it No, it
was in December uh when the cut over is finalized. Uh, next meeting October 28th, uh, we're going to try and have it at the a public safety opening at the new facility.
Uh, that completes that report. On the I'm sorry, my notes aren't making sense. Tuesday the 26th, I attempted to attend the uh virtually the uh Metro Flood Diversion Authority Finance Committee
meeting, but the Fargo City Hall uh broadcast of it. They were having having problems both on the telephone and the computer, so I didn't make that. But the following day on the 28th, I attended the diversion board of authority meeting.
Um, and really it was just general business. Maybe commission commissioner Campbell recalls more, but it looks like for the most part we just did our usual business finance reports. Nothing of any real import.
On Thursday the 28th, attended a pick meeting uh on the issues we covered today. Later that day, um, oh, that was the same day I attended the diversion authority meeting and then that night I attended the Morehead Library
fundraiser. And that completes my report. Thank you, Commissioner Kov. Um, my part was uh just the U meeting we had with H last week. Commissioner Mojo. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Last week I also
attended the HR meeting that was discussed prior in the meeting. I attended the Prairie Lakes uh meeting in PUM. We had manager reports. Uh steam sales are down a bit. Um talked
about the ash management status, the layout of that campus in Ottertale County. Um and then grant statuses. Had a long discussion about unacceptable waste. Uh I know that we talked about um
with that at SWAC on Thursday, but u making sure that we inform the public to cover those trash receptacles as as they can. Uh obviously when things are wet, they don't burn more as effectively as possible efficiently as possible. So
making sure that we're communicating to those haulers, problem haulers, um about that. But, you know, certainly Klay County is really proud of the um material that we send there. Uh really proud of our ability to keep that as dry as possible. So, great job. The next day
or that day rather, I attended the FM land man diversion land management committee meeting. We talked about those Horus properties, ones that met the reserves in the auction. Did move those for a recommendation of approval to the greater board. Um and and then the Horus
site uh for the elevator uh the bid came in well under what the the minimum was. So we recommended a denial of that bid but also working forward with our property management firm to see how they market that uh
property. And then on Thursday I attended the solid waste advisory committee meeting. We did have um an update from Stantex uh Stantech on the PAS test results. Also for the public um as we burn that
material, we're able to eliminate more than 99% of those PAS through that process. So um we appreciate um having that ability to reduce the amounts that we're seeing. there were some um I don't
want to say um well volatility but there were some volat um some outliers in the numbers but Stantech talked to us about how that that sometimes is a margin of error within the lab itself. We had uh landfill updates from Corey uh and then
a PRM update from Commissioner Campbell. And then the board did ask to have some discussion on um what the contract status of the contract stalemate with Morehead is. And um many of those
members are quite concerned about that what that um that contract piece would mean for their residents. and uh we're hopeful that we can reach an agreement. And I think that concludes my reports. Thank you. I also attended the HR
meeting um joint HR meeting that you all talked about on August 26. We also had the uh regional dispatch uh board meeting that Commissioner Ebinger talked about. I'd like to add that the furniture came in at 15% below their
estimate and currently the project itself is $1.55 million under budget and it's you know it's getting to close to being substantially complete. So, uh they they caution that it's not there
yet, but certainly it seems to be in in good order. I think they're looking at having the uh new councils installed in September this month. Uh mid-occtober, they're going to upgrade the old facility and the training and do some training. And in November, they're going
to be configuring the new 911 system. And as Commissioner Avery said, we'll have our October 28th meeting at that site. and they are currently at 36 full-time
and they're authorized for 38 and they have eight shift supervisors and they're authorized for nine. So, they're getting close to fully staffed there as well. Uh, land management commissioner Mojo uh reported on that.
It was um a lot to mostly to do with excess lands issues that she explained. Prairie Lakes meeting on the 27th. Again, Commissioner Mojo um talked about most of those issues. I really don't
have anything to add. Financially, we're fairly comparable to where we were last year at this time, Thursday morning the 28th. So, the solid waste advisory committee um and again, Commissioner Mojo will explain that. I don't really have anything to add to that. Uh we had
that same day we also had a pick meeting. Commissioner Ebringer did discuss those issues um and where we did talk about the moving the detox to its own and then as
a result of that needing to adjust the um PDQs for both the public health director and the um detox director. Um, and we did talk about some other issues
that are um, going to be coming a little bit later on in regards to what things may be maybe should be involved with the planning department versus public health. So, um, more to come on that.
That afternoon I also attended the diversion authority board authority meeting and really the only thing that was discussed the big thing other than the usual items and updates that go on were um the land
management recommendations and the one elevator issue that u in Horus that commissioner Mojo talked about. Um the board did decline that offer as proposed by the land management committee and they did um authorize
staff to enter into discussions with the realtor to look at selling that. And that concludes my report. Steve, uh thank you, Mr. Chair. Last uh Tuesday, I participated in the HA quarterly meeting that's been well covered. Uh that afternoon I also met
with Darren and our labor attorney in regards to negotiations. On the 28th participated in the SWAC meeting that's been well covered. After that meeting I met uh met with Kristen Christensen. Uh she is new Senator Clolobashar's new uh
staff member. We talked about the what's important here at Klay County. She'll be located out of she's from Fergus Falls, but will be located in the Morehead office when when she's not traveling the pretty much the northern half of the
state. Um participated in the PIC meeting that's been well covered. Also spoke with Dan Molly in a series of shared issues. Uh the 29th met with Derek La Point. Uh we're going to be some getting some addition additional information information uh shortly on
the the meeting with uh with deed uh next Monday. Uh and on 29th also met with sheriff. Just would make a note in your consent agenda today. There was the second national op opioid settlement that we discussed a couple week ago
weeks ago with the secondary manufacturers again working with with public health to get information uh from that not including the most two recent uh re two recent uh settlements that you've opted into. Uh the counties has a
has received 1.277766 277766 uh and we utilize the first million for the detox and so we do now have uh have revenues uh that we're going to see. The other thing that I've shared with you in the past uh is that they've not provided any updates or information on what we
may be getting in future settlements. They've now up updated their national national opioid settlement site. uh and while it's not a guaranteed uh they now have a figure uh into the up to upcoming years of what we'll be receiving from each of those. So uh when we get the
presentation from public health we'll be able to have that information. Uh and that concludes my report. Thank you. Sarah anything one? Yes. I also attended the meeting for H
Mr. Chair. Yes. I reported on it in some of my discussion, but I did attend the um University of Minnesota Citizens Advisory Committee. Uh that's in collaboration with the AMC Extension Committee on Wednesday.
Thank you. All right, we are Part: 2
Yeah. Just give Jenny a couple more seconds. >> Yeah. Good morning everyone. It's 8:30. We will call this morning's meeting of the Klay County Board of Commissioners to order for Tuesday, September 2nd. Our first item is the approval of the
agenda. Do we have any additions or corrections to the agenda? >> We do not, Mr. Chair. >> All right, >> Mr. Chair, I move to approve the agenda. >> Second. Right. We have a mo motion by Commissioner Einger, second by Commissioner Bear. Any further discussion?
Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying I. >> I >> oppose the same sign. >> Motion carried. Next we have employee recognitions. Thank you. First we have Darren Skank
Darren. 25 years of dedicated service to Klay County. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> And Jerry, you would like to say a few things. >> Congrats, Darren. Uh so Darren is an exceptional employee. He really
represents everything that you want to see in an employee. Um, his reliability, his work ethic is really second to none. Um, he has a unique ability to keep things light-hearted at the jail with his uh, quick wittedness, but it's it's
something that you need around in that environment. Um, best thing I can say about Darren is just he is a guy that you just want to be around all the time. So, thanks Darren. >> Congratulations. Next we have Kathy McKay, 25 years.
Congratulations, Kathy. Steve, did you want to uh Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh first of all, I just want to thank Kathy for her 25 years of dedicated service and leadership in public health. Uh she's led the county through some uh pretty challenging times including H1N1 uh
several flood events and of course the the nasty seawword. Um we want to thank her for all the work that she's done in her remarkable career. So congratulations Kathy. >> All right. >> And we have Satie Albreight 15 years with social services. And I understand
Satie is not going to be here, but Sandy, you're going to >> I am >> accept and say something on behalf of her. All right. >> So Satie's one of my hybrid workers and today she's working from home and didn't want to make the trek in. But um Satie first started in child
support in Becker County um probably about 20 years ago, then moved to Klay County as an financial worker and then moved into my unit as a child support officer. She has one of the most challenging types of case loads in our
unit. It's one where there's no real way to collect until you build rapport with somebody and make them want to pay their support. So, she does an awesome job with that and we are very grateful to have her with the county. >> Okay. You tell her thank you and
congratulations on behalf of all of us. >> I'll do that. >> All right. Thank you, Sandy. Well, apparently these people didn't come to see us this morning. All right, we'll move on with our agenda. Next, we have the uh citizens comments.
Do we have any citizens comments on items not on the agenda this morning? There's seeing none in the audience. Any online? >> We do not, Mr. Chair. >> Thank you. We will then move on to approval of bills and vouchers. >> I'll make a motion to pay the bills and vouchers. >> Second the motion.
>> Have a motion by Commissioner Bear. Second by Commissioner Mojo. Any further discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Opposed the same sign. Motion carried. Approval of minutes from August 19th. Move to approve the
minutes. 19. >> Second. >> Motion by Commissioner Krabanhoff, second by Commissioner Ebinger. Any further discussion on the motion? Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying I. >> I.
>> Oppose. The same sign. Motion carried. Our 835 item is a request approval to hire a motor greater operator. Good morning, Justin. Good morning. So yeah, the item that I have today is requesting approval to hire a motor grader operator and then
per union policy, this position would have to be posted internally for 5 days before we post it to the general public. Any further questions? Yes. >> So you will be wanting back fill on this? >> Yes.
>> Any further discussion? Mr. Chair, I I uh recommend that we motion to approve the hiring of a motor greater operator. >> A second. >> Right. We have a motion by Commissioner Evar, second by Commissioner Krabangh.
Any further discussion? Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying I. I. >> Oppose the same. Motion carried. All right. Thank you, >> Justin. We'll see you later for highway tracking. Right.
All right. Next, we have the request approval for the Housing and Redevelopment Authority HRE of Klay County to levy a and collect a special benefit tax. Morning, Dara. And you can introduce your guests with you.
>> Good morning, Chair Campbell. Commissioners, my name is Dara Lee. I'm the executive director of the Klay County Housing and Redevelopment Authority. And with me is Don Bacon, deputy director of the authority and vice chairperson Anthony Dillard uh of
the HA Commission. Chair Brassith for the H Commission may be joining us and is stuck in I94 traffic. So, we will hope. >> Can't believe that. >> I know it's shocking. Um, we are here today requesting consent
to a special benefit check tax uh of an HRA levy for the 2026 year. The Klay County HR has a statutory authority to levy to support housing activities.
However, this levy does require consent of the Klay County Commission and each year prior to the H board of commissioners levying at all, they try to carefully balance the needs and the
cost to the taxpayer payers against the additional investments that this levy can create in the community and the housing programs that it can s can support. So this year the levy amount of
$300,000 is approximately 17% of the maximum HRA levy of almost $1.8 million. This results in a cost of $3.11
per $100,000 in taxable market value. So, most citizens of Klay County, most households will be paying less than $10 per year um in order to help leverage and housing resources and deliver those
um needed items to the community. One of the items that it supports that you probably haven't heard about much is that we sponsor the Minnesota City's Participation Program for Klay County. This is a Minnesota housing program that
allows Klay County residents to access first-time home loaner firsttime homeowner loans, down payment assistance, and lower income loans to fix up their properties. Prior to us taking this over, it was only available
in specific cities within the county of Morehead, Holly, Barnesville, Dworth, and Glendon. And they had to reapply every year. Um, since we've taken that over, it's available to all city uh all
citizens in Klay County. This year, we're on pace to do $8 million in first-time loans and other assistance through Minnesota housing through this program. So, many of our folks who are um paying this levy have also benefited
from being able to utilize this program. It is administered by our local banks. And so anybody who's out there interested to talk to their realators and the local banks about how to access this resource, there's also information available on the Minnesota Housing
website. >> Can you give the name of that one more time? It's called the Minnesota Cities Participation Program and it's through Minnesota Housing and it helps moderate and low-income homeowners access reduced
interest rate funding for their homes both to purchase down payment assistance and to fix them up. >> Thank you. >> Um but this is one of the things that there's no administrative dollars that come with the program is extremely quick and easy for us to administer. uh but
there's no money to do it unless we utilize funds such as levy funds to do that. Um we also make additional investments using these levy funds u for our local homeowners. We uh use primarily the rehabilitation loan program through
Minnesota housing for any extremely lowincome homeowner in the county to make up to $27,000 through state funding plus potentially matching levy funds to make basic improvements to their homes. Typically there's our roofs, siding, windows,
heating systems. Sometimes we have a collapsed sewer uh that comes along. Um and we use direct levy funds to help support this as well as using those levy funds to leverage programs such as the Minnesota deed small cities development
program. Um we're currently working with the city of Dworth um who received $1.2 $2 million to rehabilitate 23 homeowner owns. Plus, I think we've worked with six businesses so far and are encouraging additional businesses in the
Highway 10 strip to also make improvements to their property. We are eager eagerly awaiting um information on the grant application for the city of Barnesville. We submitted for an
additional $1.2 2 million and that too would benefit about 23 homeowners and up to 16 businesses in that community. Klay County uh we used leverage funds plus the state affordable housing aid that was awarded to Klay County in order to
use as leverage for that application. In addition, we use levy funds directly to try to end child homelessness in our community. That is one of the primary uses of these funds and we do that in
cooperation with a lot of partners. Um, in 2014, Klay County levy funds were used to create this program as one of and our chair, Commissioner Bratz joins us. Um, we used those funds to create a pilot
program in Klay County in partnership with CAP LP, Churches United for the Homeless, Klay County Social Services, and I have to and the Morehead School Districts. Um, we were one of three pilots awarded funding. Our pilot was
extremely successful. Uh ours served as the basis for the development of a brand new state of Minnesota program that went into effect in 2018 called homework starts with home. Uh we are the only entity to be continuously funded under that program. Um and we are able to
serve households referred by local school districts who have children who are facing homelessness in their classes. Um this has been a very effective partnership. We now have partnerships with all the schools within Klay County as well as a myriad of other
partners. Um, in fact, CAP LP and us were on a call last week uh where they increased the investment in Klay County to over a million dollars um per year when uh one of the applicants who'd received uh funding uh declined the
award. Um, so we're down to once again three recipients across the entire state of Minnesota and Klay County HR and CAP LP are one of those three. This is just one of the programs that we have targeted in ending um child
homelessness and levy funds are used to support all of those. Um we also um this is just one of our examples of collaboration. We have worked with a variety of partners in trying to maximize housing
supports and resources throughout our community. One of those examples was, as we all know, um, a year ago, Churches United was in somewhat of a dire situation. Um, and we were grateful to see the entire community to come to play
a part in make sure making sure that that resource continued. One of the ways that the HR contributed is they have two permanent support of housing developments, Bright Sky Apartments and Silver Linings that just opened and the HR took over the administration of a
program called housing supports in conjunction with Klay County Social Services. The HA is now providing case management or supportive services to approximately half the residents of those buildings. Uh the HA also provides
at least 75 up to 90% of the rental assistance for people to pay their rents in those units. So those are 43 households at Bright Sky and 42 I believe at uh at Silver Linings.
Um, we have a long history of partnering with and oftentimes sharing money with Klay County Social Services, CAP LP, Presentation Partners in Housing, CCRI, Lakeland Mental Health Central, Metro Behavioral Health Center, um, the Lotus
Center, uh, the FM Coalition to End Homelessness, the West Central Minnesota Continuum of Care, our local schools, and many others. And these levy funds are what makes that a reality to be able to do. Um we are traditionally
able to leverage $ 15 to $20 for every dollar that the citizens of Klay County pay through their local property taxes in order to get these resources into the community. Um and we do that oftentimes in partnership. uh so that the the
numbers that I provide to you are typically annual or bianual amounts that we are able to to increase but we don't talk about that ongoing commitment. Uh the HR brings in over $8 million in federal resources uh that are supported
as well as we've discussed a number of the state resources uh that are also at play. I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have. Yes, Commissioner Bear. >> How many How many years have you been
coming here and asking for this? >> The first time we requested the levy was in 274208. >> And you've been coming every year since. >> We have not. The H board of commissioners once again takes a look um I don't want to speak on their behalf,
but I think they carefully try to balance the needs in the community versus the costs to the taxpayers. So we have only come in in years that it was really critical and when there were program opportunities in order to
leverage significant resources to come into the community. So we we look for funding in whatever way we can and we're not in this to make any money. We're just trying to stay solvent. Uh this is
the 50th anniversary year of the HA. Um, and you will see we are not having any big celebrations. Um, we're not investing in things that say 50th anniversary because we're looking to just meet the most critical needs and
using all of our resources to meet those needs. I I mentioned about a parking lot pavement last time. Well, it was because we're moving staff back to our main office and uh we only had enough parking spots to uh for our staff and when our
board meetings are there, it would leave one spot available which would be accessible parking. Um and so we we need to be accessible to the community and so we have to make some of these things to be ADA compliant and um be able to actually deliver services.
>> But we try to focus all of our resources. Um we have one of the lowest administrative overhead costs that you will see. We normally operate at 5 to 7% overhead uh for administrative where typically you know you see 10 to 15% at
least within most agencies. So we try to operate lean uh like I said we're not here I I think my board would never support something um that we were not doing just to try to maintain that sol solveny along with leveraging those resources into the community.
Any other questions? Um, when it comes to the you you had mentioned you're waiting to hear from Barnesville on the 1 point was that is that a grant through deed or >> Yes, correct. Is federal funds to deed
that are then competitively awarded throughout. when all of those things when those applications are submitted, are there um leverage dollars that are but by those communities that are also being put in?
>> Uh yes, sir. Barnesville has had back in I would say the 70s, 80s and 90s, they had done some of their own um applications until that it kind of became too complex and time consuming. So that they had reached out to us and
so for funds that were leveraged back then and have been repaid, they're putting those in as well. >> So they >> and so >> and they also use staffing resources to assist. >> For example, the city of Morhead, does the city of Morehead have are they are
they putting anything in for leverage dollars towards homelessness? >> Uh towards homelessness? Yes. >> And is it is it through the HR or >> um last year? I know it was through Klay County. I'm sorry, Churches United, but
they also must consent to this levy since >> I I Yeah, I saw that. >> Cities Citizens of Morehead would also >> I didn't know if they if they do anything similar to this within their own budgets is what I'm asking. Yes, they did award funds to Churches United
and then last year they awarded funds to the HR um to assist with the front desk security I'm sorry with the security at a number of our properties within the city of Morhead. Those included Gateway Gardens, Fieldcrest Apartments, Ber
Apartments. I will look to Dawn. They also have contributed uh over $150,000 for leverage uh for improvements at the um Riverview Heights high-rise. And so the city of Morhead is also making those investments. Yes.
>> Thank you. Any other questions, comments? >> Yeah. Uh I'll just make a couple overview comments. So, I'm really uh pleased that I get to hear our monthly
meetings. Uh also happy for the um two work group sessions we have. I thought what you added today from what we heard last Tuesday Tuesday Tuesday was helpful. Some of it little bit of a repeat, but I picked up on a couple new
items. Um I just um I mean I I guess I'm just impressed the way that you can leverage money and the uh amount of funds that are taking place and the um and the collaboration that I see uh
happening mainly between UKAP and and how that feel and churches United I think is really um kind of settled down some of the uh well certainly some of the pressures that were existing only a few months ago. So
you bring us in a positive direction and congratulations on the uh new grant that you picked up also for what was it 1.7 million or whatever the one >> it was 2 million but >> okay two million right so just uh positive comments for your board
>> if I if I can commission motors and then I'll get I I just wanted to um comment briefly Commissioner Bear raised a question about how often I I remember for quite some time it like an every other year type of a deal that that
request came in. Um it not exact but it's it was that uh I just wanted to mention on the the availability of funds for
homeowners to upgrade their their housing. That's something that I've always supported. Um there's been there often times that might be the the difference in them staying there and it also might be the difference in that
property becoming blighted to the point where it is a distraction to all the neighbors around them. So So that part of that is I've always felt is a is a really good program and it helps keep people in their homes. Commissioner Mojo,
>> thank you. Thanks for the presentation. And thanks also for actively being part of our uh meetings every six months. I think it's been really helpful for us to make sure that we're uh providing feedback and understanding the issues that you're seeing, but also your
presence at our small cities meetings. I think having you there has been helpful for the smaller cities to know how to reach out. But I appreciate that you're helping with the staffing capacity on applications for and navigating really
the grant processes. Um, you know, I I constantly say I go back to my 4 days on what our cost per wear type piece is and um I would challenge all departments really to make a dollar worth $25 coming in. I think that's phenomenal. that
speaks to um how well you know how to apply for those pieces um and how you can take issues that we're seeing in our county and advocate for them. So, I I really appreciate that. I talked to you this week about
making sure that we're using dollars that we receive in the most effective way to affect families in the best possible way to affect retirees, all sorts of folks so they can stay in their homes. Um, and I spent a lot of time at
the Capitol with the um, FM Chamber of Commerce. And one of the biggest pieces for the chamber and workforce development is housing. And we talk critically about how do we um, make sure we have the housing capacity in our
communities to support our workforce needs. And so what you're doing really does that. I uh, really appreciate that. And I think my closing piece is it's not lost on me that I was late to this meeting because I was waiting for a school bus to pick up my children. And I think a lot of
people in our county don't know that there are school buses in Klay County that pick up children at the homeless shelter. And your work, particularly with CAP LP, really goes to strengthen those um supports for kiddos that are in
really challenging situations. Um uh it it's really tricky for someone who is that's not even in their realm of reality to understand how challenging those outcomes can be and the funds in which you're utilizing to support those
families uh really goes to take off a significant burden onto our already demanding social services pieces. Um, and so I I also don't always love that we have to have levy requests, but most of the levy requests that we're going to
talk about today do not bring in $8.1 million with $300,000. I mean, it's just it's the nature of your work. So, um, I always caution us to make sure, as I said, we're utilizing this in the best possible way to serve
the people that we are. Um, I continue to advocate that you work closely with our small cities and when issues arise that we're really responsive to those issues. Um, but thanks for your work, >> Commissioner Ever. you just echo some of
the thoughts that have been expressed, but um I'm portfolio includes homeless issues and it is a tough not to crack. The resources we have in this in this community, not just Klay County, but
Cass and the immediate area are stretched and often underfunded. and what uh what your your outfit did coming through for Churches United is acknowledged and appreciated. Uh I was
at Silver Linings opening and you know it's you you're not going to cure the whole problem uh all at once. But that was a pretty big bite out of an area that's hard a group that's hard to house and hard to
maintain for them. the funding that you're you're putting on maintaining our older homes is critical. Uh we have an aging uh housing stock and if they if people aren't afforded the opportunity to keep their
houses in repair, you'll see what you see in a lot of communities is these house homes and neighborhoods were developed in the 40s and 50s and 60s are going to start falling apart and we'll go backwards on our meeting the needs of housing. Um,
it's a good investment and it's tough for anybody here on this commission right now. We're looking at at property taxes and we realize uh Commissioner Campbell's frequently says it's most regressive tax that we've
got to deal with and it impacts in a very negative way on a lot of the people that you are serving. people of low income pe uh elderly and workingclass people that are trying to get into homes. So, we try and keep a lid on the
taxes, but there there comes a time where you have to acknowledge the return on investment is is uh very impressive with the HR. So, appreciate the work you're doing.
>> All right. I there's a um maybe a question for Mr. Larson. Is is this something that requires a resolution with the resolution number on it for something? >> Uh it does not Mr. Chair. >> Okay. I just wanted to make sure of that.
>> Commissioner Krabnoff, >> just one more question also. Um so upon uh tell me the process here between us and your other entities. So um you need approval from us as well as
from the small cities or >> we will we need a you know as with the H everything's a little bit complicated. Um so under the state statute we need approval from other communities that have a housing and redevelopment authority. Clearly that's the city of
Barnesville. Um, unclearly it may or may not be the city of Morehead, but as a courtesy, we always do go to Morehead. Um, they have a public housing agency. I we're not interested in having a legal debate about whether that qualifies or
not. So, we go and receive the consent or request the consent um to that um body as well. >> And that will we're on the agendas for next Monday for both of those councils. I just if I could follow up. I just I
was gratified CAP LP and the HR were on a call with Minnesota housing last Thursday and the staff at Minnesota Housing. Every once in a while it feels like we're not making progress at all. But they were like, "We have confidence that you guys will be the first ones in
the state to actually end child homelessness because of the commitment of all the partnerships, including the county." So that that was nice to hear every once in a while. Yes, Commissioner Bear. So, you're >> you're asking for 300,000 on tax levy.
Could you do less? >> No. Um, if we could, we would. Uh, last year we requested, I believe, 500,000. Um, and then we were able to work with the county on the state affordable housing aid. Um, like I said, we're not
trying to make any money. We're just trying to stay solvent. Um and people have heard me say on a number of occasions that during the pandemic we sign we experienced significant losses. Um in 2023 our um
net uh available for investment uh declined by $180,000. In 2024 it declined by $90,000. we spent our reserves and if we still had reserves, we would be using utilizing that in an attempt to bring in
other outside resources. So no, we would have to stop operating some of these programs that we do believe the return on the investment is worth it for the citizens. >> Right. >> What's the board's wishes?
>> Yeah. Well, I'll make a motion to approve the H the county le and collect special benefit tax of 300,000 for 2026. >> Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Kavanagh, second by Commissioner
Ebinger. Any further discussion on the motion? Any further discussion? >> Sarah, roll call vote, please. >> Commissioner Kraven. >> Hi. Commissioner Mojo, >> yes. >> Commissioner Campbell, >> yes.
>> Commissioner Bear, >> no. >> Commissioner Ebinger, >> hi. >> All right, that motion carries and the um lever request is granted. Thank you. All right. Next, we have a um budget
presentation from probation. My paperwork here. All right, good morning. >> First, I want to say thanks for being patient uh with me and trying to get this together. Um, a lot of this information is a little new to me in the
last two weeks and I need some time to >> Can you talk close to your mic? >> Yep. Sorry. I think this is always my problem. >> Um, yeah. So, thank you uh for giving me some time to put these numbers together so that I can first of all make sense of
it myself and be able to provide you something that um hopefully makes sense today. It'll be a little complicated. >> I'll ask that you bear with me uh through the presentation. Um and if you have any questions, feel free at the end.
All right. Um, so I want to open with the funding formula statute uh 40110 and specifically a uh the funding formula statute for the state of Minnesota started uh July 1 of 2023. the
community supervision subsidy paid to each county. Uh the commissioner for supervision of nonCCA jurisdictions served by the department of corrections and to each applicable tribal nation under paragraph E equal to the sum of
there's a base funding amount of 150,000 for each county. Uh, and there's a community supervision formula equal to the sum of. And then there's some language there that I'm going to get into. I'm going to break this down a little bit more so that it's
hopefully a little easier to understand. And so, the purpose of the community supervision funding formula is to reimburse expenditures tied to community supervision and community-based programming and services for persons involved in the justice system. Um so
that part of this slide is something I said last year. Um however the funding formula has changed in the last year to include all of felony and misdemeanor supervision tied together. Um the formula consists of the number of
clients on supervision. Um whether that's felony um you know supervised release and probation. And then uh you take that the new part of the formula it's the average of three years. So 21 22 and 23 that's new this
year times a capitated rate which is 5.62 per individual on supervision and then times per day. Um historically the funding formula was done as a whole for all on supervision. The only responsibility of the county
was 50% of that number for contracted offices. So, misdemeanor, gross misdemeanor, and juvenile. And the funding formula has changed in 2026 to cover any overages and felony supervision. And so, this is new. Um,
the capitated rate has remained constant. And so, why has that changed? Uh based on the 2025 data, the total appropriation needed to fully fund this formula statewide was 155,880,993.
In 2025, the legislature appropriated 143,378,000 or 91% of what was required to cover the the appropriation which fell short by
12,52,000 or $52,993. So, um, historically when falling short, uh, the state has covered these costs for felony supervision. Uh, and it's my understanding that this year, um, they
aren't able to do that and so those costs are falling back on the counties. I'll explain how much of a difference this will be and then I'm also going to talk about some of the efforts I've made uh, to reduce this increase. um
as much as I can. Okay. And so you can see for 2024 the salaries agent clerical full and part-time uh 679,83. That includes 4.5 agents that are contracted for gross misdemeanor supervision and three county support
staff in 2026. You can see on that side it says 173. That's because we've removed the 4.5 agent positions from the county budget uh because of the difference in the funding formula. I'll explain that in a little bit.
Um and then I'm going to explain a little bit later to um how there's a reduction under STS, health insurance, parah, social security, uh rent um totaling. You'll see then that the the expenditure you can't see my mouse up there. the
expenditure for 2024 893,350 and for 2026 304,000. And so what that means is I've taken the felony piece out of it now um because the funding formula ties everything together. However, I'm still going to explain the difference
should the funding formula never have changed. Okay? And so this is exactly that the total cost for salaries and what I'm comparing to is 2024 because we don't have all of the information from 2025 yet. And so
the best comparison is I've got hard numbers from 24. Let's see how 2026 compares. So 4.5 uh contract employee salaries 438. And since the funding formula came out, um, each county within the jurisdiction
joint and severally pays for a portion of an OAS senior position because the OAS senior covers all of the districts um, in the jurisdiction. And then um, the supervisor pay and management and management um, I'll talk about a little
bit more about what that what is rolled up in that in a little bit. And so you pay um um a small subcomponent of those overall costs. And so for 2024 that amounted to $80,000. Um and so for when you tie in the
salaries and these management costs in 2024 the county paid 518,000 for uh contracted supervision. In 2024 they paid nothing for felony supervision.
if continued in 2026 utilizing the old formula um including you know cola increases, salaries, raises and everything else uh 438 would have went to 510. Uh OAS supervisor and management would have went to 93 and so that number
would have been 604. And so when you think about that difference just over those two years there's been some increases um and you're looking at roughly there you know 80 80,000 $78,000 which is something to think about. Um,
so the funding formula uh to include all staff salaries, the subsidy from the state, the county subsidy, the base funding tied all together, the numbers are from a three-year average. And this year for every county in the state, they're paying an ICO cost. Uh, and I'll
show that on the next slide. So now on the next slide, ic it's like uh it's the system that the state utilizes to transfer individuals on supervision from one state to another. And there's a whole
there's a whole team that makes up that system that ensures that we're complying with federal law in that process. And so now there's a cost associated with that. And so on the next slide here now I'm going to break down the funding formula
uh the change uh that we're going to see in 2026. And so this is how it works. I showed this last year. Um people on felony adult supervision probation and supervised release numbers from 2021 to 2023. The average was 650 uh for Klay
County times the capitated rate times every day of the year. you end up with 1,333,000 for gross misdemeanor supervision. 281 * 562 times 1 year 576,415.3 and as the statute identifies that is
the county's responsibility is 50% of that number. So we take that 576 and divide that by two to get 288. Historically, when uh the county was paying um under the under the old funding formula, we weren't including any overages and felony supervision.
This kickback, this 288 comes back to the county, and I'll show you what you got in 2024, how that reduced u what the county's respon overall responsibility was going to be. And so, we add these numbers together, we get a total of 1,621,000.
The legislature has agreed to not fully fund to the tone of roughly 92%. In comparison to 24 and 25, they were at 91.5. So it did go up a little bit. Um that's good news. And so but but overall
that reduces that 1,600 to 1,400. We add the base allocation that each county gets within the Department of Corrections 150,000 times that uh times that 92% and you get 37. Um, and so and
then we also have to minus as I indicated that ICOT's calculation for Clay County. The Icott's calculation is different for every county. As you can imagine, we're border borderline one of the bigger cities outside of Minnesota. And so we are top five in the state for
the number of interstate transfers that we do in and out of our district here. It seems like uh adding all of that up 1,618,951 is our subsidy for 2026. In comparison to 2025, a reduction of $9,513.
Probably think maybe that's where that iculation came in there a little bit and that's why you're seeing somewhat of a little a little reduction there. So, what does the subsidy mean? Before I go there, I want to talk about 2024. In 2024, Klay County received two
bills to from the state totaling 518,000. Um, and then when we added that to the county budget, the total was 893 350. We minus that state subsidy. And so in
2024, half of the misdemeanor, gross misdemeanor, and juvenile numbers that we had talked about in the funding formula was 261. And so this year it's 280. So that's went up. So we minus this from uh both
the salaries of the contracted staff, the county budget. Um and you get a total of 632,06. That was the overall expense for supervision in 2024.
So let's compare it to um some of the changes that have been made in the last year. Now, since we don't focus solely on county staff, we rope all staff into the funding formula. So, clay count clay felony and contract staff wages totaling
1.8 million. That's for 24 agents, six support staff or I'm sorry, three support staff because the county staff numbers are on a different spreadsheet. Um the Clay DS
OAS senior and management 291753 the sum of operation expense CE 158,68152 and so that totals 2,266206. Um, we also have 1.5 positions that are
contracted or not contracted, they're grant-f funded positions through the state and that's uh, you know, our our newly developed DWI court and then half of our drug court. So, we subtract those costs and we're down to 2,14850.
Now, we subtract the state subsidy, the number that's generated by the funding formula, and what you're left with for the budget in 2026 is 525,899 in comparison to the Klay County expense
in 2024, 257266. Now, there won't be as big of a jump as there was when adding the county budget in 2024 to what those D doc expenses were in 2024. Um, and that's simply because of a lot
of changes that have occurred in the county budget. And those changes are 304,586. And so the total expense uh that we we're going to need to budget for for 2026 is 83485
versus the 63206 from 2024. So it's an increase of roughly 200,000. Couple of things to take into consideration. Go ahead. Just trying as we go through these numbers, I'm trying to find out where
the increases have been concealed. And if we could put the Oh, okay. on the on the uh clay felony and contract staff wages. Prior to this year, did we pay felony staff wages? >> Nope.
>> So that's been added in. >> A portion of it has been added in as my understanding. Yes. like 8.1 or >> so. For instance, the felony overages for 2025 for Klay County were over $300,000 and the Department of Corrections covered those in 2025 and every year prior.
>> Is there a higher number of felony cases uh given the policies of the uh Department of Corrections to try and do more community-based u sentencing? Is there a higher number of of felony cases that are being
brought into us now than maybe the last five-year average? >> No, I would say that uh in in this district the the numbers trend down. You know, it's our goal to follow best
practices. Um if somebody is doing very well on supervision, they've completed the conditions for the court. um they're very motivated and they're confident in their ability to make major life changes. Uh you know, working with the prosecution
and the defense, we move towards early discharge of supervision. Um and that's what best practice shows us. For somebody who's extremely low risk on supervision, keeping them on supervision for longer periods of time, um can end up problematic. And I'm
paraphrasing, you know, there's a lot of data behind that and stuff. >> In effect, that would reduce the number of felony. >> It does reduce the number of felony people on supervision. >> Okay? Even if more are coming out, more getting off off probation earlier. >> People that are low risk of recidiv
recidivating in the community, people that are low risk of continuing their status quo behavior are more likely to get off of supervision early than somebody that's high risk. >> The increase or the shift of funding for some of
these felony cases to the counties. Is that contained in statute or was that a function of the budget? >> It's a function of the budget. This >> there's nowhere in statute that says 8.2 or whatever proportion uh will be shifted to the counties.
>> It's it's a it's a function of the Department of Corrections. Um and so, you know, the funding formula is very clear as to what those expenses will be for each county. um in in putting that together. There's nothing in statute to my knowledge um
that had said that the Department of Corrections is responsible for those overages. I think it's really unfortunate the budget situation that we're in this year. Um and so this is this is where we're left with. Granted, I found out
this in two weeks. Um looking at uh the situation that we're in, we have a little bit of time before the end of the year. been working closely with Steve and Lori uh to really take a good look at this to see if there's any other um moves that we can make to diminish this
as much as possible. I cannot speak to the future of the funding formula. Um you hear things um and I'll get to that at the end of the presentation here. >> Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. If I could,
as Dale said, we've worked closely. We've run this budget backwards forwards multiple times and and again under I mean I think this is a a great example of not shooting the messenger. Dale's been great as he mentioned kind of at the beginning of this we were had planned to come to you about a month
ago. uh and uh after we presented um he he received some information that that there was going to be a tweak and so we've pulled that and been meeting since. I think to kind of one of the points of the of concern uh of this well there are several points of concern but
I think one of the challenging parts that's disappointing is the funding's based on the number of people that are on probation and as Dale's mentioned uh they've received a lot of recognition across the state for their ability to take those lowrisisk recidivism rate individuals
and move them off. Uh, and so the ironic part of this and this shift is we're we're almost now as a county being penalized because of the great work that they're doing. >> Ditto. >> So, how was to that point, how is that
vetted or who who does that? >> That's a very good question. I don't have the answer to that question. Um, and you know, this is something that I've found out in the last two weeks. Um, I'm my guess would be the commissioner of
corrections. Um, and the powers that be above that is definitely something I could provide you more information on. I think when I've initially received the funding formula information and the changes, I mean, I had tunnel vision, so trying to work
this out. No matter what I I'm just saying as far as statewide other counties, do you do you feel there's quite a few others in the same spot we are? >> Yeah, I think um many counties are going
to see an increase this year. >> Um go ahead. >> I haven't I haven't really seen any comparison. I we talk about on here we talk about 2026 versus 2024.
>> I haven't really seen anything comparison for 2026 versus 2025 other than this sheet that you have that that we've got presented to us. I don't know if Steve put that down for us, but when all is said and done, what I'm seeing
here, the proposal that we have on here that says after adjustments for 2026, the expenditures um bless the grants total 755,637.
And that compares to the same number of 611,016 for 2025, which means that we're um we're asking it's being asked for an increased levy of 144,641.
Does that do those numbers sound I mean that's what that's what's that's what we have in front of us here. So, we have the county has not yet been build for 2025 and so it's hard for me to make that comparison. Um, you know, I
like to work with Lori to get those hard numbers to work with so that I can, you know, the information I'm presenting is as factual as it possibly can be. Um, and so we're waiting for the end of the billing cycle for 2025. Um, >> you want a calendar year? >> What's that? When you say a billing
cycle for the state, is that a is that a calendar year? Is it a fiscal year? That I'm assuming they're fiscal, right? >> We we bill from January to June and then from July to December. And so on this slide here, I showed you that
>> uh good luck finding it here. It's right here. From January to June in 2024, your build 263991. from July to December 255619. >> And the second half of the bill for 2025 the county has not received yet.
>> Correct. >> Okay. So the numbers that you have or that we have here they somebody had uh >> those are budgeted estimations. >> Those are those are what is anticipated to be the total.
>> Yep. and for 2025, you know, taking into consideration that um that that was put together under the old funding formula, the overages for 2025 will be covered by the Department of Corrections. It's my understanding.
So, this is only the budget for 2026. I do got a couple of slides left. I >> Okay, go ahead. >> Um at the bottom here, you know, something that's new. It's not a budget line item for us. you know, this is more so for the general fund, but the felony uh probation office rent, you know, in
the last year, we've moved the felony supervision into the courthouse. Um that helps kind of alleviate, I would hope to some degree, the overall cost of the county um and to the tune of over 70,000
as well. So, when you think about that, so what changed in 2025 in the county budget? uh the state ended their STS program. Uh the county was responsible for threequarters uh of the salary of that position. The
contract office rent will decrease by 11,000 when we in 2026. Hopefully by the end of October, the contract office will move into the family service center and it's a little bit of a smaller space. I think it'll fit them um their needs well. Um but that's a reduction of 11.
Decrease to proposed health insurance. uh decreased to perah decrease to social security and so we add all of these up um in looking at some of the difference just in the county dollars um I'm looking at a relative decrease of around
170,000 and so that impacts it too um that 200 without some of those changes you know you could imagine that we were looking at 350 I want to talk a little bit about the benefits of partnering with the department of corrections >> uh just one deal. Yep.
>> Yeah. So those deficits they look like is it less employees then? >> Yeah. That we have one less employee. >> Okay. >> Yep. >> That would have been those costs >> part of it. Yep. >> Yeah. >> For sure. Absolutely. >> Um and so the benefits of partnering
with the DOC, you pay um a sub component of these overall costs. Uh CSTS is a software program that we use within the department for supervision. There's costs associated. LSMI is uh our assessment tool in the state of
Minnesota. Uh we have an evidence-based practices unit of trainers. Uh five individuals from the department of corrections. Um employee development, human resources, HR, background checks, recruitment, retention, performance management, FMLA,
workman's compensation, housing support unit. Uh we have a work group to support homeless uh and struggling populations. Uh we have an IT, you know, we have minute. Um they're responsible for the laptops, monitors, servicing fees, uh
printer, you know, all of those things. Legal affairs, support of defensive litigation should the county ever need, uh planning and performance unit, workload studies, recidivism studies, data request needs, um safety administrator, body armor, safety gear for the field, self-defense
training, verbal deescalation. We have a support staff or a support and wellness committee, peer support training initiative to promote a healthy lifestyle. And so these are some of the things that are tied in by contracting with the department um where you pay
not a full cost associated with that. That's those are those are some pretty significant benefits. And finally, I just want to talk about some of the collaborative projects um that we've been working on in the last year. Uh right now I'm part of the or I was we've kind of come to the end of
this the CSTS planning phase 3 committee and so the department of corrections has been working with other districts uh in the state to put our software program together to really meet the needs um of the efforts that we're we have going for evidence-based practices and the DOC has
been a major proponent um for these changes to occur and they align specifically with our case planning with our case planning projects. um domestic violence response committee. I've talked about that in the past. We have a risk needs work group um and a
Minnesota pre-screener. So, the Department of Corrections is working on utilizing a screening tool to screen out individuals on supervision who are ultimately low risk so that we don't have to go through vetting them for the entire case planning process. Saves time. Um amongst other things, uh we
were working with an IDA pilot um targeting um specific uh individuals who have been convicted of DWI um to focus on what are their drivers uh and reducing their risk. um ACJI uh we've
been working with implementation science and so as you can imagine some of the struggles of any department when trying to change what you're doing in your department uh it can be really problematic and what we found is you know um going through ACGI and being
trained on implementation science um that's been uh extremely beneficial other EVP initiatives we have an enhanced sex offender supervision roadmap so the strategies ies that we use to target case planning with those convicted of a sex offense. Um it has
really been targeted in the last year and then that also rolls over into general supervision uh road map DWI court drug court and many of the local you know committees that I'm involved in CAP LP uh suicide substance use
um safe harbor response mental health collaboration. So, new in 2026, uh the contract office will be moved to the family service center, reducing those rent costs. As I talked about, the felony office has relocated uh to the courthouse, providing revenue to the county. And
again, um to your point, Dave, and this is something that I wanted to touch on was the potential legislative changes to the funding formula to benefit early discharge circumstances and department effectiveness are conversations that we're having behind the scenes. you
know, these we're trying to get momentum um because I know um what we're doing here in this county um is extremely effective. So there you go. That is it. Uh any questions at all? Commissioner,
>> just an observation. Dale, you have come in and your performance since you've come to this has been uh very impressive and this is not a reflection on you. But I have serious concerns
with the ability of something that's not buried in in in an omnimous bill or some sort of legislation we didn't see coming, but an administrative decision. >> Mhm. >> That impacts on every county in this state
>> and impacts on on our our taxpayers. once again with the most regressive tax system we have in the state to offset either bad bookkeeping or underfunding. And it's not our responsibility to bail
them out. Um, we have a legislative uh conference coming up with uh Association of Minnesota Counties and we are going to have a discussion in the public safety
uh panel on this. I would like if you could do it if you could send Steve your slides and Steve if you could get them out to us. I think that it gives some some perspective because this is pretty vague stuff and I think you've you've done u a good
job of working with our auditor and with Steve and trying to identify where the the the uh funding is going and what direction we need to anticipate. But this is not how things are supposed to operate. If we get hit with something
like this on a cost shift and that's what this is, it should be something contained in legislation that's out in the open and there's no transparency in this through no fault of viewers. But I find it very disturbing that the
state can knock counties back on their heels trying to figure out how to pay the bills with something like this. And I think it needs to be discussed openly and the public needs to be made aware. You're doing a good job of helping people turn their lives around and get
back out in the in society, pay taxes, and take care of their families. I get it. And the people in the in the correction uh process need to be given those opportunities, but it also needs to be paid for. And there needs to be an agreement on how
we're going to do that, not just a little September surprise. Yeah. >> So, I appreciate your presentation, but the concerns are still there. >> Yeah. And I and I understand that. Um, you know, we've got, like I had said,
some time before 26 comes around. Um, and I'm going to continue to work hard to look on ways to reduce um the impact to Klay County. Commissioner, I believe Sarah's already sent the PowerPoint by email to everybody on the board.
>> Thanks. All right. Anything else? Thank you, Dale. Thank you. >> All right. Next, we have the request approval for the 2026 ancillary insurance offerings.
Good morning, Anna. >> Good morning. As I mentioned last week, um I'm here today to discuss the 2026 ancillary benefits um and request approval um or support of the insurance committee. So you should all have a packet um that is
we will kind of go through page by page um there should be some red and blue on there. Perfect. Um so the first page is going to be the hospital indemnity insurance. Um so I should back up just a little bit. Um during the RFP process, we went out um not only for health
insurance, which we discussed last week, but all of our ancillary benefits and every single benefit uh for 2026 is being um recommended from the insurance committee for a change. So the first one is hospital um indemnity insurance. This is actually a new offering in 2026 um
completely voluntary to the employee. So, they are not required to take it, but in the event that they are they elect this insurance and they are hospitalized, um they would get a set payment from the insurance carrier. Uh like I said, it's voluntary. There is no additional cost to Klay County. It
would just be the employees cost should they take it. The insurance committee did vote uh 10 to one to recommend adding that insurance for 2026. Any questions on the hospital insurance?
Okay. Uh the next uh insurance offering uh that the insurance committee wanted me to bring forward is going to be critical illness insurance. Um changing from our current carrier Madison National Life to standard in 2026. There is a pretty significant cost savings to
that as well. It is voluntary so the employee does not have to take it and there is no cost to Klay County to offer it. Um that did pass the insurance committee um for standards specifically on a vote from 7 to 4.
Any questions on critical illness? Okay, we'll keep on going through then. They're all hopefully pretty simple. Um the next one is accident insurance. We currently offer this through Madison National Life. Um suggesting a change to the company standard. There is a savings
on every single policy um or every single tier I should say for the accident insurance. Again, voluntary to the employee, no cost to the employer. That passed the insurance committee uh for from a six to five vote. Almost there.
Uh dental. So, this is probably the biggest one. So, we have had Delta Dental for about the last five years. Prior to that, we had Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota. And we are proposing um making a carrier change from Delta Dental to United Healthcare
for 2026. Uh with this change uh we would be off or the plan would offer implants. That's been something that the committee and employees have been asking for the last couple years. And then for an additional 97 cents per month, the employee can choose to essentially buy up um or pick a better not necessarily
better tier, but they can um select a different tier of coverage that would include orthodonia coverage for their dependents under the age of 19. So uh one other thing with or with dental, we are currently self-insured. and we've been operating claims over revenue. So,
we are um we are in a situation that we'd either have to increase our Delta dental premiums or make this switch. If we make this switch, we would be fully insured with the carrier. So, the carrier would take on that risk. That did pass the insurance committee
with a vote of 13 to zero. Vision insurance, we currently have a visas and we've had visas for many years. The committee is recommending a change to United Healthcare. uh there would be approximately a 7% savings to the member and one additional um feature that was added to this plan would be the
actual exam. So our health insurance covers the eye exam for any individual that is enrolled on the health insurance. But if you have a dependent that is not on our health insurance, but you cover them on vision, they would now have an exam covered or um with a small co-pay. So um that passed the insurance
committee with a vote from 11 to two. Okay. Um, long-term disability. The insurance committee is also recommending a carrier change from our current carrier of Madison National Life to United Healthcare. And that passed the insurance committee with a vote of 10 to zero. Again, completely voluntary to the
employee, no additional cost to Klay County. And then lastly, short-term disability. Uh the insurance committee is also recommending a change from Madison National Life to United Healthcare um premium savings voluntary to the member and that passed with a 10 to1 vote. With
that, I'll open it up for any questions. >> All right. Any questions of Anna? I I guess at this, you know, I guess if there's no questions, um I I would like to maybe see a motion to accept the insurance committee's
request on all the ancillary benefits uh for 2026. I make a motion to support the insurance committee's recommendations uh for the 2026 ancillary insurance offerings. >> I'll second the motion. >> Right. We have a motion by Commissioner
Krabangh, second by Commissioner Mojo. Any further discussion on the motion? All clear. All right. >> Thank you. >> All right. Well, we got to vote this every time. >> Don't don't think yet. All right. Any
further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> I. Opposed. The same. Motion carried. All right. Now you're good. >> Okay. I will try not to do that this time. >> Okay. That's no problem. And then so next then we have the uh discussion and approval for the paid family medical
leave. >> Yes. So as we are all aware, this has been in the works for the last couple years now. Um the state of Minnesota is passing a paid family medical leave program um with implementation on January 1 of 2026. Um, in the state
proposal, um, they do allow employers to go out and shop the private market. So, we did just that for comparison. Um, in front of you, you guys should see a comparison between United Healthcare, MetLife, and paid family medical leave. Um, the state rate is at a 0.88 and the
two proposals that we received from United Healthcare and Metife beat that uh, state proposal pretty significantly. The one that administration is recommending is the United Healthcare. Not only would that kind of partner um and piggyback off of some of the ancillary plans for kind of a seamless
claim process for our employees, um the rate is coming in at a 71% instead of a 088. So um significant savings there. This data in front of you is based off a point in time. So we ran this about two weeks ago um and at that time we had 713
employees. So as we grow or as people um leave that number will fluctuate a little bit. It is also based off the current wage that the individuals are being paid today not off of anticipated cola or anything for 2026 since we don't know what that is yet. So um the
proposed cost for paid family medical leave with United Healthcare um would be $333,000 in compared to the state program of $412,000. that is um going to be a 50-50 split between the employer and the employee.
So, under United Healthcare, approximately $167,000 to the employer, 167,000 to the employee. Again, an estimate just because we don't have the 2025 um rates yet. >> Just for clarification, um Anna and
Steve, I I do not believe the board has taken action on the 5050 split either yet, have we? that that's there's been yeah there's been no >> legislation it's been our it's been our you know >> what we've been anticipating from the
budget standpoint but but I I think there will also need to be board action to actually affirm that. >> Sure. And I know that um I don't want to speak for Darren here but I know that in the union negotiation process that's being vetted through all the unions and
in the negotiations right now too. >> Okay. But the paid family leave act is outside of the um cafeteria plan. >> Correct. Yes. No, the uh paid family medical leave has no connection to our health insurance or or the county
contribution. Um there are going to have to be discussions that occur at pick um hopefully in just a couple weeks on if we are going to continue to offer sick leave a sick leave donation policy here in Klay County. Right now, employees um that need an extended leave of absence
can request donations where their peers donate time to them. So, under this new program where they could have potentially up to 20 weeks u through the private or the state, we'll have to uh see if that is still something the county wants to offer. And the other thing um that is currently written in
statute is that we cannot require an individual to if they submit a claim through paid family medical leave, we cannot require them to use their sick or vacation. So they can choose to have being paid by this company and unpaid by Klay County. We can offer them. Um so
something that the pick and and the board will have to decide is if we want to allow the employees to supplement their time and use their acred sick and vacation, but we cannot mandate that. So that'll be going to pick in just a couple weeks. >> Mr. Chair and Anna, maybe if you could
explain the paid family leave essentially doesn't cover the full amount. Is that's why? >> Correct. So, um, paid family medical leave, um, will pay up to twothirds of the individual's wage. Kind of depends on their salary and whether they make more than the, um, statewide weekly
average or less than the statewide weekly average, but they will not receive 100% of their pay from the the state or the private plan. >> When you say that, is it 100% of their gross pay? >> Correct. Yes. Sorry, I had to think that through for a second. So they um the
other reason with the kind of backing up to the ancillary benefits um with long-term long-term and short-term disability in accident falling under uh United Healthcare. If an individual submits one claim and they have multiple plans, it's one claim and the company
takes care of that. They don't have to submit a claim to each different carrier. So it saves them some paperwork. Um we would still run FMLA concurrently with that. Um, so getting in the weeds a little bit there, but um, they can they will not be paid whether they have these ancillary coverages or
not, they will not make more than 100% of their gross wage. So from a um standpoint of administrative work and choosing the um who we're going to have as the
carrier for our paid family medical leave insurance is that something that you would also just assume have sooner rather than later in preparation I suppose uh auditor's office would like to have it and Yes. Um the one piece
with the state program is the state's never done this before. So it's new to them. Um whereas United Healthcare and MetLife have been um offering a similar like benefit in many other states for many years and so they at least have some knowledge. Um administratively
the paperwork on that side will be cleaner but from our end yes we do have to make some decisions. We have some to make legally have to make policies based off a statute and such too. >> All right. action for today, I think, would be then to um accept the administration's
recommendation to go with United Healthcare for the paid family leave um insurance. Is that correct, Steve? >> Yes, that's correct. And and Mr. Chair, just to clarify for the board, we had this conversation internally is while this is a two-year contract, it does have the ability, uh we know there's a
lot of uncertainty with paid family medical. And so in the event that something were to change on the state level, um I guess that most likely that it would dissolve, we would not be responsible to continue to pay uh either of these entities. So >> thanks, Steve.
>> All right. So we have a request to approve the grand healthcare for paid family medical leave. >> Yes, >> Mr. Chair. I I move that uh we approve and move forward with United Healthcare
for 2026 and I suppose seven if that uh if it's two-year >> be a rate cap. >> Yep. Okay. >> All right. We have a motion by Eber, second by Commissioner Bear. Any further
discussion on the motion? >> Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying I. I >> oppose the same sign. Motion carried. >> Oh yes. Yes. >> Uh thanks Anna for these um these two
items. I know that a lot of discussion has gone forward. So I really appreciate all your work on that. And then my side comment is for the public following along. This is the second agenda item in a row in which we're seeing state shifted
um costs onto counties uh in the tune of 200 to 300 to $400,000 just for the members of the public. These are mandates. >> All right. Thank you, Anna. >> All right. Next, we have the re approval of the to fill the public health
administrator position. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, as you mentioned last week, I did receive notice from Kathy McKay of her intent to retire at the uh the end of this month. Uh, and so we are we are looking uh to
fill that position as in each each position of in a significant retirement. We took this opportunity uh to take a look at at the administrative role uh and the duties that that were part of and responsibilities that this position
held uh and and looked I guess the this item and the next two items or the next item are kind of a combination of that. And so what uh what we were looking at uh we took the had Darren and Anna look at the job description. They scored it based on the matrix that that we have
with with the next item would be having the the detox withdrawal management director position moved to a standalone. And with that with that adjustment, we would be looking at a an adjustment from a grade 26
uh to a excuse me from a grade 27 to a grade 26. Um and so we would uh if you look at the wage calculator uh there is going to be some uh due to the longevity there's going to be some payout that's going to come with this and so we don't
don't anticipate necessarily a savings this year. Uh we would be looking at uh at uh hiring most likely at a a different step than than grade one with the level of experience that we would be looking for uh in this position. Uh and
so uh with that I would yield for any questions from >> and and Mr. Chair uh Mr. Administrator and and members the the um pick committee talked about this. So, we had a special meeting on this and and one of
the um one of the things that was discussed about would be about making detox stand alone. And I know it's something that Commissioner Barry, you would you had been bringing up and and we thought, you know, there's that's the best time to do those things is when you see a a
resignation in a department head and you know, so really in order to um make the uh request to prove the public health administrator position, um we there's two things we need to know. Is it going to be under the old
scenario where detox would still be under it or is it going to be without D as as he mentioned if detox is going to become a standalone um then the public health director position switches grades by one. Is that correct? >> That's correct Mr. Chair.
>> So you know so I think that two go hand in hand and so it it um >> should we Mr. Chair should we do number eight first then? Well, that's and that's kind of I'm thinking maybe that might might be helpful. Um, we're kind of inter combining items number seven
and eight here and and that was kind of uh in our pick committee meeting. I think that was kind of what we were recommending would be that the first step would be to u make detox its own independent uh department. Um and again
we're talking part of the reason for that is there's what some 70ome employees >> employees >> involved with that one and and so um so the recommendation recommendation from pick was to do to do that and so I I would agree with you that would probably
be the >> we should probably do that one first. Well, I think we can um I I just think we can maybe move into item number eight and act on that one first. And I and I don't know if Steve did you want to give any more uh
>> No, Mr. Chair, I think just a a brief brief comment this also then with the with the shift in responsibility, we've we actually as as the chair mentioned, we talked about this in pick previously. uh the the pick felt that again once it
wouldn't make sense to make an adjustment until we had some movement in within uh the the public health uh department. Uh Darren and Anna again took this into uh our our matrix uh with the respon level of responsibility that's changed from the bed capacity to
number of employees to the complexity of the issues. Uh this position moved from a grade 22 to a grade 25. Uh and so uh the cost impact uh to to this year's budget would be additional $2,450. That uh that's all I have to add. Mr.
Mr. So making this change so we would have um the public health administrator would be a grade difference of one. Uh the the new detox with its director supervisor would go up three grades.
>> That's correct. because they would become the new supervisor. >> And just for clarity for the board, there would still be a connection. There would still be need to be a connection both with with public health and to social services as we have now, but the
the uh decision-m portion of that would would sit with the with the director. >> All right. So, um I guess I would like to like us to maybe act on the
um detox uh as a standalone department first. >> All right. Then I'll make a motion to make detox and WM a standalone department and reclassify the detox director position. >> I'll second the motion. >> Right. We have a motion by Commissioner
Bear, second by Commissioner Mojo. Any further discussion on that motion? >> One comment, Mr. Chair. >> Yes. I believe this is the right time to do this with Kathy McCay retiring and separating those two departments, making them two departments. >> Very good. Any any other comments?
>> Maybe I'll just ask in that discussion where do we view the main benefits of the separation? >> Uh Mr. Chair, commissioners, I think that one of the challenges that that we have as with the growth of that facility, I think that uh the streamline
decision- making uh is is extremely important. Again, while there is a connection uh there, uh you know, the facility is now located on 15th Avenue North, it's no longer at the family service center. And I think that uh that that position the position there has the
uh probably the need at 75 employees up to 75 employees to be able to make those decisions in a in a much timely fashion. >> And with that each director will be doing their own hiring of nurses. >> That's that's correct. He um he's part
of that position currently does does those things. Um and so the from an operation standpoint uh the the major difference will be that uh the director will make the decisions versus channeling some of some of the other facility operation questions through
someone else. >> Thank you. >> All right. Any other discussion, >> Mr. Chair? >> Yes. >> Thank you. I might also look at what the cost is in regards to the two departments separating them. And when you think about how valuable our public health director's time is, certainly
that savings will be realized tenfold. I believe in regards to how that time is managed. Um especially as large as detox has become. >> All right. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying I.
>> I oppose. The same motion carried. All right. Now we can go back to filling the um public health administrator position. >> Mr. Chair, >> yes. >> Thank you. I'm looking at the notes in the salary calculation worksheet. Um
so my understanding is there will be a the grade will go from 27 to 26 and due to removing is it two or one? uh removing one grade from a 27 to a 26 >> but because of removing
detox and another or >> uh detox I I think there's another discussion that will take place probably next week uh that we're continuing to look at evaluating evaluating public health. >> Okay. >> We don't have that before you this morning.
>> Yes. >> Thank you. I might also just comment um I know we honored Kathy for her years of service today, but I think the work in which uh she or the time and the work that she gave to our county is very valuable. And certainly there was a time
u probably much to everyone's dismay, particularly Kathy, that she had to come every week to give updates to the community on what we were seeing in regards to COVID and the spread of COVID. Uh really appreciate all of the work that she's given. And I know that was a very difficult time, but we
certainly appreciated the presence that public health was throughout Klay County, and I'm just really excited for her and her retirement. >> All right. So, the um um pick committee uh did make the recommendation to
hire a public health administrator position uh with the understanding of the change in um duties and responsibilities. >> Commissioner Abinger.
>> Mr. Mr. Chair, I've moved to fill the public health administrator position due to uh Miss McCay's retirement >> and that's as presented by administrator arson. >> Correct. >> Are we anticipating backfill?
>> U there potentially would be backfill. So if we could include that that would that would include that in a motion. >> All right. Do we have a motion? Is there a second? >> Second. All right. Motion by Commissioner Ebinger. Second by Commissioner Bear. Any further discussion on the motion? Any further
discussion? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Oppos. Same. Motion carried. All right, we will take a fivem minute break. >> Thank you. All right. We are now in our 9:45 item here, the 2026 budget discussion.
>> Uh thank you, Mr. Chair. uh as we continue towards prelim setting our preliminary levy on September 16th, we're here today to have some additional discussions and and uh guidelines and directives from this board uh on uh on
where we're at. As you recall, uh, several weeks ago, we came before you with a presentation with, uh, with the requests that we had at the time and and anticipated a levy document of 12.75%.
Uh, obviously, you guys said that that was not acceptable. Uh, and so we went went back to work. There are several things here that make this a little bit challenging. At the time, we did not have our insurance information, uh, which we now do. Uh we also do not have
a cola uh because we're in union negotiations at this time and so uh that has also provided a little bit of a challenge. I would like to say that generally I have Miss Lori Johnson, our auditor treasurer with us today. Uh she is helping Cass County, North Dakota hire their new finance director uh with
the interview process and so unfortunately she is not here. Um, I have a a packet of information that I sent out in uh with the agenda today talking about our fund balance uh at the end of last year. Uh the updated summary
of 2026 tax levy by funds, a summary of revenues and expenses by departments uh through 66% of 2025 uh is through the end of August. uh and also sales tax through July and also the non-county requests.
And so if I could uh we'll probably get to the fund balance, but if I could skip uh skip to the uh the summary of the 2026 tax levy document. Um just wanted to start there with our discussion this
morning. Uh as you as you can see uh there was a number of adjustments that uh we're no longer at 12.75. Um there were there were some adjustments that that were made and then also some that are being uh recommended as a starting point. Uh and so if I
could uh just highlight a few of the different items that that have changed andor what is still included uh within within the the new levy net levy increase which is now at 9.47. 47. Um uh this week based on the or last week
based on the board's action of se of accepting the insurance u with Medicica uh the portion of savings that the county is experiencing uh is $425,97453. And so we were able to uh back that out of last year's uh 2025's
uh cost to the county. uh we did we did not know where we were going to be and so we had about $300,000 set aside anticipated increase for for uh for insurance and so we were able to then remove that $300,000
uh from the budget. Uh, Miss Johnson is has been watching uh watching uh the uh the in excuse me uh our interest rates uh adjustments that have happening, our proposed adjustments. Uh but as of right now, she
went back and looked at projected increase projected increasing the revenues uh for our investments of roughly $500,000. And so, uh she was able to make that adjustment. Again, if she were here, one of the things that she'll say, depending on what happens over here in the next
three months, there could be another uh another adjustment increase if we do not see a a big or significant decrease uh in or change of change of path in in interest rates. Um we also uh we within this budget there
are are some increases or excuse me in inclusions that we have in there. Just to be clear, uh we have we have $250,000 for future insurance needs. Uh this board roughly four budget cycles ago started putting away $250,000 in
anticipation of either going to self- insurance or or to address any significant significant increased costs once we were done with our four-year uh contract. Uh it does include $250,000 for paid family medical. just heard from Anna that that
could be again a little bit different, a little bit lower and we'll have that number be able to lock that number in uh come December. U this bo board uh or this this discussion that we took place the last time indicated that while we don't have
a a cola established for the budget, we do have a a 3% uh in there as a placeholder. Uh and just keeping in mind from the board's perspective that based on our budget or our staffing uh plans,
we have uh each cola increase percentage increase uh is $444,756. This includes all county uh this budget includes all county non-county requests at the asking amount including the chamber at 185 rural routes from CAP at
56,778 and the Barnes Brazil ambulance at 75,000. There's a handout uh within your packet that shows the other requests uh that have been made this year. Uh it did earlier today we did have a presentation
from Dale from probation. Uh based on what we know of as of right now, uh Lori has put in the increase for for probation as as anticipated within the budget. Uh and also uh just a note, if you look on the levy sheet, uh as a as a
additional revenue, Lori has $500,000 uh use of fund balance. Um, as we as we uh we continue to have discussions uh moving forward, just keep in mind with the fund balance document uh that in our on our general uh general
fund this year, we utilized um $1 million out of the general fund, we've used a half a million dollars out of public health and $350,000 in social services. Um, if you take a look at the summary of
revenues and expenditures by departments, uh, historically we've we've kept up to date with this several times per year. Overall, our budget looks very solid. Uh, again, this is through August. We have 66%. Uh, again,
our revenues generally trail anywhere from six weeks to two months behind. Uh and so our main focus uh to this point during these reviews mostly focus around our our expenses. Uh again when we look at the 66 percentile there's different
uh areas that we only are we only do certain times per per year uh rather than monthly. Uh I think the three areas that stand out uh here are number one in planning zoning they're at 93% of their budget. Uh earlier this year, the the
board approved the use of riparian aid uh to to purchase pictometry that would benefit multiple multiple departments. Uh and and so that's that increase. Uh both the both the grounds and building uh and the county building are are up
significant areas. Uh and those relate to the probation area fit up. Uh and again, if you recall, the state is going to be reimbursing us for some of that fit up. So uh there'll be a revenue there at a later time and emergency
management is at 138% and ARPA ARPA the last remaining uh dollars of ARPA show up there in the expense piece. So uh with that uh the other areas look within the time frame those that again that are
higher are generally uh either paid on a quarterly basis or an annual basis. And so those that are at 100% uh generally are a one one time one-time payment. So from from an expenditure standpoint, uh I would say that the county is is in good position with going through. It's
about 67% of the year. That I'd yield for any questions on the any expenditures for revenues. I think there is a there is an increase if you look at social services. Uh on that second page, there is an income maintenance. We have we're a little higher at 71. Uh again
reminder that there's the revenues that come in with that. So as you see we're we're in a situation where uh the expenditures expenditures are higher but so are the revenues as to where we are during the during the year. >> All right. Any questions
comments? >> I'll start I guess. >> Yeah. Go ahead. Commissioner Commissioner Mosho. >> Thanks. Uh, okay. Well, I couple things I said earlier. Uh, cost shifts from the state really
suck. And, um, maybe on my soap box. Uh, cities are dealing with these, school districts are dealing with these, but I don't know if anyone is dealing with them in the magnitude in which counties have to. I'll say there's some, you
know, I we were happy that some of the legislative pieces seem to re rectify themselves by the end of the session so that the hit on counties was not near what we thought they were going to be, but they're still substantial. You know, I I know we've communicated with our
departments that we wanted to see minimal increases this year because of the hardships that we or the uncertainties rather that are coming with so many different components hitting counties as they were. So I, you know, I appreciate the 146 seems like a
a nominal increase in regards to what we've seen in the past, but the fact is that we're still seeing, you know, over $4 million in changes from what the 25 was to 26. >> 4 and a half million, >> pardon,
>> four and a half million, >> right? Uh, you know, and county program aid went down. And so that's that's tricky. and how do we figure out the best way to address that? You know, I'm I'm hearing from uh county residents a couple
things. They appreciate the level of service that they pro they are provided from county staff. Uh we try really hard to address those needs, but I'm also hearing from folks enough is enough. we can't take um the burden of tax taxing
um to the level that we are seeing. Uh which is why I think Klay County took a more active stance in in lobbying for legislative changes because we couldn't take any more. Um, I was just in a University of
Minnesota uh advisory committee and the university does a lot of the mediation um between farmers in regards to debt consolidation for um with bankers and they are seeing more cases than they've
ever seen of of farmers that are in really challenging hugely significant um negative consequences with finances. Um, so I I I know that we can't go much more for what is being asked of farmland,
but I look look at some of the things and I know we've got till December and I look at some of the things that are still outlined and they're really significant. I mean, we're talking all of the negotiations with uh our unions and that
is a huge piece on this. So, I don't know how, you know, I don't want I will not support what we're we're projecting in regards to um the final levy, but I don't know how we go much lower for the preliminary
knowing all those big pieces that are out there. Um, and then my final piece is, you know, I think we still need to discuss all of this, but my final piece is, um, you know, I I would like to propose just from me personally, um,
knowing where we're at 26, um, a 0% increases on our external agencies. Um, and I know that's tricky for me because I serve on some of these committees and I know that there's tricky for other people, but you know, I
just I know some of these folks came to us with um with um reserves and so maybe this year might be a year to dig into reserves for the external agencies. So >> I'll go next, Mr.
>> All right, Commissioner Bear. >> Echoing what Commissioner Mojo said, I've I've also heard it from my constituents. enough is enough on raising this levy even higher every year after year. So if we could, you know,
figure out a way to right now we're looking at if we'd lock it in at 9.4. So I'm knowing that's just contingency, but if if we could lock that in lower than that and even get it lower than that by December. also with exter external agencies. I'd
also echo what she said would not to give anybody a raise on there and if some of those even reduce them completely like I'll I'll say it cap Cap LP's rural routes transportation program for the bang for the buck on what that
costs per rider. I I think that we've tried it. It's been tried many years. It just I I think it works, but it's it's not worth the dollar amount that the county is subsidizing that program with. So that that could be a cut there. We
could save money there. And then the rest of those external agencies, cap them from what they got last year, if not reduce them by 5%. Because it is it is a tough year right now for budgets. That's that's pretty much what I'm
echoing on this sheet right now. see where we can get from there and if we have to tap into the fund balances of social services to help offset some of this levy that I believe there's money in that
>> correct me if I'm wrong Mr. Larson but there's money in there that we could >> tap into off fund balance >> Mr. Chair, Commissioner Bear, if you take a look at your fund balance document, you know, our our general fund, our road and bridge, social services, building, internal service,
and public health are are part of the excuse me, internal service are part of the levy. Public health is part of the levy, but it's generally a plug number that uh that is utilized. Uh the the rest of them are outside of that. Uh and so we do have you know we do have fund
balance that this board has chosen to utilize almost every year over the last decade. Uh if taking the position if we've asked it asked of our citizens already uh to to look at that I I would
note I know again uh Mr. chair loves when I say this about about the the a the state auditor, but they do suggest that we have five and a half months of general fund dollars or excuse me within the general fund in each of these funds.
Uh we have uh we have a fund balance of $18,121,635 and we've gone into detail. The the the bottom section down at the bottom of the page shows what those adjustments were based off. a significant portion of it was a mark market adjustment uh in back
in our favor that we lost otherwise between 22 and 23. Uh the unassigned document uh the unassigned funds that we have in the general fund are just under $13 million. From a perspective of the
state auditor, the unassigned for 2024 uh where the state auditor would like to have us seen was at 16 million. uh and with the with the estimated increase uh for 25 of another 800,000. Keep in mind of that 8 18.1 million uh we utilized
one $1 million towards this budget. Uh in social services, we used $350,000 of that. Uh and also in public health, we used a half a million dollars uh from uh from the the fund balance in those those
>> and those fund balances still grew. Uh yes, other than social services, um they did they did see an increase. Again, ju just of note, um if Lori were here, she would make sure that I pointed out in public health, uh where what we want the board to compare to is the COVID
construct COVID and also then construction of the withdrawal management detox facility of looking at comparing really uh from 2022 to 2024. So uh that's that. But again, as you pointed out, Mr. chair. There is an
there is an increase there. So, um so there are fund there are fund balance dollars to to utilize. You've looked at those uh over the last over the last well like I said 10 years I've had a different different combination uh based
on where you felt felt comfortable. >> Steve just real quickly on public health alone. So the numbers that are there, it's showing 18 million and then there's obviously the uh 2023 2024 detox dollars go out of there and when you subtract
that that number gets to 8.8 million. Is that correct? >> That's correct. >> And so when you compare 8.8 million to 20202 of 1.7 million. >> What's so so that's where we we saw some
COVID dollars that were brought in. We also started the the >> Didn't we spend all those CO dollars? >> Um, we received the CO dollars, but we spent them over a series of years. And so it depended on when they >> But the point is we still have $8 million. >> Well, that that was a that was once we
get to the $8 million portion, then we started getting into the the construction of the of the withdrawal management. >> But I thought those those are subtracted from the 18 million. So yes, so from the 18 so we have so when you take the the the construction
um the the amount that we had that 18 million included the 8.8 million and so when you take subtract the numbers below there that that got us from 18 million to 2.2 >> when you subtract what from the >> when you subtract the 9.815
the 5921 and the 8.8 8 million. When you subtract those three numbers, >> why would we subtract the 8.8 million? >> Because that's because those they just the 8.8 is not the same as the 8.8 from 2023.
That's part of the construction the construction portion of the facility. >> So if we add the 8 point, let me call it 8.9 and the 9.8 and the 5.9. >> Mhm.
That's that's that's $24 million, but where's the $7.5 million that we got from the state >> for the 7.5 million? The 7.5 was for the research. >> Oh, that was re Okay. That was resource >> was the grant for detox. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah. But we took we took um opioid money. >> Opioid money. Uh we ended up taking a some money from the general reserve uh for that. Um we did have a $5 million grant that that's part of uh part of
that increase uh that's there. So >> all right. >> So yeah, so the remaining that we had at the end of 2024 is is 2.2. again minus minus 5,000 that >> I'm going to I want to go back to can
have some more information that come come later but going back to uh Commissioner Mojo's comments and Commissioner Bear's comments and what I'm hearing on the street too is enough is enough and
at some point in time somebody's got to say no to the people who are about to get kicked out of their homes whether it's a farm home or whether it's a home in North Morehead or a Nuland or whatever. I mean 9.7 a $4.5 million
increase at the county level in in one year's time is really a lot of money and we're not talking about the needs of the school districts.
they're they're having they're actually having to go out for an operational levy if I'm not mistaken coming up um be you know because they're they're already so far underwater and then we haven't talked about you
know the cities that we all live in whether it's Morehead or Barnesville or Holly or whatever this 9.47 47 becomes something a lot more than that. And I just I I can't support this. And I, you
know, I think I think back to um going back in my years on here, if if we're starting to talk numbers like this, I think we're going to start having to have wage freezes again or position freezes again to to help offset
this. I don't I don't know how else we can be doing this. I I just I just don't I you know and I and again I say this every time I won't support this on a preliminary levy because I have yet to
see us ever change our preliminary levy once it's set. And I've talked about that in the past many times that it just once we get okay it's done. And I just I and again I'm talking on behalf of I think a lot of people uh that I know
that are struggling with um the level of property tax increases and a lot of it I think commissioner Mojo explained a lot of it and where a lot of it's coming from is at the state level but at some point in time
the proper entities have to be held accountable. for what they do and they don't do. If if we're putting mandates on our counties and on our cities or whatever, supply the funds or don't force it onto our regressive
tax that we have here as our only source of revenue. That ends my spiel. >> And Mr. Chair, commissioners, I wasn't suggesting that this 9.47 47 would would be something that I would bring in two weeks. I but I am looking for if there
are different insights that you guys have and I appreciate Commissioner Mojo's comments from the standpoint of we do have uncertainties uh from the standpoint of our of our colas and and also to include just to remind the board that when we heard from Quinn, he also
uh does not have anything for the big beautiful bill impacts just because we don't know either way at this point what the impacts could be. Uh and so um but but from that that point I'm certainly open whether that's today whether you're you know whether there's a you'd like to
have a work session to to further vet uh some of these different things uh or um order have a conversation today to to to get that and I can come back at a next week uh with a with a new number with Lori not here.
>> Commissioner Abier. Well, the big overview is is been presented, but I'm I'm going to have to agree on some of the external agencies, and I'd ask uh the other commissioners to look at where your portfolio is. And
if you don't see return on investment in some of these things if it's not something that's working, um speak up. You know, I I again with the library in a in a year where they're
moving offices and trying to trying to negotiate a uh a lease agreement with the city of Morehead. It's it's a it's tough to say we're not going to look at the increase there, but it may be necessary in order
to get this levy under control. I will be frank and I think uh a number of the commissioners here would agree $100,000 for the uh Fargo Morehead West Fargo EDC uh it's not reflective of the services
we're getting and there could be a strong need to look at that the chambers tied in with them for 85 um000 >> I think there's a is there a typo in the packet >> so Mr. Chair, Commissioner Mojo, if you
look that the the requested amount for for 2025 was 250,000. This board provided 185,000. Uh and so uh the the request for 2026 is 185,000. >> No, I the line above my understanding is
the chamber got 80 85 and the EDC got 100. >> Oh yeah, that is backwards. >> That is correct. Okay. you know, looking at this particularly with the with the the the uh current and future needs we have in
dealing with our legislative issues. I would like to see the EDC remain getting funded at the level we did last year, which should be 85,000. And >> you mean the cha the chamber >> or the chamber, sorry,
the EDC I think um our return on investments there is not near what the payment we're making is reflected and I think we should have a discussion. I think $100,000 is excessive. >> Mr. Chair,
>> Commissioner Mojo, >> thank you. Uh so I agree with um what Commissioner Abinger is talking about. You know, I struggle in regards to the Innovate 28 piece. And so I'm wondering if this board would have the appetite to
look at pulling the Innovate 28 funding and then talking about specifically funding the EDC and the chamber as separate requests. >> I would agree with that. That's a >> I think there's a consensus on that.
>> I Mr. Mr. Chair, I have a proposal on that, but I want to hear the rest of I don't want to cut off Commissioner Emmer's time. >> Well, again, when you look at what the Chamber's done, I think continued funding of them at the level we have in past years is certainly worth it. In
fact, I' I'd say after this last session, if we had the money, I'd like to see them funded at a higher level. The same with uh um Downtown Morehead, Inc., But I don't think we have the money to increase
anybody's uh external any external agencies uh funding. I would see um the EDC we should pay them separately and we should remain as members of that or
organization. Uh whether it be on the executive board or not, I'll leave that up to their governance committee. But I really don't see much more than $10,000 as as something that uh we we would meet
our return on investment with the the other funding could be to put towards bringing the levy down. There has been some talk about recognizing our rural cities and their EDAs with some funding
and I'm I'm open to that, but again, we're having to cut and it's hard to to as much as you'd like to be supportive, it's hard to even if it's a level of 20,000 to say we're going to we're going to take on
new new expenses. But I'm open to hear what the rest of the commission has to say on this. Mr. Mojo or >> go ahead. You haven't gone yet. >> You haven't gone. You haven't gone yet. That's >> Oh, okay. >> Mr. Krab.
>> Well, um, thank you. So, just uh a couple things. Um, I'm definitely um open to u breaking down that with the EDC. And as we just talked about,
um I want to make sure it's understood that under cap LP their request uh was for 56,788 and that was a 5%. Just so we know their number. And then
the other piece of that I'm guessing that added to the 121 was what was that number Steve? Well, that's $64,834 >> and that's their senior coordinator, >> right? And I guess
um I need more detail on that. I don't know enough about it to know whether that's uh >> well, Mr. I might that so um you know I I certainly understand Commissioner Bearer's um point and I I'm not I just
want to clarify if his point meant eliminating the senior ride piece and the senior coordination >> the ride >> the ride piece because the question you have um you know that's the position that Dale Raleigh had in the community for a long long time um that position
does a enormous amount of work in connecting our seniors in our community with all of the Medicaid in components and uh working diligently with our community centers in senior care. Um and
in a year when there's so many unknowns in regards to Medicaid, it certainly seems like that would be a a a huge return on investment. >> Right. And then the only other one that um just because I have hear the
conversations of it a lot, I I do have to say um I question the need to set aside um $250,000 for self insurance
planning on healthcare. We have a million in the bucket right now. Is that correct? >> 1.2 to >> Commissioner Kanghov. >> Mr. Chair, >> Commissioner Mojo, >> I also um I did have that star just because I wasn't sure, you know, how far
into this we're we're wanting to continue to go. If there is a year where it's really challenging, this year might might be one on that one, too. >> Did you have some? >> Yeah. The only other piece I might have is just a followup on the the chamber
innovate 28 EDC discussion. Um over the last three to four years I've been really really critical on on making sure that Klay County funds are going to help spur growth and development on the Minnesota side of the river. Um boy, uh
just speaking from the chamber, they just have done a phenomenal job in keeping us really up up to speed on what they're um what they're seeing, what the issues are, how we can work together. I was on weekly calls with the chamber, you know, and the chamber's within my portfolio, so I can really speak to
that. Um I I agree. I I've I've sat through meetings through presentations. I cannot find a tangible piece of work that we've benefited from um with what the funds are for the EDC. My discussion point would be um pulling
the innovate 28 funding uh funding the chamber to the tune of $100,000 for the 26 request with the $85,000 that would have been earmarked for uh EDC Innovate 28 pieces. I would um reduce that to a
nominal amount. I don't know if it's 10. I don't know if it's 15. I think we can talk about that. Um because we've really heard from our small cities and our EDA roundt about the work that they're doing, how they're partnering with Derek Le Point, how they're partnering with the chamber. I would like to propose
funding the small cities EDAS. I believe we have four in Klay County. You can correct me if I'm wrong, Dworth, Glendon, Holly, Barnesville to the tune of $5,000 a piece. And then I think there would be some savings realized with the additional um
out of that 85 if we do 10,000 to the EDC then that would be 75 and then there'd be $55,000 savings if we decide to put that towards lobbying. I don't know but um certainly up to this board.
>> I would agree with that. We have um the current 2026 budget has zero lobbying dollars in it. >> U Mr. Chair, I did put a new request for $25,000 and uh I would I'd have to check with
Lori to see if that's captured in the 146681. >> The new that was the new request line. >> Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. So, so on that new request again just to to clarify I think that the I know that the two items there are are a social work position that
Quinn presented that had the revenues to cover and I also believe that it has a uh one of the other new requests is from IT department for a cyber security event. All right. So that of that 185, you know, suggestions been 100 to the
chamber, 10 to the EDC, 22 to our small EDAs, and potentially 25 then could go towards um lobbyist issues that we have to fund somewhere. >> And we're working, we can present that later, but we're working with a lobbying
firm. I think we're in the process. We got got those late last week, so we're in the process of getting them. >> I mean, if those if those numbers were what we were to finally determine, that's 155. So, there'd be 30,000
savings over the um current budget proposal for that economic development line item. >> One one comment on the EDC. Is 10,000 going to get us anything? Is that even going to get us a foot on a seat at the
table? I mean, if we're going to take them down to that low, why give them any? Because I mean, if we if we're not going to have a seat at the table anymore at that rate, I would look at and just cut them all the way out and save that money.
>> I think it's worth remaining in and this is just a gut reaction to burning bridges. Um there may come a time particularly with the growth patterns you see on both sides of the river that we can find some
mutual interest and some uh return on investment in the future. And I don't want to leave future uh commissioners who who may have to make the decision in five or 10 years uh grappling with how to do it. And we keep a hand in there.
If nothing else, we'll have the quarterly board meetings. Um, I wish there were some things I could point out where we uh currently have returned, but I don't see it. And since Innovate 28 came out, the chamber
has managed to not only remain a resource for this county, but increase their value. I have not seen anything in innovate 28 that is applicable to anything we're doing over here. So I understand the
frustration, but I I would like us to at least pay for remaining in as as an organization or as part of the organization. Um, certainly if if if the majority of the commission feels otherwise, you
know, I'm not going to get my feelings hurt, but I think it's worth sticking around. >> I would support the 10 grand. I think we need to have our name on it. >> Well, you know, and again, I'm I'm going to speak to economic development in
general. I I think it's it's um it's a very important component of what we should be supporting. Um you know, I I campaigned on economic development in all my years of being on here as to support ways to get additional
businesses and um residents to our county. And um the of course the amount of tax funds that we can put towards that is minimal, but I I think it it's
important for us to whatever table is talking about it that they get the perspective of county government uh in whatever they're doing. And I don't know that they're going to give us a lot of weight if we're not as >> at the table,
>> you know. So um so from that standpoint I um and keep in mind uh the the better success we have in economic development is also a part of that what we see every year in our uh being able to reduce our levy by that 1% or one and a half% for
growth. So it still is a it's an important component. Um, so >> well, and I >> how how you how we determine >> how that goes is is fine, but I I I do think that it's in our best interest to
um certainly be supporting the entities who were working on our behalf to see growth in our communities. >> Our quarterly meetings have really put a different light on it. Uh there's stuff happening in Holly and Dworth and and
Barnesville and Glendon and uh they're they're rolling along and they're making progress and are growing and they should feel support from the county. >> All right. So, we've we've managed to maybe alter a resource here. We only got
about 4.4 million to go. I also want to just say that I understand that the external agencies is minimal, but I think we need to control what we can control. And so, back to my comments earlier holding a 0% increase for um the ones here. My only question
was uh the Valley Water Rescue, are we anticipating that that's >> just not come in yet? >> Mr. Chair, Commissioner Mojo, that comes out of the sheriff's budget. So, I I would I can reach out to Gabe. Okay. uh on that you know just kind of you know one of the things that we've talked
about is a letter did go out uh in June uh to to each of these entities look asking them to look at the their request this year knowing that it was going to be a challenging year uh you know I think if you take a look at it and star who the areas that either already are
didn't ask for the same amount or or had a decrease we really just have Barnesville Ambulance dancing sky and I think I believe dancing sky is based on a a a formula and so I don't believe that we have the opportunity to to
adjust that well you do uh but um uh but and then lake lake agassy regional library the the cap uh rural rural routes portion uh and then even rape and abuse was a was a was a decrease and so
there's really um from from holding things flat uh to to decrease increasing uh majority of our of our external agencies did honor that request. So just again a point on the Lake Ay regional library uh being on the board
I'm aware how tight things are. There are funds being cut for them that are passed through from the state that are federal uh and state funding. Um, I realize that there's there's
expenses this year that we didn't anticipate and uh I would appreciate if if their request were met, but I also understand there's everybody may be in that boat, but having seen what's going on over
there, I know the funding is necessary. >> One one comment on that. Correct me if I'm wrong. They're sitting on a $2 million reserves, correct? They budget in the deficit every year. And this is something I I I I have just been in amazement, but they make it
work. But a large chunk of that uh will be encumbered, particularly with some of the expenses we've got. But yeah, they have they have reserves. They haven't burned through those, but they also need to maintain them. So,
you know, I'm open >> with this with this tight budget cycle. This is this would be the year to start using up some of those reserves. >> One one more. >> Yes. >> Sorry. Um can you know I know we have a a road turnback piece on highway. Have
have we had discussions about potentially changing that? >> Are you talking about that 400,000? that 400,000 that once we we paid off, we did made our last payment and then last year we took that 400 and we put it towards striping. I think that's what
you're talking about, >> right? So >> there be >> and on in his five-year plan, he has it put in for seal coating. >> I know, but I'm just >> Yeah. No. >> Yeah. So So I think uh Mr. Chair, Commissioner Mojo, Yeah. There's the $400,000 turnback has been in the
budget, I think, for uh two different This will be the second year. Uh I think that uh Earlier this year, Justin came before the commission and I believe that he's striping the he's he got approved to stripe the entire county for under just under 140,000. Um but as Commissioner
Bear mentioned uh through highway tracking it it uh once he received once he received approval last year to maintain that he has had that part of his part of his fiveyear plan. >> So he has a um part of his fiveyear plan. One of the things that he was
going to also be providing us, and I I'm I think we've got that coming up here pretty soon, was his new year the updated five-year plan. And one of the things that may work to our benefit there, of course, is some of the projects and some of the bids that came
in on the projects that were in the five-year plan, we saw a considerable decrease. So, and again going to what Commissioner Mojo stated, this might be a year that that we could say, okay, well, let's let's pull that because and and it's it shouldn't impact your
five-year plan because you still have you still have a lot of money that you anticipated needing for prior projects that you saved. So, that that might be another area that we can we're going to be having a highway tracking here after this meeting today, so we can talk about
that. But I do think that I mean right now I think everything needs to be on the table. So did Commissioner Mojo did you was that >> and then my only question was um you know soil and water has a 2% increase
this year. I thought SWCD aid saw an increase with the legislature this year. Does that >> they did not. They had a they had a de decrease of um that number I think was right at $36,000. >> Okay. Their aid decreased.
>> Uh their aid decreased and then they didn't the other part they did because they of that happening they had a position open and they are not filling that position. >> Okay. So the new request is with that
adjustment. >> Yes. Yep. Okay. Um, can I I just want to ask one last question on the senior coordinator position that 64,000. How was that paid for before? >> Um, now Mr. Chair, that is actually it's
in Quinn's budget and so um it show normal in the past years we didn't include both of the requests. This is the first year we included both of those requests. Uh >> so so Lakes and Lakes and Prairies has
a they had a request of 56,778 in 2025 and they want 121 in 2026. >> That's not true. That's just because they are taking they're just so this board has a better understanding of the external task. >> We've funded that um senior coordinator
piece for a long time through Quinn's budget. It's just on this spreadsheet. It's It's not been realized in the >> right. We're showing we're showing the when you asked when this board asked about what what are we paying outside
entities we added we added the senior the senior naps position um that 64,834 now >> and I guess I from comparative purposes then sure we should have included that in the 2025 number too >> because it makes it looks like we're they're seeing a
>> huge increase when they're not. >> Yeah. Right. So to in her note to us when she was here a couple weeks ago that number that you see on 2025 is the same 56,778.
>> Yeah. For the ride share part of it. >> No for no for the other >> for cap for their operation. >> Yeah. For Yeah. That's more than ride share though, isn't it? >> Yeah. There there's two two there's two letters that you have within your packet. There's the there's the it came
in her request came in two different letters. There's 56,778 for the rural routes. Uh and then there's a the 64,834. >> My mistake. What was the other number? 64. What? >> 64834. >> Okay. Thank you. >> And that's Yep. That's the
>> And that we've that we've we've always paid that. >> Yes. That's part of Quinn's >> and that and that is something that I agree with Commissioner Mojo that that is extremely important to our seniors. Um, that's a that's a no-go for me in
terms of of touching that. That's and again, that's another one of those components that helps them get down the right avenues that can keep them in their homes. >> Yeah. >> So, yeah, that's not that's a no-go if
they're talking about cutting that in in my opinion. >> I don't I don't think, Mr. Chair, anybody was talking about cutting that one. >> Okay. Okay. Mine was the ride share component. >> Okay. Yeah. And that's I guess what is what's the usage been on that then?
>> 270 in the last year. >> And we hear we hear time and time and time again that um transportation in our rural communities is a is a major issue and we can't ignore that. But and again I think going to your comments if we had
200 and some people using that for 60some thousand is that the right way uh and the right use for those for those funds we have to have that conversation. It's you know >> so but I mean again that's one one other thing Mr. chair on these
external agencies, the Barnesville Ambulance Service. I I would like us to see us to wean oursel off that completely in the next three years because I correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there's another county that actually subsidizes an ambulance
service. I think it's put more on the cities and the townships. And with Barnesville Ambulance, they don't even receive any money from Wilin County itself. and they provide about a third to two fifths in that area of their areas in Wilin County and they do not
receive any money from Wilin County. So I would like us if it's a slow 10,000 a year for three years and put it on to them to go to their townships and the city to cover that bill. So it's not a one big hit, but I would I would like us to see us wean ourselves off of that
external agency. >> I might >> Yes. Yes. Commissioner. So, uh, we had a meeting with the city of Barnesville after the ambulance presentation. Um, I think it's understood and appreciated that we went
from 30 and 24 to 35 and 25 because I think we had it was even lower in 22 23. Um I so after that conversation um had done some research in regards to how do we
help them you know what additional grants are out there. This is a big legislative issue that we've talked about. I um I don't know if there's the capacity to put that additional cost on that because they to the townships
because they still are operating in a deficit. Now I think we should also gently encourage them at our small cities meeting that a conversation with Wilin really does need to be happen you know really does need to happen and I think if there's not a
shared partnership that would really make any going forward with what we are fully fully um providing challenging. Now, you know, I've said this before. Um, it's interesting to me that Sanford provides such a phenomenal service to
northern Klay County. There is a major def desert in regards to ambulance service in southern Klay County. Um, you know, and and I just, you know, at what point are we willing to be okay with
reduced service to those critical areas? So hopeful that um you know if we can can keep the $35,000 for 25 in for 26 um hopeful hopeful that we can help with
that but that's a ch that's going to be a challenge to cut that any further. >> M >> yes commissioner >> this has been a major discussion point with public safety at AMC. Um,
this is not an isolated incident or situation. It is a it is a statewide problem. There was a band-aid that passed I think the session before this one. Uh, and it's
really incumbent on the the area. I don't know if they can come up with an agreement with Sanford. I don't know what the details are. I don't know what's been tried. But there's going to have to be some other partners in there besides the city and and the county to uh help keep this
ambulance running, this service provided. And if if a large portion of it is in Wilin County, Wilin needs to step up. All right. If we're still doing this, Mr. Mr. Chair, I got one other one here. The ID
department, the cyber security event training for $45,000. No, I understand it and cyber security are top of our thing to fund, but with that one being just a that training, I I don't quite understand what it's all
for. And if is it just a snapshot of how how we're working on that and then within two weeks it's already gone and passed. I maybe we should have Rory come back and explain that ask to us a little bit better because I know that was one of the very first budgets that we heard. So
maybe invite him back to explain that and walk us through how that how that ask would work next year. >> Um I know Steve your calendar you had down in here that we were hoping to have that preliminary levy on the 16th.
Um, we got a ways to go before the 16th. Um, you mentioned maybe about a workg groupoup session. I we've spent an about an hour here talking and I think maybe maybe we should look at a workg groupoup session next week because we got to we
got to get we got to figure some some things out here. Um and and I guess uh what I would suggest is let's let's try a let's are we all available next next week for workg groupoup session. All right, let's let's
maybe schedule a workg groupoup session for uh next uh uh one o'clock if we can. >> Um and in the meantime, Steve, hopefully um you can maybe
>> would it be possible at 1:30? >> Okay, sure. Yeah. >> Is that okay? >> Yep. >> I'm a doctor's appointment. >> All right. 1:30. and let's plan that and um any revisions that you can bring back at that time too
will be helpful. But yeah, this is going to require >> a lot more conversation >> and I don't know Lor's schedule, but um but I will hope hopefully she's there and I know that in the past when you guys have made suggestions, she's able to have her laptop there and can give
you real time. So I think that'll be helpful. >> And that date will be the Yes. Yeah. >> Well, a week from today, then ninth. >> Nth. Yeah. N. >> So, do we have a clear number from Dale?
Is it um on probation? What number should we be using? >> Well, so the the number the number that that Lori had in there, I believe, was was the number he provided. They've been work they've been working closely together.
>> 145 something. >> Uh, it was more than I think it was 250 >> 250 >> but I I can get clarification on that from Lori and send that out to you. But I do know based on what he presented today uh that is included uh included in that 847.
>> Do you think in a week we'll have better guidance on the unions? >> Uh no no we won't. I mean I'm not anticipating that we're going to have anything settled. Uh the second meetings have started or will be starting uh as as far as that have started. Uh but we
won't uh we still haven't even had our first meeting with the attorney. All right, let's um Thank you. Yeah, thank you. All right. Um committee reports. Ezra, would you like to start this morning, please? >> I had no committee reports that from
last week, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Commissioner Ever. Thank you. Last week, attended the work session uh with Klay County HR, which was uh discussed today.
Um later that day, I had the Red River Regional Dispatch Center Board of Authority meeting. Um, basically the the uh I've got a lot of notes here, but none of them are it's kind of getting into the weeds, but the
uh facility update we had uh looks like we're still on on path for a uh October, November opening. there's going to be a transition between the current facility and the new one and they'll be effectively doing it one console at a
time. Um we will be having hopefully an open house at our next meeting. Was it No, it was in December uh when the cut over is finalized. Uh, next meeting October 28th, uh, we're
going to try and have it at the a public safety opening at the new facility. Uh, that completes that report. On the I'm sorry, my notes aren't making sense.
Tuesday the 26th, I attempted to attend the uh virtually the uh Metro Flood Diversion Authority Finance Committee meeting, but the Fargo City Hall uh broadcast of it. They were having having
problems both on the telephone and the computer, so I didn't make that. But the following day on the 28th, I attended the diversion board of authority meeting. Um, and really it was just a general business. Maybe commission uh
Commissioner Campbell recalls more, but it looks like for the most part we just did our usual business finance reports. Nothing of any real import. On Thursday the 28th, attended a pick meeting uh on the issues we covered
today. Later that day, um, oh, that was the same day I attended the diversion authority meeting and then that night I attended the Morehead Library fundraiser. And that completes my report. >> Thank you, Commissioner Kov.
>> Um, my part was uh just the U meeting we had with H last week. >> Commissioner Mojo. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. Last week I also attended the HR meeting that was discussed prior in the meeting. I
attended the Prairie Lakes uh meeting in PUM. We had manager reports. Uh steam sales are down a bit. Um talked about the ash management status, the layout of that campus in Ottertale
County. Um and then grant statuses. Had a long discussion about unacceptable waste. Uh, I know that we talked about um with that at SWAC on Thursday, but uh making sure that we inform the public to
cover those trash receptacles as as they can. Uh, obviously when things are wet, they don't burn more as effectively as possible efficiently as possible. So, making sure that we're communicating to those haulers, problem haulers um about
that. But, you know, certainly Klay County is really proud of the um material that we send there. Uh really proud of our ability to keep that as dry as possible. So, great job. The next day or that day rather, I attended the FM land man diversion land management
committee meeting. We talked about those Horus properties, ones that met the reserves in the auction, did move those for a recommendation of approval to the greater board. Um and and then the Horus site uh for the elevator
uh the bid came in well under what the the minimum was. So we recommended a denial of that bid but also working forward with our property management firm to see how they market that uh property. And then on Thursday I attended the
solid waste advisory committee meeting. We did have um an update from Stantex uh Stantech on the PAS test results. Also for the public um as we burn that material, we're able to eliminate more
than 99% of those PAS through that process. So um we appreciate um having that ability to reduce the amounts that we're seeing. there were some um I don't want to say um well volatility but there
were some volat um some outliers in the numbers but Stantech talked to us about how that that sometimes is a margin of error within the lab itself. We had uh landfill updates from Corey uh and then a PRM update from Commissioner Campbell.
And then the board did ask to have some discussion on um what the contract status of the contract stalemate with Morehead is. And um many of those members are quite concerned about that
what that um that contract piece would mean for their residents. and uh we're hopeful that we can reach an agreement. And I think that concludes my reports. >> Thank you. I also attended the HR meeting um joint H meeting that you all
talked about on August 26. We also had the uh regional dispatch uh board meeting that Commissioner Ebinger talked about. I would like to add that the furniture came in at 15% below their estimate and currently the project
itself is $1.55 million under budget and it's you know it's getting to close to being substantially complete. So, uh they they caution that it's not there yet, but certainly it seems to be in in good order. I think they're looking at
having the uh new councils installed in September this month. Uh mid-occtober, they're going to upgrade the old facility and the training and do some training. And in November, they're going to be configuring the new 911 system.
And as Commissioner Avery said, we'll have our October 28th meeting at that site. and they are currently at 36 full-time and they're authorized for 38
and they have eight shift supervisors and they're authorized for nine. So, they're getting close to fully staffed there as well. Uh, land management commissioner Mojo uh reported on that. It was um a lot to mostly to do with
excess lands issues that she explained. Prairie Lakes meeting on the 27th. Again, Commissioner Mojo um talked about most of those issues. I really don't have anything to add. Financially, we're
fairly comparable to where we were last year at this time. Thursday morning the 28th, the solid waste advisory committee. Um and again, Commissioner Mojo will explain that. I don't really have anything to add to that. Uh we had that same day we also had a pick
meeting. Commissioner Ebringer did discuss those issues um and where we did talk about the moving the detox to its own and then as
a result of that needing to adjust the um PDQs for both the public health director and the um detox director. Um, and we did talk about some other issues
that are um, going to be coming a little bit later on in regards to what things may be maybe should be involved with the planning department versus public health. So, um, more to come on that.
That afternoon I also attended the diversion authority board authority meeting and really the only thing that was discussed the big thing other than the usual items and updates that go on were um the land
management recommendations and the one elevator issue that um in Horus that Commissioner Mojo talked about. Um the board did decline that offer as proposed by the land management committee and they did um authorize
staff to enter into discussions with the realtor to look at selling that and that concludes my report. Steve >> uh thank you Mr. Chair. Last uh Tuesday I participated in the HA quarterly meeting that's been well covered. Uh that afternoon I also met with Darren
and our labor attorney in regards to negotiations. On the 28th participated in the SWAC meeting that's been well covered. After that meeting I met uh met with Kristen Christensen. Uh she is new Senator Clolobashar's new uh staff
member. We talked about the what's important here at Klay County. She'll be located out of she's from Fergus Falls, but will be located in the Morehead office uh when when she's not traveling uh the pretty much the northern half of the state. Um participating in the PIC
meeting that's been well covered. Also spoke with Dan Molly in a series of shared issues. Uh the 29th met with Derek La Point. Uh we're going to be some getting some additional additional information information uh shortly on the the meeting with uh with deed uh
next Monday. Uh and on 29th also met with sheriff. Just would make a note in your consent agenda today. There was a second national opio opioid settlement that we discussed a couple week ago weeks ago with the secondary manufacturers. Again, working with with
public health to get information uh from that, not including the most two recent uh re two recent uh settlements that you've opted into. U the counties has a has received 1.277766 277766
uh and we utilize the first million for the detox and so we do now have uh have revenues uh that we're going to see. The other thing that I've shared with you in the past is that they've not provided any updates or information on what we may be getting in future settlements. They've now up updated their national
national opioid settlement site. uh and while it's not a guaranteed uh they now have a figure uh into the up to upcoming years of what we'll be receiving from each of those. So uh when we get the presentation from public health we'll be able to have that information. Uh and that concludes my report.
>> Thank you. Left Sarah anything >> one? Yes. >> I also attended the meeting for H >> Mr. Chair. >> Yes. I reported on it in some of my discussion, but I did attend the um University of Minnesota Citizens
Advisory Committee. Uh that's in collaboration with the AMC extension committee on Wednesday. >> Thank you. All right, we are