That's okay. All right. We'll call the Crowing County Committee of the whole meeting for June 17th, 2025 to order. And with that, we'll turn it over to Mr. Jess. Uh, thank you. I think Let me just make sure I've got the
Okay. Um, well, first of all, thank you for uh having us uh today here to present. Really appreciate it. Um, we had the um the legislative special session adjourned just at last Tuesday morning technically. I think it was a little bit
shy of 2 a.m. if I'm recalling correctly, which was technically 5 hours ahead of schedule according to their prior agreement. Um, I did just want to kind of start off by uh acknowledging that uh obviously the events this past
weekend are really uh difficult. Um, and one thing I just wanted to say about uh, Speaker Hortman, who I did work for a little bit at um, work with for a little bit when I worked at the House of Representatives, is that she really valued public service. And I think that uh people might look to different things
that she did uh during you know certain legislative sessions, but I also think this year during the power sharing agreement she essentially put together an agreement where each of her chairs retained their power and each of the she retained the as much staff as she could and the person that like lost power in
that agreement was her. Speaker Damoth was speaker and is going to remain a speaker for the remainder of two years. So, I do think that that just kind of uh speaks to her character um as a public servant. So, I just wanted to say that. Um but I did come here to talk about the
2025 session. We brought uh a lot of our teen today too. Um and so I am Nathan Jess. First of all, I started at Micah in January. Uh the my second day was the first day of legislative session this year. Um, and
our it's our job is Micah and we'll see if I can make this slide work or not. Um, can uh well, we can always just uh Well,
there we go. Okay. So, I I Okay. and I can just we can verbalize that if it doesn't work. So, um so it's basically our job to connect counties in the capital, right? Um you know, we're advocates ourselves and we'll meet with legislators on a regular basis and attend committee hearings, but we're at
our most effective when we bring your stories or uh from from Crowing County or uh connect uh whether it's commissioners or staff directly to legislators. That's generally when we're going to be our most effective. Um and
we do uh we produce a lot of work kind of throughout the session whether it's you know we send out a weekly legislative update with uh reports out from each committee. We do an end of session report which should be coming out uh probably this Thursday afternoon which will kind of look at here are all
the bills that affect counties. Here's kind of what the impact is. We're not we we don't need to describe the whole bill to you but we can just tell you what it means for counties specifically. Um we have our annual forum. Last year it was in Scott County. Uh this upcoming year I
believe it's in um Sterns County um probably in January. And then we also create uh policy priorities uh that well we don't create them. The commissioners and staff give us direction on what they want to prioritize at the capital. Uh
part of our work that we also try to do is uh be a little bit more analytical in our approach. kind of look at some of the numbers, dive a little bit more deeply than um some others do and try to make sure we really quantify the impact and show here's what it might mean on an individual basis across our different
member counties. Uh so we're we have 17 counties all in all uh in the metro and greater Minnesota. Um and here's our personnel at the capital. We've got four of the five here today and they'll all be coming up and introducing themselves. So we can go to the next slide.
No worries. Um, yeah. So, I think, uh, a lot of the work that we do, uh, I I try to provide, uh, property tax comparisons between different counties, look at the levy data, and then break down any economic forecasts that come out. There's two of those a year. I would say one, there's always the advantage that
uh, the Association of Minnesota Counties has is that they're an organization that speaks for all 87. An advantage we have is that being smaller, we can be a little bit more quick and responsive sometimes. And that we also have members of two uh county commissioners from each of our counties
serve on our board. Um, and we our staff staff groups provide uh opportunities for counties to talk to one another of similar sizes and kind of uh go through different issues that may be coming up for them uh in their county and see if they're happening elsewhere. So, we can
go to the next slide. So the um beginning of session was uh I mean I say this like every two years almost it seems like but it was really unprecedented. Um we had a tie in the house or 6766 at the very beginning of
the year and eventually became a tie after a special election 6767. At the beginning of the session the Senate was tied at 3333 and then eventually became a 3433 DFL majority. The other thing made it really difficult was there was this
outbanium deficit. The November forecast projected a $5 billion deficit in the outbu not the current banium that we normally spend for but the outbium. And February that number increased to 6 billion. Um now that is counting inflation which in 2023 the legislature
said hey we're going to start counting inflation. If you don't count inflation that number is lower but it's still in the billions. Um there was and this kind of got under discussed at times a current banium surplus. So the legislature didn't have to make cuts. Um
it could have waited. Uh basically the tone was set when the governor released his budget that there were going to be significant cuts in some but not all areas, right? Um and we saw that most pronounced with the governor's budget with the county cost shifts uh in the
HHS area and also with aid cuts. uh you know we'll talk a little bit more about this later but the governor proposed cutting aquatic invasive species aid and also later proposed uh proposed repealing the local government cannabis aid and later proposed a cut and payment
in lie of taxes as well. So basically what this meant was that we end up playing defense on all fronts essentially like each lobbyist here um was working to protect a lot of things that counties may currently receive. Now, were we trying to play offense too
and uh move the ball forward? Yes, absolutely. And we did that in some areas pretty well. Um and I think in HHS there's there's some success stories there especially. Um but it is it was a real challenge because essentially the mindset was set at the beginning of session like the the focus was on cuts
and cost shifts rather than thinking about a slower management of and kind of more cautious/conservative approach of not trying to do too much too soon when we're not sure of what the what the fiscal picture will look like in 2027.
Um so we can go to the next slide. I wanted to talk a little bit about the tax bill uh in particular. Um so as I mentioned the governor proposed cuts to aquatic invasive species aid um proposed
repeal of cannabis aid and um the uh reduction of pill a one-third reduction in pill. Um it was a very difficult uh the tax chairs themselves had a really difficult time negotiating these bills because neither the house nor the senate
actually passed tax bills off the floor this year which is uh very unusual. Um there was the dynamic of the house having to come to agreement as with every committee between the DFL and GOP. They did do that. Um they and they moved
a bill but they through tax committee and ways and means but not off the floor essentially because everything was happening so late that they started running up against deadlines. Um so I think that some of the highlights we've got the repeal of the local
government cannabis aid. So in 2023 when the legislature legalized cannabis, they said, "Okay, we're going to set aside 20% of the revenue that comes from the gross receipts tax on cannabis for cities and counties." And it'll be split
half of that 20% will go to cities, half of that 20% will go to counties. And uh the county distribution was going to be based on essentially the number of cannabis retailers in each jurisdiction along with a component that made sure
that every county received at least some of this cannabis revenue. Now the governor proposed repealing it. It is one of the few aids that that was in law that uh was projected to grow over time. things like county program aid or
payment le of taxes or other like repair and protection aid quack invasive species aid those are always a static number this one was projected to grow over time which is why the governor proposed to cut it and repeal it I guess I should say and that's something that was uh difficult to fight against uh
first because counties hadn't gotten any of this money yet right um it was difficult to make the cost shift argument when we hadn't started receiving funds technically there was a $2,100 payment that county got back in September, but that's obviously pretty
negligible. The House and Senate both also proposed repealing this, and it did get repealed um in the final bill. Um aquatic invasive species aid. This is a $10 million aid um uh under current law
uh for dedicated specifically to fighting aquatic invasive species aid. Whereas the cannabis aid was kind of general purpose revenue. You could use it for what you saw best fit. Um what ended up happening, the governor proposed uh cutting in half starting with aids payable in 2026.
Um the final agreement cut it in half starting with aids payable in 2027. Now this is I would say especially significant to Crowing County. Uh Crowing County gets So we've got the number up there. So that's a $236,96
cut to Crowing. Crowing is also just one of the larger recipients of the aid in particular. Um per capita it's $6.82 in Crow Wayne. Um and is Crowing 4.7% of the total AIS aid goes to Crowing
County. Um on the bright side, there were no cuts to county program aid uh in the final agreement. The Senate had proposed cutting county program aid by $20 million. Um, Crowing County gets $46 per
capita in uh, county program aid. It's about 1% of the total um, county program aid goes to Crowing County. That was something that was uh, very difficult at times. Uh, there were a lot of aid cuts that the Senate was proposing essentially to pay for other spending or
tax cuts that they were pursuing, usually smaller dollar type of proposals. Um and so uh but we were able to protect CPA. We were also able to protect payment in lie of taxes uh which is um something the governor proposed
cutting by 1/3. Crowing County is a pretty large recipient of payment in lie of taxes as well. That's uh $12.87 per capita. About 2% of all PILT goes to Crowing County which is uh 13th highest in the state.
Um, I should have said at the top, I apologize. If you ever have questions, just feel free to interrupt me anytime or otherwise I'll just keep going. I do have a question. So, when you say when you say per capita, are you saying
like our total population? Is that what you're saying? The number or what are you? Yeah. So per capita I'm saying the amount that Crowing County receives divide divided by the number of people in in Crowing County because you can't compare Crowing County to like you know
Henipin County right so it's just kind of a way of figuring out well per person how much aid are you getting right okay makes sense and then when you say county program aid and PIL is combined together to make this 3.169
million sorry no Um that $3.169 million number is county program aid only. Pilt is a separate payment. Okay. We don't have projected PILT data out that far yet. Um I don't have it the the most recent payment to uh Crowing right in
front of me, but I can get that number to you pretty easily. That number is 800 and some thousand. Okay. 800 and some thousand. Okay. Got it. Sorry. No, no, thank you. That's great. I need all the help I can get. You know, he's a number. That's why Nate and I really like each other. We're number people. We're We're
right here. Yeah. 2024 was 845,000. I was close, wasn't it? You were close. That's That's pretty good. I see. I I wasn't going to guess because then I could have been pretty far off, you know. I didn't have it down to the penny, but I knew it was over 800,000. Yeah, I'll do better next
time. Sorry about that. We We all have something to strive for. Um but yeah so uh in this so the 2026 total scope crowing county is projected to go down a little bit. That's just kind of every year the formula adjust based on where it deems the needs are.
Needs are based on things like your uh adjusted net tax capacity per capita. uh the number of SNAP benefits, uh number of households receiving SNAP benefits, and your age adjusted population, which factors in how many people do you have that are 65 plus um in your county.
Nate, have you ever tried to go through that actual CPA formula? Oh. Oh, yeah. I've got it here on the spreadsheet. I I I tried to do the LGA formula and I it was it was overwhelming. So, I think uh so I used to work at the League of Minnesota Cities. I know that. Um, and I
would say that the CPA formula is actually quite a bit simpler than the LGA formula. Uh, so I do really appreciate that about county program aid. Um, but, uh, just a few other things on the tax bill. Um, their final target was
$118 million in this banium, $190 million in the outb. So for the taxes, which is kind of unique in some ways, that's a combination of uh tax increases uh and spending cuts is basically what
that 118 and 190 number was, right? So um uh the AIS cut, which is 10 million or $5 million a year starting in AIDS payable 2027. So it's not going to affect your budget next year, but it will the year after that. that essentially accounted for 10 million of
that 190. Two of the other really big pieces, these aren't really super significant to counties, but are the increase in the cannabis tax um that increased from uh 10% to 15%. Um just for clarification, that's the
cannabis tax that goes to the state, not not the cannabis aid that comes to the county, right? Well, I I mean under the new law, none of that money, right, will come to the county. Yeah. Just wanted to just just to clarify that. Yes, there was an increase in the cannabis tax.
None of that was scheduled to come to the counties. The part that was going to come to the counties from the cannabis aid that is no longer coming to the counties. Yeah. Big surprise. Well, it was something they really pushed hard when they were pushing that law in there that they were going to be sharing that
with the counties, with the cities, and then to have them pull it out at the last minute was a little bit u Yeah, that was that was a really big push we made in 2023. It was really difficult to get, frankly, any changes to the the
cannabis bill in 2023. Um it was kind of a big win that we got that and as soon as there is a deficit, you know, they they took it away immediately. Not even a current banium deficit, which I always harp on and then legislators look at me like, well, but what um uh so that that
is something that uh we unfortunately lost out on, but it was tough. That was in all three bills. Uh another big I should say um sales tax still does apply to cannabis. So, if you're talking about the total tax on cannabis, it's going to
be that 15% plus your 6.875% state sales tax and then any local sales taxes. So, I believe Crowing County has a half uh% on transportation sales taxes. So, it's it's not much, but uh
any purchase of cannabis uh that will be paying that half cent at least. So, that's it's not a lot, but it is something. Um, another big thing just for getting to those numbers, those target numbers that they did was repealing the electricity sales tax
exemption on data centers. Um, there's been a lot of conversations about data centers. Um, the data center sales tax exemption is on hardware, software, and electricity. Um, so the new law maintains their hardware and software sales tax exemptions and repeals the
sales tax exemption on electricity. Um, and you know, the argument was, you know, most people do pay sales tax on electricity. Um, that was another big chunk of uh their target. Uh, a few things that didn't go in. Um, we've got
on here no action on the construction materials sales tax refund. You all may have some familiarity with this. Um, basically when local governments because uh we separately contract uh contract uh labor and materials though there is something in law that technically says
local governments don't have to pay sales tax because for a lot of different reasons including like liability and risk reasons. You've got to separately bid uh materials and labor. The contractors end up purchasing the materials. They don't have a sales tax
exemption. We did on in 2023, we also pushed this uh uh on trying to make sure that we can actually realize that sales tax exemption, which would be a significant ongoing savings to local governments and counties in particular. That bill was
heard this year in the House. Um, and there were lots of special exemptions brought forward by individual local governments, be they counties, cities, or school districts, saying like, "Okay, we're going to ask for this, but just for our one project for this one and a
half year window or what have you." Um, the total price tag on the refund as a whole is over $60 million a year, which is actually down from what it was when it was uh estimated in 2023 at over $80 million a year. And it was just really
difficult to get any type of momentum for uh when you've got the legislature tasked with raising almost $200 million in revenue or cutting that amount in spending to then spend that much money on uh a provision that large. It's
something that um everybody agrees on. Republicans, Democrats say, "Hey, we shouldn't be taxing this." It's really difficult to make it anybody's top priority. Um is what I would say just from a legislative perspective. Uh so that ended up getting heard in the House
but not included in the House bill did not move forward and also almost essentially no individual special exemptions went into law either. So for those cities, counties or school districts that may have said, hey, whether it's our judicial center, corrections facility, we're asking for a
sales tax exemption. Those did not become law this year. Also due to uh budget constraints if you were to talk to the tax chairs. Uh, one last thing on this, this is kind of been an ongoing issue is the uh the general local sales tax authorization
discussion on allowing cities and counties to go straight to the voters to ask them to uh approve or disapprove a sales tax to fund a certain project. Under current law, you have to go to the legislature first. This creates a lot of issues because tax bills are pretty
rare. They only happen about once every other year. And then when you go to the legislature and they say no or they change your proposal, it's really difficult to know well why did that happen? The legislature is kind of a black box in this regard. Uh that proposal did move forward in the Senate.
Uh the house had a different proposal which extended the local sales tax moratorum by a year that's been in place for 2 years that say locals can't come to us to ask for these anymore. um and created a task force of legislators. The House bill did to say
like let's come up with a new plan. Uh and basically none of that moved forward this year. So the House didn't get what they wanted. Uh which was extending the moratorium. The Senate didn't get what they wanted which was saying let's set up this new process so the local governments don't have to come to the
legislature. Uh my only other note on that is Senator Rest has said that while her bill didn't move forward, she still plans to abide by the parameters that she set out in her bill for what types of projects that she would approve moving forward or not. Um Nathan, so
that moratorum, when does that moratorium end? Was that moratorium at a set date on it? Yeah, so the moratorium is technically already expired. Funny enough, it did expire June 1st, 2025. So during their special it would have been like outside the moratorum but the the
moratorum is expired right now. So it's you still have to go to the legislature if a city wants to do it then. Yeah. So if a city or county wants to pursue a local sales tax to bring to their voters and have the voters decide whether or not a project moves forward with uh an
increased sales tax. that still has to come to the legislature first and then depending on the timing then you'd have to go to your voters likely during an even numbered year um in November in the water. Sorry, what? Dead in the water at this
time. Any city looking at moving forward to trying to get it in front of a legislature in any expedient Yeah. Yeah. It it's it's not going to happen in an expedient way. That That's exactly right. local governments. Starting next year, I would assume you will see um
certainly a lot of cities bring forward local sales tax proposals to the legislature to see if they can get approval to bring them to their voters. Um I haven't talked to counties that are have clearly identified that yet. Um but that's something that could happen for
some counties as well. I would say that um there's a lot more of these at the city level than the county level. Uh but you know, Sterns County, Winona County, Jackson County, all pursued uh local sales taxes on the ballot in 2024. Uh most of those were approved, but not all
of them. Um so yeah, any other questions on the tax portions? Okay, I'm going to go to somebody else. Yes. So, I just have a first of all, I like the presentation so far because Nathan, your
voice carries, and usually I can't hear anything, you know, and so I I'm hearing it very well. So, thank you for that. I I Nobody's ever told me I'm I'm too quiet. So, that's so that's a good thing. I like it because Jamie's like,
[Laughter] "Anyway, okay." So, a couple of questions. Um, and this isn't I'm I'm not trying to be mean or anything on this one, but you know, obviously we're paying Crowing County citizens are
paying we're paying for a membership in Association of Minnesota Counties and we're paying for a membership in your organization, which we don't have to do. But I think what I've seen over the years, I see the value and I think we see the value otherwise we wouldn't keep
you doing it. But I guess my question is is when the board of that you have identifies something that's affecting counties and you want the legislature to fix that. Can you point to a success
story where you've lobbyied the legislature and your organization has came up with a success that has been helpful to Crowing County and other counties. Does that make that Yeah, sure. I mean, I I think we have lots of those stories this year. Um, in taxes, we were kind of more
playing defense, frankly. Um, I I do think protecting CPA and PILT, those were two priorities that we had and we saw no cuts to those. Um, I'm going to talk a little bit later about some other issues. Um, some general government issues after everybody else comes through. Um, but like one really big
thing this year that uh we led on was so uh and Amber uh and I talked about this some during the legislative session was this idea of a capital replacement account. Um and this is kind of for all counties broadly. you know, we work on the statewide issues that affect counties is there was a bill that
previously had been proposed by the House DFL bonding chair, Representative Fui and Senator Sandy Papis in the Senate around um requiring local governments to essentially have the money to replace a building before they were able to go to
the state or receive state bonding dollars. Um, as you can imagine, that creates lots of issues. You know, first of all, you've got this separate account that just has to sit there and the money is going to sit there for, I mean, it would be decades, frankly. Um, and
requires you to have the revenue to pay for a project before you come to the legislature to ask for money to prov to help pay for that project. Now, we understand why like local matches exist and things like that and the legislature is a big fan of those and they they have
value, but we particularly saw like this capital replacement account idea as something that was uh a really bad deal for uh cities and counties. We initially were working um with the uh Senate author on well, okay, let's try to make
sure this uh there's some exemptions if you have a five-year capital improvement plan. the bill only had 10 years and functionally speaking like almost nobody has a 10-year capital improvement plan. Um the and work other exemptions into
the law based on like your tax capacity. We also worked with Representative Tabkey who uh authored the bill this year and he was uh more willing to listen to our kind of like broader concerns with that bill. So rather than create a capital replacement account
plan and create a or sorry rather than create we worked with them to change the language so that rather than there's there being a capital replacement account where that money would have to sit and you would have to have that money already to pay for the replacement before you came to the legislature which
is again in my opinion counterintuitive. He ju the the bill that moved forward out of the capital investment committee though it did not end up becoming law. Um but the bill that moved forward in the house basically said you have to have a maintenance and preservation
plan. So not a replacement account where you need to put all this money in to replace the building as soon as you know its useful life has ended. but instead make sure that have it box that each local government checks that says like okay you've got to have a plan rather
than uh an account just to say like we have a plan to maintain and preserve this building. So that's like an example but I think we have lots of others too helpful in in stopping this which could have a negative effect on counties. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Well, I I
think that and this is just part of the way that um uh the the world works at the capital is that sometimes it's not just enough to say no. We say no all the time, right? Um and like we said no on county program aid and PIL, but sometimes you have to
give the legislature another path where they feel like, okay, like you have this idea and you have all these grand plans, but like there's a million reasons why this doesn't work. What if we did something else instead? and we steer them in a different direction, right? So, that wasn't like it wasn't like we
laid down the hammer or anything. That's not the way that it works. The legislators are the ones with the power, right? But that was an example of like we help steer in a direction that like frankly makes sense, you know, makes sense for for uh local governments to have maintenance and preservation plans. They can check a box. Legislators can follow up and ask follow-up questions.
But that's like an example of an area where we played that role. So, one other thing. So, I guess I don't know, maybe this is a question for Deb. Not that I think we have any specific things that were I think back several years ago when we wanted to combine the auditor and
treasurer and we needed somebody to help us in the legislature. Would that be something that you would do if we had something specific to Crowing County that you would uh your organization would work on our behalf on that or or
who would we use them or AMC or what would we do? Probably a combination of both AMC and Micah in many of those types of situations. At the time that we did the combination of the offices, we weren't members of Micah yet at that point in time. Um we did get some
support from AMC in that process. A lot of it depends on what the the topic is. You know, many counties have their own lobbying arm or have their own government affairs division that is dealing with exactly that. If there are a lot of things that they are hoping to accomplish at the legislature, but in
many cases, if there is something that we do feel strongly about that is specific to the county, we can work with Micah, we can work with AMC to get support in many of those things. Most of the focus of both of these organizations are on statewide issues that are going to impact many counties or all counties
in most cases. The true value of Micah in our case comes from a lot of the analysis and the analytical data and some of the things that Nathan and his staff are doing with regard to providing that likeminded comparison data. If you look at the 17 members who are part of
Micah, they're very much our contemporaries across the state as it pertains to population, budget size, many of the same types of issues that we are facing. So, it's a better maybe cross-section of the information that we're working with versus looking trying
to take statewide data and parse it down to something that is comparable. This does a lot of that work for us before that even gets to that point and gives us really good lenses to look would help us if we had a specific issue with that or is it not part of So I I mean we're not going to lobby on specific issues
but if you have questions about well how would it work to like pursue something like this you know we're always at your disposal. Um, the other thing I would add, and I think uh, county administrator Debbie Action did a great job kind of describing the value there, is that sometimes AMC and Micah are
we're never going to be in opposition to one another, you know, but there are going to be times where we prioritize things a little bit differently just based on like it was being discussed the the difference. AMC has to represent a lot of counties including, you know, counties that are maybe five or 6,000
people, right? And we sometimes will prioritize different things than AMC will right that but we're not going to be like working in opposition to them you know we work with them right so I'm trying to build a bridge so that's what
I'm looking for some money to build not the arm for that purpose just so that we're clear on that the physical bridge okay no it is a bridge okay I wasn't I wasn't sure at first I'm looking for some money for a bridge.
Yeah. So, you know, one of the things that you bring up and I think it's really important is you other counties have the the other bigger counties actually have their own IGR staff almost pretty much to lobby. We are the lobbyists for this county and we should be down there lobbying for things for
this county with those legislators and not expecting you or AMC or somebody else to be doing that. It should be up to us. I know when I attend a lot of these meetings and I go down there, I'm amazed at how many county commissioners are there from one county and they're out there lobbying for their own things
for that county. And I think that's very important and that's something I think we should really uh look at being involved in. If we want to lobby for what we want in Crowing County, we should be down there lobbying for Crowing County. Yeah. Yeah. The one thing I would add to that is like sometimes we'll coordinate with uh AMC
during like their days on the hill or something like that. One of those happened uh this May and it actually happened to be the same day that the budget targets were released. I think that's right. Um and so that was actually a really great day for county commissioners to be there and we're always going to be advocates for
counties at the lobbyist level. But like you said, I think the I the most effective we are is when we can put county commissioners in front of their members, right? or at least relay the stories that we get from those county commissioners to make it more personal to the members, right? And like here's
what it means on the ground back in your district, right? Rather than just kind of staying at the high level. So yeah. Well, I will say Commissioner Lubkkey, you are right. It is important for commissioners to go down there, but it is not unheard of for counties to hire
lobbyists. Henipin County have lobbyists. Yeah, they hire lobbyists because lobbyists are a critical part of the legislature and they do get things done. I I will say so, but I'm not I I don't think that we we don't need anybody now, but I'm just saying in the
future. I guess I was just kind of curious if if we were looking for somebody that But I see what your position is. So, thanks, Nathan. Appreciate it. Yeah, no problem. Thank you for the questions. This is a very helpful conversation to have. So, really appreciate that. Um, I think I'm going
to turn it over to Amber for a little bit here. So, great. The next slide. Advance the slide. So, I'm Amber Bakis with the firm of United Strategies. This is my first term representing uh Micah at the legislature on transportation issues. I have a lot of seniority on Nathan. I was hired four months before
he was. So, bragging rights. But, um, no, I've been around the capital way too long. I think this was my 30th legislative session, and I focused on transportation a lot over the years that I've been there. And it's been a real pleasure uh to represent you guys at the capitol. And again, I think my success um for Micah this session can be
attributed to county commissioners and county engineers weighing in and being there at hearings and contacting their legislators. So, thank you for all that support. Um so, we talk a little bit about the omnibus transportation bill where most of the provisions we care about were contained. There weren't really any individual transportation
bills that moved this legislative session. Um so during the regular session the house and the senate transportation committees were successful in assembling their um knee bus bills but they had very different targets. The house um didn't have to make any cuts to general fund. They had
a zero target whereas the senate had a $115 million target. Um when it came time for the global agreement on transportation they ended up following the senate's lead uh which surprised everybody. So they had a $113 million
general fund target and that's very significant. Transportation is about6% of general fund spending from the state but they had to bear 11% of the cuts that were assigned to helping reconcile the general fund deficit. Um so when you
look at the transportation budget a lot of the revenues come are dedicated revenues gas tax fees motor vehicle sales tax which all go to the highway trust fund. um general fund spending is largely um relegated to transit and some DVS functions and that's only about $330
million um a bianium. So to have a $115 million target for the bianium was really tough to reach or excuse me it ended up being yes $15 million target. Um so obviously it was transit that bore the brunt of those costs in terms of the
package that came together during the special session. um transportation had started to meet in public um during the regular session. Um and the meetings were okay. They're making a little bit of progress. Um then when it came time for that period between the general session and the special session, the
working group was meeting behind closed doors and the discussions sort of devolved and they were getting at odds with each other crosswise, not not going well. Um, so the bill ultimately got kicked up to legislative leadership to resolve and I should say it wasn't the speaker or um or the uh majority leader
in the Senate negotiating this and it ended up being um this the Senate Finance chair John Marty and the House Ways and Means co-chairs Paul Torqulson and Zach Stevenson that ended up putting this bill together obviously with input from their transportation chairs um but
it was largely um controlled by those folks. Um so what they did to um then get to their budget targets besides the cuts to uh transit or because of the cuts to transit um there was a consensus by especially the Democrats that there
needed to be some sacrifice for cuts from the roadside from the highway side. Um so uh in 2023 um as part of the big transportation bill package that passed uh the sales tax on motor vehicle parts was dedicated
to uh trunk highways as well as to a transportation advancement account and that set a schedule of um shifting over those motor vehicle sales tax revenues from the general fund to um the trunk highway fund. But with the um impending deficit the state is facing um the
Senate had in their bill and this prevailed in the final package that that transfer of funds be slowed down. So instead of 43 1.5% going into the trunk highway fund um it was scaled back so that it's going to be 43% next year then
reduced to 41% then um in fiscal year 28 to 36% fiscal year 2930% and that's when the $6 billion state deficit is anticipated. And then after that bianum it's going to phase back up to the 43 and a half percent. So obviously this creates a hole in the trunk highway
fund. Um they were able to help offset that by institute I shouldn't say instituting they already have a search charge on electric vehicles of $75. Um they decided to increase that so it can be anywhere um I think up to $250 going
forward. So that um negates some of the losses to the trunk highway funds, but there still is going to be um a cuts to when it comes down to the the county level to the CASA funding. Um in the next bianium, it's still a little bit of a of a surplus, a $3.8 million to CASA
or not a surplus, but an increase to CASA. Um but in that 28 29 years, it's going to be a $8.6 million cut to CASA overall. Um but you know it could have been worse if they didn't do anything with regard to um increasing the search
charge on electric vehicles. Amber the the what is that search charge on electric vehicles? What was the estimate of that bringing in as far as um so that's going to bring in $23 million in 2627 and $53 million in 2829. And that will increase over time because it's
tied um to the value of the vehicle the MSRP. Does that all go into CASSA or not? It's not just CAS. It goes into the trunk highway fund and then goes into the trunk highway divi uply goes there. It isn't taken some of it taken off and going in the general. Correct. Correct.
It's Yeah. Completely to the trunk highway fund except for the cost to DVS to administer. They get a little portion of it, but it's all going to um to the roads and bridges. Um so that was good. Another bright spot and I will um to uh Commissioner Coring's question chalk this up as a win for Micah um was
getting more money for the local go government road wetland replacement program that is a program administered by the board of water and soil resources where they administer a a wetland credit bank. So if you have a county road reconstruction project, you don't have
to come up with the cost of paying for those the wetland mitigation yourself. You can go to this bank um to help you do that. And it also um expedites your permitting involved with doing a road reconstruction program. Um I know last bianium um Steve Novak who was your
Micah transportation leazison at the time um had a bill introduced to sort of increase the funding for this program because it is an obligation of the state to provide this but it's been wofully underfunded over the years. I think you know it's only received about a third of the funding it needs to operate the program well. Um, so when I came in, I
heard a lot from the county engineers about how important this was, that we really need to increase the funding because the program was about to run out of credits altogether. So I sort of took the ball and ran with it. Obviously, we worked with our other local government partners. Um, but it was unprecedented to have money for this program in the
transportation bill itself. that usually either comes from bonding and over the years um folks have tried to get some money through the environment committee um which there was some temporary funding at one point but it's usually relied on bonding um which isn't great because this especially with the deficit
in credits bonding dollars can't be used to buy credits on the private market to um help re refill the credit bank um the um bonding dollars can't be used to actually buy the rolling stock like the bulldozers and other things and machinery needed um to construct the
wetland lands. Um so getting $3 million um in this program through the transportation budget bill and general fund money I think was a big win. Um it's too bad the House provision didn't prevail because going into conference committee they actually had $12 million in one-time funding and then ongoing
funding for the board of water and soil resources in their budget to fund this program which would have been huge. The agency was delighted. Um they were very supportive even though they couldn't be publicly because it wasn't one of the governor's recommendations but they were thrilled. But but that was a win there. Um, next slide.
Um, I also have to say we were successful in stopping a lot of bad a lot of bad policy pieces that were part of this bill. Um, there was one proactive thing we were trying to change that we didn't get um on this list, but a lot of these things that were dropped from the bill were things we didn't like. Um the one thing that we wanted to
see happen was some changes um in to a new program that the state enacted last year with regard to um assessing and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions related to transportation projects. It um it was a program that was set up last
bianium um but there wasn't any funding associated with it. They created account but they didn't put any money in it. Um, and to do these offsets, the estimate by MINDOT is it could cost projects an additional five to 40%. Which is extremely significant considering that
inflation and other things are just eating up your transportation budgets. Fortunately, this program is only on state trunk highways now. We want also wanted to make sure it wasn't going to be expanded to county or um municipal road programs, but there's still a lot of work to be done to figure out the mechanics of this program. So, we were
trying to work to at least delay um the start of it as well as provide some funding for it. Um and we weren't successful on either front there, but we're definitely keeping tabs and we have some county engineers at the table of a task force that's working on it. Um the things that weren't in the bill that
we opposed, um there was a provision by uh the Senate Transportation Chair Scott Dibble to completely change um the the state aid road standards. Um, right now there are there's statute and rules that dictate the design of state aid roads
and then if you as a county want to do something different, there's a variance program uh where they have engineers and local officials at the table deciding if a variant should be granted. Um, unfortunately the rules haven't been updated for a while. So that led Senator Dibble to think that the whole program
needs to be blown up because he'd like to see a lot more um focus on other modes besides cars as part of these state aid standards. Um, and I don't think people are opposed to that, but this one-sizefits-all um that he was looking at doesn't really make sense for um you know, counties like Crowing and
others that was dropped from the bill. And there's also a Senate provision to expand what those trunk highway dollars can be spent on in terms of state projects. Um so, you know, the prohibition um li through the constitution limits that state spending from the trunk highway fund to roads and
bridges. Um the Senate had a provision to allow per permissible uses to include um active transportation and transit and greenhouse gas mitigation again which would have taken those very needed highway funds from roads and bridges and put them towards other uses that was
dropped. Um there was also a couple of provisions in the Senate bill to have the legislature set speed limits on county roads which has been a concern of the engineers over time. Um they think it should be a local decision. um that was dropped. And then there was also some language added in the Senate bill
at the very last minute when they were putting that together that would have created a whole new program administered by Mandot to um pay businesses for the disruptions to their business during uh road construction projects and I think um everybody think sympathetic to
businesses who are faced with that. Um, but there was a concern because some of the ideas were that, you know, 1% of your project costs would automatically go into this fund to help pay businesses and who got paid and who would qualify was of a big concern. Um, and that was dropped from the bill. Uh, so I will
take a pause there in terms of just the omnibus transportation bill and see if there's anything I didn't cover that you want to know about. any any idea specifically our you know our little com combination transit program with the
city of Brainard any idea if that and if anything was affected with the dollars that we're receiving specifically the crowing county so I I don't know the breakdown for crowing county and I can find that out for you but greater Minnesota transit um which receives general fund dollars um did receive a
cut of $22 million for the upcoming bianium. I know there were some reserves in that account that they're thinking should not make it impact operations too much, but um you I can follow up with you and find out what kind of dollar loss that would be to crowing because I'm not familiar with the distribution
of the transit fund. I don't know if I don't know. I just curious if it's going to have an effect if we have to take a look at the fair box again and I know our fair box is I don't even know what we're at $6 or something like that. So, I just was wondering if that had an effect because we've had some people
come forward that, you know, are pretty passionate about this. I've heard from people in Commissioner Lubsky's district recently, a couple months ago, I suppose. Yeah. So, yeah. And I know it could have been worse um because initially it was a um a higher amount that was going to be taken on an ongoing
basis. So, at least that it's limited to one bianium for now is helpful. All right. Anything else there? No. If not, um, next slide. Um, and talk a little bit about the bonding bill. Um, we weren't certain if there was going to
be a bonding bill this session, you know, because you do need uh Republican and Democratic votes to pass since you need um a twothirds vote, not just a simple majority to pass a bonding bill. Um, you know, there was a lot of discussion during the session. The capital investment committees met.
Typically, this isn't a bonding bill, but because one didn't get done last year, um there's a lot of pent-up demand for projects. Um so, they they met, but um neither the House or Senate actually put forward their own bonding bill during the regular session. Um the Senate did have a spreadsheet. Uh Chair
Papus put together her wish list, um but she had a pretty big target of 1.3 uh billion dollars. um which was very generous considering that the um governor's budget recommendations and that of the Minnesota Management and Budget Office were only to do a a bill of $700 million just because that's what
the the debt service that could be handled. Um during the um prequel or sequel, whatever you want to call it, to regular session to special session, um the chairs met um continuously behind closed doors, but it didn't seem like there was going to be a bonding bill,
and we didn't get that certainty until the agreement around the special session was announced. Um that was one of the things that was outlined that would be done during the special session. And that agreement had the support of um Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson who
agreed to put up the votes for a a bonding bill. Um I should say he in return for that he really pushed to get more money of that $700 million for water and transportation infrastructure. I think he increased that amount by at least $und00 million which boded really
well for us um because there were some big things that local governments and Micah members care about. $42 million for the local road improvement program, um $20 million for local bridges, and then again, we've received even more money for the local government road wetland replacement program. Um so all
of these pots of money are very um important to um local governments and counties in particular um because there are a lot of needs out there on the system um that haven't been met, especially since this program didn't receive uh funding last year. Um so that that was great news for everyone and I
would say this is far exceeded what we were expecting. Initially folks were talking about basing the um allocations on what they had thought about doing in 2024 and that bill um really only had I think 13 million for local bridges. None of these other um programs were part of
that. So to get this big a portion is great success for counties. And I will Yes. I do have a follow-up question to Commissioner Coring's point about our local bus service and you said there's a $22 million cut. Is that going
to hit the rural counties harder than the metro counties? Well, so the um transit that's funded with general fund dollars through MDOT is only for greater Minnesota transit. It's not for the metro area. Um, that being said, there
were cuts to Metro Chan Transit of I think it was $64 million over the upcoming bianium. But that being said, Metro Transit has a lot more sources of revenue than greater Minnesota transits. If you recall last bianium, there was a
3/4% sales tax increase in the metro area to fund largely Metro Transit and that's upwards I think that's going to generate about $900 million for Metro Transit um in the next bianium. though there is a disparity um just because Metro Transit has many more sources of
revenue than Greater Minnesota Transit does. Do you think they'll ever have the uh intestinal fortitude to stand up and say that they don't care about rural transit? Um because that's the message that's
coming out. Yeah. We have people that are disabled. We have people that use that as a way to get to school. Um but they don't care. And it's all based on ridership. And we don't have ridership. Right. Right. You don't have the density. You don't have the Yeah. It's just much harder. So, yeah. Cory's
point, if we're charging $6 a a ride, how high can you go where the unfortunate can't afford to pay it, right? And it just exacerbates the situation for those people. No, I I definitely agree. Um, and I think, you know, I was hoping there'd be more progress because I know there was a
there's a task force on aging and one of its top recommendations was to have more transportation options, especially for seniors in greater Minnesota. So, having other legislators besides I think just the transportation legislators talk about this is helpful, but I think yeah, it needs to be elevated. And I'm glad to
hear this from you because um as this hasn't been an issue that was came from the county engineers obviously so it wasn't a you know one of my focuses during the session but definitely something I can you know we can focus more on with your feedback and input. So okay thank you.
Uh let's have Rachel just come up and talk about some of the environment. She's going to bounce up and back a couple times but uh she'll talk about some of the environmental bonding impacts. So hi good morning everyone. My name is Rachel Cesnoic and I cover environment issues for Micah. Great to be with you all today. Uh yes, I will be
up here to give a more thorough overview of uh kind of where things landed for Micah's environment priorities this session, but did want to just quickly touch on a couple items that were included in the bonding bill um that were of note. So, uh first is there was
$6 million included for the capital assistance program or cap. Um, this is going to be just kind of a a pool of funds that the MPCA will get to uh decide how it's appropriated. In the past, in bonding bills, CAP funding was often assigned to specific uh solid
waste management facilities projects. Um, but what we saw with the bonding bill this year is that there was no no money uh dedicated to those specific local projects. They kept everything at a pretty, you know, statewide, more general level. Um, so it's a little bit
of a different way that cap funding will be will be allocated, but uh there's still an opportunity for county projects to receive funding. And so that will be ultimately up to the MPCA to decide. Um, and you know, in conversations with them just late last week, you know, they
they're pretty agnostic to how the money um how CAP funds are are appropriated. you know, they'll they were happy to support the individual projects um when that was kind of the direction um that the bonding bills were going in past years um but they were not really a part
of the negotiations on the capital investment bill this year. And so this is kind of just how things landed. And so they'll, you know, they kind of have their list of priority projects. Um, that's likely where we might, you know, that isn't a public list at this point in time, but, uh, I think, you know, if that can be made available, that might
give some direction to how those funds will be appropriated. Um, also through the MPCA, there's a new, uh, statewide drinking water contamination mitigation program. Um, so $6 million there. Um, counties are eligible to receive this
funding, but, you know, again, it's it's a new program. it was included in the governor's bonding proposal released earlier this year. Um and so not a ton of clarity yet on kind of how they'll be making those decisions. So that's something that we'll be looking out for. Um and then finally, while this is not
um funding that will go to counties, I think it's still worth noting just because of the significant dollar amount is the 176 million to the public facilities authority um for local water projects. So drinking water, storm water. Um there's a an additional, you
know, drinking water or water contamination and addressing contaminants in water is is one of the priorities that um that we have for Micah for 2025. And so um there is an $18 million drinking water uh emerging contaminants program that is also funded
as part of that 176 million. So I think we're seeing increased focus um at the state level and this will come through in some of the other um updates I give. uh on environment issues uh a focus on drinking water contamination I think especially the conversation around PAS
um is is very top of mind for legislators and so I think you know to to Amber's point earlier um for Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson who really pushed for more funding for um for water projects um and I think a lot of those water projects right are in in greater
Minnesota and places where um you know local governments don't have the resources on their own to address these things. I think that's something that we'll continue to see in future sessions as well as more investments there. So, Rachel, um, as far as with that PAS, you know, we have a a solid waste landfill
that we uh do a very good job at, but we still have that PAS issue. What But you're talking about stuff that would be for the local cities more than than that. Yes. So, there's really nothing available for us to say, can we do a better job with our PAS out at our
landfill with anything you have right now? Unless it came through a city. Yeah, I I I would say no, not in the bonding bill. Um, you know, there there is funding um you know, that could be a place where perhaps um cap funding could
be used, right, is for um shoring up to prevent any um you know, contaminated leech from spreading into um groundwater into groundwater. Um there is a ton of additional funding from the clean water fund. Again, we'll get more into this, but a lot of funding through the clean
water fund um you know, LCCMR funds um for, you know, groundwater protection, you know, mitigation of those contaminants, but um not so much in the bonding bill, at least not at at a county level. Okay. Thank you. Could you update us on the score grant? Yes. Would
it be okay if we waited and then I can kind of just go because that'll be part of the environment update. Would that be I'm happy to do it now or I'm happy to wait and just kind of run through all of my stuff at the same time. I don't know if folks have a strong preference. Okay, I'll wait. Okay, we'll wait. But we'll
get there. Yes, he's a board chair. Not used to waiting. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Any other questions on bonding specifically before we turn over? I think Nancy's up next. So, were you pretty shocked that there was that they ended up with a bonding bill? Because it didn't really sound like that. I mean,
I'm I'm very shocked to be honest with you that they ended up with a bonding bill. I I mean, I think we've uh talked about this uh just amongst ourselves, but uh you know, there a lot of the times when it's really difficult in a special session, one of the first things to fall off is a bonding bill because
you need that 3-fifths majority, right? Um but I think the fact that they wanted to pass everything in one day and they needed to suspend the rules. So, Senate GOP had a little bit of leverage there, right? and were able to get some changes to the bonding bill they liked and once they saw a bonding bill they liked they
decided oh well we'll put the votes up for this right um so I but I do think that was a significant win this session so and they so they did the right thing I mean on bonding I I think so I I'm not going to say that broadly but I mean on bonding I I I mean I do think that uh
that was really needed it was really needed yeah really needed and I mean we're going to need another one you know but uh I I think that that was a significant win of the session. Yes. Thank you. Okay. I'll be back. You'll be
back, right? Yep. Okay. So, we I think we can go to the next slide here. Oh boy. This is Yes. Hi everyone. Nancy Celeleski and I represent Micah in the area of public health and human services.
Um I will start at the beginning. Um I would say that slides. Yeah, there's two slides. Sorry. Oh, okay. Gotcha. Question. Um so all county organizations had kind of the three um same priorities going forward this year. One was the replacement of SSIS. One was uh related
to uh men choices reform and the third one dealt with direct care and treatment, priority admissions to direct care and treatment. And I'm happy to say that all three of those uh progressed this year, which was it was a good year um for those three things. Um in terms
of SSIS, it was funded at $35 million. Going into conference committee, the House position was $40 million while whereas the Senate was only $10 million. So we were thrilled to get that raised to $35 million. There also was money put aside last year of $10 million. So,
putting that together, we've got $45 million that we're going to be able to now draw draw down federal dollars and hopefully we are going to be saying goodbye to the green screen technology um hopefully soon. In terms of min choices, we had three
priorities and all all were included. For those folks that don't have a situation that that's not going to change from year to year, these uh annual reassessments have been really really difficult um for the client, not to mention your staff. And we've been pushing for quite a while for um
abbreviated reassessments for those for that particular population. Um they they are um able to ask for full uh reassessment if they would like, but anyway, could you pull your mic a little closer? Uh Paul Paul can't Paul can't hear you.
I don't project as well. I'm sorry. That's okay. Is that better? Okay. Um so every you can do two reassessments um with the shortened shortened um process and then you have to follow that up with a third. So this will hopefully free up
some some uh county time here. There's also language that allows us to do remote assessments. Um we it it used to be two in a row. We can now do four in a row and then it has to be followed up by a full reassessment. Verbal attestation can replace the uh
required reassessment signature for service initiation. However, within 30 days of the completion of the assessment, the assessor must email a request to get a written written um attestation from the client. In addition to those um there were other
folks that also were working on min choices. the hospitals being one. Um they have there's language in the bill. This is in the by the way the senator Hoffman bill um with uh representatives uh Muhammad Nure and um oh my gosh um
representative Joe Schumacher. Oh my gosh. Um it's in that bill and the the um language allows contracts the hospitals to contract um for men choices assessments where counties might be backlogged. We still
have to provide the oversight and compliance um for those contracts. They also modified the assessor qualifications. Um person only has to have a two-year degree now. And then counties do have to begin the assessment within 20 days of
the request um with an estimated timeline on on when that full completion is expected to be done. So that was um also passed again as part of that human services bill. The next one was the priority admissions direct care and treatment. Um I just want to mention
shout out Tammy Luick was very much involved in this issue as well as others. Um, in the human services policy bill, there was language that provided an additional 2-year pause on the 48hour rule. And while that was a recommendation of the priority
admissions review panel, that was coupled with the fact that we needed um we needed beds, we needed resources. So, we um made that clear over and over again. In the end, the human services bill again puts $10 million in 26 and
$10 million in 28 to address bed capacity at AMRTC, the Miller building. They also appropriated $34 million for the Miller building building operating expenses in fiscal year 29. However, the need was about 7 was $75
million for a 50 bed facility. So, we were thrilled that the bonding bill did include that $55 million. So, that was successful as well. Um, in addition, they did extend the prior priority admissions review panel uh that they have a report that's due to the
legislature next February, February 1st of 2026. And then there's language that allows uh 10 civily committed patients that are sitting in hospital settings to kind of move to the top of the list um for ad being admitted to AMRTC.
That goes until June 30th of 2027. Uh DCT executive board has to publish a referrals and admissions dashboard on its website. They put $100,000 in um to develop a a buildout plan for a locked
psychiatric residential treatment facility within direct care and treatment. And what didn't happen that we did work on um pretty hard. I think you remember that we had a two-year repre reprieve as it related to folks that have been committed as mentally ill and dangerous and are sitting in one state operated bed waiting to go to
another. Unfortunately, they did not continue that that exemption. So that cost is going to shift back to us effective July 1st. It's estimated to be about $14 million in 2627 and $18.2 million in the tales.
So those were the three priorities going into the session. Then um the governor's budget came out. Everybody's budgets came out and we were um surprised to see the dramatic number of county cost shifts. Um we were on
defense um in in the defense mode ever, you know, since that happened. And I just can't thank county commissioners, county staff that engaged your legislators because they there wasn't anybody that didn't hear about this. I can assure you of that. Um, so we were able to temper those those cuts. I would
say I have a great chart, but I don't think we have it in the in the presentation, do we? I don't think so. No, but we can send it out. Yeah, we can send it out. That that reflects where we started, but I just want to mention some of the things that did not happen that were removed from discussion. The waiver rate exception, county cost share was
removed. Um, there is a work group that's going to be charged with finding human services uh savings. They um are hoping that we're going to find $88 million. There are two u Micah appointees as well as two AMC and two MAXA appointees on that group. So
they're hoping that we're going to find some savings there. Um the behavioral health cost share the that was recommended by the governor to be increased from the current 22.95% to 50%. That did not happen. We remain
at the 22.95%. there's no increase for the Minnesota sex offender uh program cost of care and there was language at one time that would have given us some some responsibility for withdrawal management within the SUD system that was not
included either. So what did in was included was there's a $4 million shift in the first bianium and 8.5 in the second where they're eliminating the county behavioral health cost allocation. I mentioned the MIND
exemption going away. There's 16.760 um for the two biania or ongoing for chapter 611 competency attainment that we're going to be involved in. And finally um this was added at the end. We didn't know this was coming although Senator Abler's been talking about it
for a long time. Um he wants to have men choices assessments um capped at a flat fee. And so the department is is um tasked with coming up with a methodology and coming back to the legislature next year. The savings from that that they
indicate are going to be generated as $18 million in 2829. So it looks like we will be moving away from that random time moment study process into a flat fee. Um EMS ambulance issues, that's a big issue in the rural area. Um they did put
some money in into that this year. There's $16 million for the ambulance operating deficit grant program, $2 million for service training and staffing. Um 8.5 in the first bienium, 2.1 in the second for the rural EMS
uncompensated care pool and this is coming out of the general fund. There's additional money for that uncompensated care pool that will come out of the healthcare access fund of $5.4 million. And then they did put money for $400,000
into EMT education reimbursement grants. Public health good and bad. Um they put money into infectious disease prevention 2.6 million per bianium. They also I think you recall from last year there was a reduction to the uh
local and tribal public health grants for cannabis related um prevention. They reduced that last year by $3.6 million per year. They partially funded that this year by by appropriating $2.5 million a year. So, we're not completely
whole, but it's better than it was. There is um money for opioid antagonists on tribal campuses, a million dollars for a grant to change the outcome for opioid education. They also created a nonopioid directives um healthc care
directive that one can take to their their their physicians offices and have that on file. In terms of savings, they did reduce the funding. This is MDH savings. Did reduce funding for emergency preparedness by $850,000
per bienium and they reduce the the uh public health infrastructure pilot projects by $4 million per benium. Go to the next slide. Next slide. Oh, I'm sorry. Um and then they did pass a myriad of Department of Health um fees. So there's there's a number of fees that will go
up. Nathan brought up the tax propos or tax provisions related to cannabis. So I won't go through that again. I will hit uh a couple of things that did not happen this year. We were working on trying to change the African Minnesota African-American Family Preservation Act
by trying to get a either a delay or allow the non uh pilot counties of Henipin and Ramsey to get the other 85 counties to have some some sort of a phase in as well. At the end, it was we were told it's just premature. We have
the statewide working group that's that's just getting underway and that we should see what what comes out of that work group before any changes would be considered. They report their initial fi findings in January of next year. I can tell you that it's a very slow process. They just started meeting. I think
they've now had three meetings and um they've been very very not much progress yet. But I just want to mention the commissioners that are on that group. Mic members are Kurt uh Commissioner Kurt Mortonson from Ottertale, Commissioner Carla Bigum from Washington, and then uh Commissioner
Angela Connley's from Henipin, and uh Commissioner Joan Lee from Poke County make up that group. Uh the last couple of things, there was language floating around that would have prevented counties from contracting for case management services. In the end,
that didn't pass, but I'm expecting that there'll be further discussions on that. And then in the Senate Judiciary uh bill, um Senator Latz had a proposal for a civil commitment coordinating division, which would have been housed at the attorney general's office. That
did not happen. Um there was a lot of discussion about that being um duplicate duplicative um work is already being done in so many other areas. And so that did not make it into the final. And then there was a proposal to to increase the provider tax this year from 1.8% to 2%
which is the max that can be charged that was not um increased either. It was remains at 1.8%. And with that I just want to thank you and your staff. Um I mentioned Tam Tammy Luick also Cara Terry Cara Griffin very
much involved with Micah and actually they represent counties all over the state and we just really appreciate their input. um they're very valuable and I know you know that but want to throw that out from our perspective. Questions? Nancy, I just you know as I
sit here and and listen to your presentation I I had a a flashback to my years in the legislature and I can see you sitting there. I was of course quite a bit lighter than uh believe it or not. I mean not color-wise but weight wise.
But I I can I I I had a flashback of Senator Berglin because Senator Berglin and you I know you'll agree with this. Senator Berglin in the Senate, she was the Health and Human Services Committee. Uh I could remember I don't know if you were ever in there when I can't remember
who it was, they they offered up an amendment. She didn't want it in there and she said I think everybody voted for it. She said motion does not prevail. Oh, and nobody said a word.
But uh but it's it it just goes to show you I you know I spent eight years on that committee and it's this stuff is so complex and complicated. It's just it's so hard to to understand it to figure it out and so appreciate what you're doing
try to understand what's going on. You know, I was going to start my comments by saying, can I just give you my 30-page report, which you're going to see shortly because that's what it's going to be. That's what it's going to be. One thing I neglected to mention, and I'm still digging in a little bit, is
non-emergency medical transportation. That has been an issue since I started with Micah at whatever point that was. And it it started with a broker model. That's the broker ran that system. They changed it so that counties were gifted with it. maybe I don't know six, seven,
eight, nine years ago, something like that. Now they've come full circle and it's going back to the broker broker model. So here we are, you know, you stick around long enough it it comes back. It's funny when I, you know, I got elected over 20 years ago and it's still
the same issues. 20 years ago it, you know, and now it's the same issues. I can remember Commissioner Barrows was not Commissioner Barrows then and a whole group of people came into my office and I I don't know if they were too happy about me getting elected, but they uh they were in there. There was a
lot of You were willing to listen. Heavy breathing. I was listening. You know, they were they were even behind my chair. So anyway, we tried to do good work anyway. Yep. Thank you. Very good. Thank you, Nancy.
Mhm. Sorry about Joe Schumacher. How could I forget? Oh, good. Four grants. Rachel's back. Rachel's back. We can go to the anticipation is killing him. All right. Yeah, hopefully the the wait was worth it. Um, okay. So, again, I'm
Rachel. Uh, I work for Golf Public and lobby on environment issues for Micah. Um, this is my second session working with Micah. Uh, although I don't I did not do these visits last year, so this is my first time being in front of you all. So again, thanks for for letting me be here. I thought it might be helpful
before we get to score grants um just to have a quick refresher on all of Micah's 2025 environment priorities. Uh I think maybe you unique to some of the other issue areas is that uh funding and policy changes related to these
priorities covers many different committees. And so you'll see when we kind of get into the update on what all happened this year. There's there are a lot of different bills um that we track and and try to stay on top of and and communicate with um the chairs and committee members so that you all uh are
informed about what what's happening. Um and I think really, you know, the biggest buckets uh for our priorities really focus on solid waste and additional resources for counties to manage solid waste and try to manage it um responsibly um and try to move it up that waste hierarchy. um a lot of
conversation like I mentioned earlier earlier uh this year um and last year as well in response to uh an EPA petition around groundwater contamination in southeast Minnesota, but really a statewide conversation around um groundwater and drinking water contamination and the need for resources
to address those um to address that that and then um emerald ashbor and wood waste um trying to have more options and more resources available to to productively manage wood waste. Um, and so those are a lot of the things that you're going to be hearing more about uh
in just a second. Um, can we go to the next slide, please? Sorry, I'm like looking at the slide like you're going to know to change it. Um, so just an overview kind of our progress and some of the the limiting factors um things that made it a little bit more challenging. I think as you've heard
right across all of the committees um and just the overall budget situation um we had you know very limited targets or cut targets for for a lot of the committees and so when we're trying to seek additional funding to help um especially when it comes to solid waste you know there isn't um dedicated
resources the way that we have like the clean water fund for example through the legacy committee where you have that that pool of funds um that can be used to address um issues in that area. you know, when it comes to solid waste, that doesn't exist in the same way. And so, it makes it um really challenging when
you're trying to seek additional resources and and committee chairs are cutting funds. So, I think that was really the biggest factor limiting uh some of our progress on our on our priorities. Um but of course, right, legacy bill um with that uh clean water
fund over $300 million in the next two years um for a lot of different projects that really align with um with our priorities. And then I uh earlier talked a little bit about the bonding bill and that's you know never a guarantee that there will be a bonding bill. Um but even in a situation where you know we're
cutting general fund spending um having that bonding bill does open up some additional resources um for our for our priorities. Um we talked already a little bit about the reduction in aquatic invasive species county aid. Commissioner Lubkkey I know we had a chance to talk about that um at the
Micah forum back in January. Um you know when we headed into the governor's fishing opener uh that was hosted here just what I guess a couple months ago a month ago it's time is all yes um all muddled but uh you know we we felt like
we were in a better place but then as conversations continued obviously you know very disappointing um I think for Crowing County especially to see that 50% reduction so just wanted to acknowledge that again um we uh spent a lot of our time uh this session in
talking about kind of product stewardship. Um again, you know, just given that there weren't a ton of additional resources, I think one of the ways um one of the options available to counties to help lower their costs to manage solid waste um is through product stewardship. So last year we had the
packaging waste and cost reduction act which passed um which exempt um which includes all paper products and all packaging um really involving kind of industry and and the companies that are producing all of that that product that you know all goes to waste eventually.
Um and and kind of helping manage um the cost and process for for dealing with that waste that they're creating. Um there was, you know, just given the kind of the political dynamic and the the tied Minnesota House and the one seat Senate uh DFL majority, uh there was a
lot of interest from industry even though I think the bill that we passed last year got to a place where a lot of industry groups could could accept it. They maybe weren't thr thrilled, but they could deal with it. um you know with an opening I think there was a lot of interest a lot of outside push uh
pushing from industry groups to try to have a conversation about you know exempting more products rolling that back a little bit um that's just being implemented like at the start of this year so we're in the very early stages um and so there was legislation that was introduced that would exempt all paper
products and would make other significant changes um it was sponsored by a Senate DFL member and so there were a lot of concerns there. And so that was a place where we really activated our members. Um and and especially just knowing that Micah counties have some of
those more moderate Democrats uh who are maybe the ones who are kind of more open to to having a conversation about making uh changes to that packaging bill. I think that's a place where we are uniquely situated to present um our perspective and really share, you know,
why is this important to counties? Counties are very trusted advocates on solid waste issues. I was in a number of committees where um you know if if counties were sharing an opinion whether it was you know at the testifier table or in written testimony that's something that members of that committee um
noticed and would elevate in their debate and discussion on on solid waste issues. So I think um we're very well prepared to continue with that advocacy in future years. Um and so there ultimately there was no you know there were no real um real public debate on on
the packaging bill. there were no amendments. We were, you know, there are a couple kind of key moments that we were prepared for um amendments to be offered on the environment omnibus bill to to roll that back. And so we did a good job in shoring up support and and
being able to keep that as is. Um, but I think because last year we passed this really landmark legislation um around kind of product stewardship, it made it really hard when we were trying to have a conversation this year about an additional product stewardship program around electronic waste and
batteries. Um, you know, I'm sure that you all know and and hear from um, you know, folks here in the county about the the risks that electronic waste and batteries pose to the folks who work in that space. um you know landfill fires um all sorts of issues and so again
trying to set up a similar model where some of industry folks are more involved in um in how those those items are managed um but that you know I think there's a lot of hesitancy um you know wanting to see like let's let's get this one program implemented
first um around packaging before we start to expand and so um that ultimately you know that was another place where we really advocated but it was not included in the final environment bill uh data centers were you know I think if you had asked folks in a year ago who cares about data
centers I don't know that anyone would have expected that it would have been such a hot button issue this session um but you know I'll I'll get to it in the next slide um but there were some concerns I think connected to our priorities around water usage and just protecting water supplies um in local
communities and so that ended up being a part of the standalone data centers bill that passed um and so we'll talk a little bit more about that. Um, and then finally, lots of conversation around emerald ashbor and how we deal with wood waste. I think especially in the energy
committee, but uh, not a lot of action. And again, I think that's mostly based on the just the limited resources and funding available in the relevant committees to help deal with that. So, um, people know it's a problem, but they're not necessarily putting um, putting the money towards it. So, that
is disappointing. And you can go to the next. So, um, we talked a little bit about legacy bill. If if folks have questions about any of the specific, uh, funding items that were included in the clean from the clean water fund, I'm
happy to address them. But it was, uh, the the clean water council uh, makes recommendations for how to spend the clean water fund dollars and the legacy bill just adopted those wholesale. So, no major changes. Um, we have a couple Micah commissioners that are on the Clean Water Council and help put those
recommendations together. And um and so I think we're in a good good place with that funding. Um environment bill. I I did cover a lot of this already, but I do um kind of these last three bullet points. Um there were
increases to watercraft search charges to help support uh aquatic invasive species management and that is money that is going to go to the MPCA. So that's like addressing this at a statewide level. Um, when we were talking about this with uh the uh Micah
board just last week, you know, there was some uh you know, the reason that the AIS county aid was implemented in the first place, which I believe was about a decade ago, is because there you know, the state wasn't necessarily doing a great job and and so there was a desire
for more resources at the local level to help with this issue. Um, and so I think that's a place where now that the state is going to see more money. And so with those increased watercraft search charges, it's going to be an additional 5 million per bienium going to AS management activities at the state
level. Um, I think that's a place where we can try to push the uh state a little bit more and how they're spending that that increase and make sure that that impact is being felt at the local level. Um and then there was also an increase in water use permit and water appropriation permit application fees
and that will help that will go towards groundwater management activities and that'll be an additional 4.35 million uh next bianium and then 5.3 million uh per bianium starting in fiscal year 2028. So as those those additional fees go online it'll be a ramp up and we'll see more
money. Um and then lastly, uh there was uh an increase in the appropriation coming from the closed landfill investment fund or cliff uh that was set at 4.5 million uh and was set to sunset this summer. Uh so they needed to extend
that statute um which they did through the end of the 2029 fiscal year and then also increase the amount of money that can be taken from that fund to 6.5 million um which was this was uh similar to a request that the MPC had made MPCA had made as part of the governor's
budget proposal um that we saw released earlier this year. Um they were also hoping for additional flexibility to be able to take even more money out of that fund if the need were to arise but that was not ultimately included. And then the next slide is this where we
have score. Okay. So we are finally to the score update. Um unfortunately it is not uh a super great update. So we uh Nathan already talked about the tax committee. Um and that's where the conversation around increasing county swore grants really plays out. um trying
to get the remainder of the solid waste management tax revenue um put towards counties to help support their um recycling and waste management activities um which is about you know 32 $33 million a year that we argue and did
argue uh in front of both the House and Senate tax committees when we when our bill was heard this year uh you know that was the the intended purpose of the solid waste management tax and so we should be changing how that's allocated. But again, when they're trying to cut,
you know, $180 $190 million, uh there's not 33 million extra dollars that they can take um you know, from other other issues and and put towards score. And so that was I think our biggest barrier. We had the the maximum number of House authors on our House
score bill, which I believe is 35 um members of both parties, every member of the tax committee, most members of the environment committee. Um and so really strong bipartisan support. Again, we had really great hearings in both the House and Senate tax committees. Um but the
money just isn't isn't there. We if you I don't know if you want to say anything else, but um I was just going to say there, you know, the initial House tax proposal did have a little bit of one-time money for SCORE in fiscal year 2026 around 350 400,000. Um and then a
little bit more in fiscal year 2028, a little over a million. So not you know again not nearly enough to really meet the need. Um but I think symbolic of you know from those chairs at least that they that they know that this is important. So I think the conversation
around school will absolutely continue. Um again at the Micah board meeting just last week um a commissioner me you know brought up that we're we're quickly approaching 2030 where uh counties have to meet these statemandated recycling
goals. Um and yet the state is not doing their share I would say and there are a lot of uh opportunities for the state to do a better job of investing um in county's ability to actually meet those goals. Um so that will absolutely be a
an issue we continue to talk about um and you know as part of score in the tax committee and um in other places as well. Rachel, one thing excuse me you you go a first. Oh, the the only thing I was going to add is that, you know, Rachel talked about that small position
we had in score on in the House tax bill. The it was just really tough to get any kind of money in the tax bill this year, even beyond just the cut target. The initial tax bill was just 12 pages and that was just basically here's the things we need to get to our budget.
We're not going to do anything else. They ended up putting in some other provisions. um ended up at 123 pages I believe. But like that 110 pages that they added uh the total cost of all those provisions was less than a third
of just that one score provision. Super small score provision on its own. So it just kind of gives you an idea of the sense of how difficult it was to get any money in the tax bill this year. So that's all I wanted to add. Um, you know, I know in Crowing County we do a really good job with our recycling with the amount of recycling we ship, but it
costs us a lot of money to get the recycling out of here and you know, you look at other states and like this bottle here, it shows, you know, deposits on this bottle. You know, that would be one way of funding it because you talk about the packager who's looking at as a cost of his business to be able to do that. You know, that's but
I don't know if this will ever happen in the state of Minnesota to be honest with you. But that would really really help to take care of that. Um the other one you talked about was if you go back to slide 13 if you don't mind uh just a second there. Um that battery that
battery thing I don't think we realize how important that is especially in our landfills especially in the landfills that we have because our our ours are line pits with layers. And so all of a sudden, if we end up with an with a battery somewhere in a layer that we've
already put down, it is a major major cost for us to get that out of there. So I I think that e-waste with batteries, especially with the with the battery situation would is really important for us. Um as far as the um the water the watercraft services for the AIS, I as
long as we can get a hold of that money to help us with the AIS because it is all about clean water. you know, we if you look at the uh Micah counties, and I've looked at pretty much a lot of them, um we are some of the lake center counties in Minnesota and so it's very important and I'm really glad you're in
that position because I think you're a great advocate for us in Micah County. So, I really appreciate that. Um but it's something that we really have to watch about because we're all about clearing water. I also serve on the uh AMC's environmental natural resources committee and I'm also on their uh solid
waste work group which is working with a lot of other counties that are out here that haven't maybe stepped up to the plate as much as Crowing has. But there but even though we're we're I think in the lead in a lot of areas in our county, there is so much more that's coming that we have to be prepared for.
So I think it's really important that we we stay with that and keep with it and thank Micah for you have a pretty strong arm in that area and thank you for being there. So absolutely and I think um you know I I should also mention that one of the co-chairs of the House Environment Committee Josh Heidman is from Niswah so
in in the county and he I think Nathan you were part of that kind of initial meeting you know met with him at the beginning of session to talk through all of our environment priorities and he clearly does hear from from you all from the county about solid waste issues in particular. He also spoke very fondly of
Marv, I believe, from the the Crowing County Landfill, who he's a hero, you know, who also does a really good job. And right, like I think, you know, it is our job to be there to to advocate on behalf of of you all and on all Micah counties on these issues, but I think it's when they're hearing from you all
directly or from those subject matter experts um that things are really solidified for them and they really understand the importance of of the work that you do and and why these issues um are so impactful to counties. So thank you all for doing thank you. Um I think
the only other again I mentioned data centers and I don't know that we need to go into the details unless folks are super interested but did just want to say that there are some safeguards um just around you know scoping projects and where um you know what the water needs are going to be. Um water is often
used to cool the data the the different thing the structures. I don't know, I'm not a data centers expert, but um water is a big part of it and there was a lot of concern from environmental advocates around um just the immense water usage required for a lot of these projects.
And so um just as part of kind of the pre-application and permit process, there are different considerations that um you know industry coming in who want to site these projects that they need to take into account and include in those applications. So, um, there wasn't an official Micah position on on data
centers, but it came up a lot in conversation again at the capital and in different, um, in the environment committee and so just wanted to update on that. Yeah. And one of the, you know, two components for the data center is is large amounts of reliable power and
water, you know. So if we have a lot of water but don't have large amounts of of reliable power, that's going to be a challenge and and that will be a continuing challenge for for that whole or industry as it morphs out to see what it's actually going to be because it's
it's it can be massive the amounts of energy they use. So yeah, very good. Any other questions? Okay, thanks everyone. Thank you very much. Thank you Rachel. We can go to the next one. Okay, I'm going to go over corrections and public safety kind of
quickly because I'm not the lead on corrections and public safety. Um, but Amelia wasn't able to join us today and I'll just try to um kind of summarize this as best I can. The global targets here, these are not cut targets. Um, unlike a lot of these other targets, the
these are increases. Um, but 75% were for agency operations and deficiency requests. There's a little money available elsewhere. The supervision funding formula incorporated a three-year average of probation case load data. So the idea is there that that's just going to be a more stable uh
formula moving forward. Supervision fees were extended by two years to August 1st, 2029. Unsensing to serve. The program sunsets July 20 uh July 1st, 2025. Counties can still continue the program, but the state's not going to share costs. They realize about $1.8
million of savings per year with that. uh the Minnesota re rehabilitation and reinvestment act. The commissioner of corrections is authorized to revoke uh earned incentive release credit if an incarcerated individual violates facility rules or commits a criminal act
while in custody. And then the Stillwater facility is going to be fully decommissioned in 2029. Uh DOC anticipates enough capacity uh for all individuals to be moved to other facilities with no increase to those on supervision.
So unless there's questions there, I'll move to the next one. Um I did want to talk about some of these kind of labor and general government issues. So uh earn sick and save time. This is a program that went into effect in 2024. Uh we were advocating for a few things
here. Um and notably just trying to make sure that uh more generous leave policies like acting coordination rather than just everything stack on top of one another with the the state program. Uh what ended up changing was really limited though it did get added kind of
at the last minute. Um the notice requirements were changed from for using ESST from as soon as practicable which is kind of vague to as soon as reasonably required by the employer
which is also vague but maybe a little bit more favorable from uh the local government employer perspective. So that's just uh um one piece of it. The other smaller, again, this is another minor policy change during sick and safe time, but prior to this year, if you
were going to use more than 3 days of ESST, you needed to provide some type of documentation. This year, that was changed to more than 2 days of documentation. Um on paid leave, uh we were also pursuing changes relating to making sure
benefits don't stack on top of one another. Uh and trying to make sure that uh there's an assumed 50/50 split between employers and employees when it comes to paying that premium. That's the way these programs are treated pretty much everywhere. Um and trying to exempt
elected officials from the the premium because they're they're already essentially qualified for it. Um I would say that uh so none of those changes uh happened. The one thing that did happen on paid leave was reducing the premium
rate cap from 1.2% to 1.1%. Uh currently the rate is88% so it won't be able to go above 1.1 in any scenario. That's where state law is going to cap it. It did already increase from 77 to88.
Um, but realistically going reducing the cap isn't going to have any savings to you in your budget next year cuz you're assuming the 088. That wasn't reducing the premium rate cap. It's kind of like okay that's nice. That's fine. It wasn't a change that we were pursuing. I would say that it was really difficult to
lobby on these issues just because there were other changes that uh other organizations including like business groups were pursuing related to paid leave and ESST and we were aligned with them on some and we weren't opposed to any of their changes but their changes
were perceived as very controver controversial by DFL lawmakers who said I think both at the leadership level especially and a lot of members that said we don't want to take away any benefits from anyone. Um, so it was really difficult to kind of separate this out because even when we were
meeting with DFO lawmakers, they said, "Hey, you know, these changes seem relatively okay, but I just don't want those things." And it was tough to make one travel without the other. Um, just another thing on uh absentee ballot drop off deadlines on election day. In 2023,
the legislature changed the deadline from 3 PM to 8:00 PM. There are just a number of counties where this became kind of an issue as far as like counting your ballots, reporting your ballots, and then okay, there's some counties where it's like they might have showed 14 out of 14 precincts repeating uh
reporting, but then uh these additional absentee ballots come in afterwards. So, it looked like you had 100% ballots counted, but you didn't yet uh because of these absentee ballots. So, we were pursuing a change uh to move that deadline up. Uh the Senate had a position of 3 p.m. The House had a
position of 5:00 p.m. The Secretary of State was uh pretty strongly opposed to this change, it turned out. Uh but we did get that 5:00 p.m. to move from 8:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. for that deadline. Uh open law uh open meeting law notifications uh changed. Uh so this is
just it allows remote participation from a location that's not open and accessible to the public. uh current law that's limited to three times a year and there has to be a medical or military reason for you uh to be using that uh
ability. Um and then I already talked about the capital replacement account earlier so we can go to the next one. Uh omnivous pensions bill was signed into law a pretty significant one. Pensions also had a positive target. Um so they were able to use that money in
increasing pensions uh for uh a lot of that uh essentially police, fire and teachers. Um and and the colas in particular. Um one significant change was uh on the duty disability provision. So under current law, the state is
picking up the tab essentially for uh they they created a one-time pot of money in 2023 to pay for uh these duty disability uh health insurance benefits. Uh but that's going to that money is going to run out. Uh and then it'll be back to the local units of government to
pay for this. Um so the legislature changed the law so that rather than having this health insurance run through age 65, if you claim a duty disability, you're limited to 5 years tops. Um it only affects people moving forward. So
if you're already in that program, there's there's no changes. Um the so it's it's only pro prospective, not retroactive. Um there were also changes to um the parag general pension plan that essentially uh that that plan is
healthy enough that the plan can absorb those costs. So there wasn't a general fund uh increase uh or cost to that. Um, there is something in law that basically says employers have to pay a higher percentage than employees until the
plan's 100% funded. To make sure that that higher employer rate, which was scheduled to turn off in 2034, stays turned off in 2034, they just lowered the threshold for instead of saying 100% funded, it's 98% funded. Um and uh they
also created a working group for uh kind of looking at what about a different differential pension plan for 911 telecommunicators or probation officers. There was a big discussion at the capital this year on those pension plans. There wasn't a separate plan
created, but they did create a working group. Uh Micah does have an appointee from that to that working group. I think it'll be a director of court administrative services from Wright County. There's also two appointees from AMC to that group. They're supposed to report to the legislature with recommendations by January
um on this and try to figure out does it make sense. One of the um changes we got into the working group is just making sure that the working group consider trying to make sure that the employer and employee uh contribution rates are similar. So, it's not a requirement, but
they're we're required to consider that because that's where uh a lot of these pension benefits work in the first place. So, any questions on those general government or pension issues. Okay, we can go to the next one. So,
just kind of wrapping up here. Want to talk a little bit about what's next um from a Micah perspective. So, we're going to start our policy process. So, in August, our uh board made up of county commissioners, we're going to kind of hear from them on like what what are the big issues you're hearing about?
What should Micah be considering in 2026? Um and then that direction is going to be given to policy committees. Policy committees are made up of professional county staff and they're going to hear from experts. Maybe it's a chair or maybe it's uh somebody from the executive branch. And to dive more
deeply into these issues, kind of exchange ideas. What are you hearing from your county? what are we hearing from my county? What are the issues? Where is there agreement uh between us and try to move those ideas forward? So those those committees uh draft uh our
policy document essentially and then the county administrators review that. And the board also has two steps of review along the way too to see is like okay well this is nice. Is this good? But are is there anything that we think should be added to the conversation? Is there
something that slipped by? Um, and then the board is the the group that finally uh decides to vote on whether or not those recommendations end up in our uh policy book. And that policy book is really important because it's kind of like our guidepost for the whole
session. Now, we can be responsive and reactive, and if we hear from counties that there's issues that we don't have a position on, we can we can lobby on those issues, don't get me wrong, and we do frequently, but it is just kind of really helpful for us to identify like, okay, what are the biggest priorities?
Because the biggest priorities from the outside of session are going to be in that policy book. So, that's they're just kind of our big guidelines and kind of what we aim for when it comes to the session. So that policy process uh lasts from August to January essentially. Um
you can go to the next slide which I think is the last one. So um this is just our information, contact information. We just want to make sure whether it's email or cell phone that you have it. Please if you ever have questions, concerns or you want to know about what's going on in one issue area. If I don't know the answer, I can
quickly talk to somebody that does. Don't just uh and we're really a resource want to be a resource for you. Don't hesitate to reach out. Um and just happy to take any questions um if you have them. Questions? Nope. I'm done. You got one?
I do. Good. Can you back up to the uh slide about the um duty disability? Yeah, that one. Yep. So, is that that's law enforcement? I'm
assuming we're talking about. Yeah. So, so if they're if someone's injured on duty from this point forward, they're um they're only going to have a disability coverage for 5 years and then they're on their own. Well, uh so there's there's a few things going on
here. The the idea of duty disability is that they eventually reenter, right? Um and when the legislature created this 5-year window, it was essentially in recognition of the fact that um it gives them time to figure out is this the process that makes the most sense moving
forward. So that's why it's they kind of gave themselves a window to continue working on this because there's not going to be any impact for the next 5 years. And it's something that if you talk to the uh members of the pension commission um that it's uh it's
something that they plan to continue working on. Um it was kind of this bill did pass very quickly. I would say on a bipartisan basis. I think there was one no vote in the House. Um but it did pass very quickly the last couple days of
regular session. Um but yeah, that that is a change from the health insurance through age 65 guaranteed to the 60 months. Okay. And I I guess I should just add that the reason that came about was because there were concerns about the health of the
pension plan. The police and fire plan's the worst in the worst fiscal shape of any of the plans. It's a little bit less than 90% covered. Um, and so the idea was we want to make sure that this pension plan is in as good shape as possible so that it doesn't require
significant investment of general fund dollars down the line when we're not sure if we're going to have them or not. So let me ask you a question follow up on that. Is that a hard five years or is there an opportunity to um go back and
have it reconsidered for a longer period depending on what the injury was or Well, I I want to be really clear that like total like uh total disabilities or permanent disabilities, you're still covered through 65. This is just the the the duty disability. Um I I can follow
up and get you more detail on like revisiting. I do know that as also as part of this change, employers are no longer allowed to contest uh PAR's if if parah rules this is a duty disability. Under prior law, employers were allowed to contest those rulings are no longer
allowed to contest those rulings. It's just another component of that change. Could you could you explain duty disability? I don't Maybe you could do that. Jamie, go ahead. No better than I Um, I mean it's it's a disab there's both physical and mental would be the
PTSD. Is that the is that where we're talking about? It's essentially what we're talking about. Okay. Okay. Then you can say that. Yeah. Sorry. I I didn't know if that's what duty disability meant. Yeah. I I guess I brought up another question.
you know, after the George Floyd uh thing that happened down in the cities, there was a lot of Minneapolis police officers that were going out. Is is this maybe because of that or is it or not really? I I I would say that uh you
know, I I don't want to speak for other local units of government, right? But I do think that Minneapolis and Henipin County were especially interested in this issue because we saw a spike in in duty disability claims following yeah 2020, right?
Um I guess the one thing that sometimes people do ask questions about is like, well, are they going to come back for special session? You know, and I have a very unsatisfying answer to that, which is uh I don't know. Um nobody really knows. Uh the at federally the Senate
did just yesterday release language of their one big bill. Uh the House passed their bill in Congress earlier. I don't have a lot of details on that. They don't even have spreadsheets yet of the Senate position. Um, but one thing that I do tell counties which is good news,
which is that there's not any repeal or reduction in the municipal bond interest exemption, which in either the House or Senate bill, which would have just made it a lot more expensive uh to build infrastructure at at the local level. So, just just to let you know, it's one
big beautiful bill. One big beautiful bill is is the technical term. Yeah. That nobody who voted on it read the whole thing. So yeah. Uh oh. Any other questions?
That's all I have though. So no other questions. Very good. Thank you very much to you and to your team. Appreciate you coming up very much. Nancy, thank you for coming up here and living in Crowing County for a couple days. We appreciate it.
Thank you all. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Um, sheriff, could we get an update on the storm perhaps? Oh, yeah. We were uh we were out until about um I don't know about4 to 10. We had our
we had our uh command van or set up. Um there was uh a lot of lot of trees down, a lot of damage. It was like started out with like 2,000 people without power. Then it went to 1,800. Then by 10 it was around
900 people that were still without power. They're uh just firing up the uh the substation trying to re-energize that slowly, I guess. Um there was uh there was a couple roofs that were off
of some sheds. Uh there were uh there was a tree that went through a roof. Uh and that was really about it. Otherwise, it was just a lot of backbreaking work on on all the uh the tree cleanup that it's going to take. No injuries or anything. No injuries. Uh nobody got
hurt from even the cleanup at this point that we know of. So, we got FEMA out today and we're going to look at um doing doing a complete uh assessment of all the damage. So, in uh I I got a chance to see that uh tornado. That's the first one I've been that close to.
And uh it was it was it was interesting to say the least. So, but it was good. It was it was really good. We sure appreciate the public. Uh they stopped by, brought us uh some treats and some water at our command uh center that we
had set up at the Marfield Lions Park. Uh that was super nice of them. I sure appreciate our our people. So So all the roads are passable now. They are. They're they're all opened at this point. So, thanks to all the highway workers who
were called out last night to start working on clearing those roads. They had an assist from some of the local fire departments as well. The sheriff and his team were out all evening getting all of those things done. Our parks workers have checked out all of our county parks and they are all open
this morning. There was some uh damage at the fire tower park for as far as trees and debris cleanup that will need to happen. We will be putting out some press information today to remind folks of how they can dispose of that storm debris and how that can be handled as
well as to be cautious when approached by folks to help with storm cleanup. There was a lot of those guys out yesterday. So just uh we'll have some public information out for folks and our public health team was on call and standby last night to assist if those
folks without power if that would have persisted into longer times as well. So yeah. Oh, and I I just want to thank uh Niswah Fire Department. They were phenomenal. They came out. They were out right away and they opened up one lane of the of the road uh on every one of
the roads that were impassible and did a I mean a quick and fast job uh with that. And our and our of course our Coney Highway folks came out right away. They were out Johnny on the spot too. That was the quickest storm cleanup I've seen in
a long time. That thing was fast. Darcy, our our PIO, had mentioned that she had just posted the note letting folks know to avoid County Road 127 because all lanes were closed. And about as soon as she got it posted, it was one lane is open. And about as soon as she got that posted, it was it's wide open again now.
So, lots of communication going on between all the folks and cleanup happening super swift. And Renee, the county board was up here working hard and we went down to the basement, too, for a little while. Sirens. part of equalization yesterday. They got
to even spend some time in the basement during the sirens. Very happy to hear you all followed emergency protocols. Not everybody did. The DNR is going to have some work on the Paul Bunny Trail that that was still impassable over by Molly Lake Road and
sort. So, they'll have that work to do today. So, I would think that would be a number one priority. Well, yes. Yes. Health and wellness is very very on the front burner here. So, all right. Well, great job. Thank you. I had a chance to
go up there last night after the meeting and and observe and they they were a welloiled machine. Everybody up there was working very well together. You guys did a great job. So, I think if you go back to 2015 moving forward, we've had a lot of practice. Oh, we did before 15.
We had a lot of summer or winter, we've had a lot of practice. Yeah. This is like tornado alley. Holy cow. Yep. Well, thank you very much. Are we ajourned? We are we are adjourned. So, general conversations in place.
General conversation. [Music]