One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. First up is the consent agenda. Approve the minutes from August 5th. Approve temporary 1 to 4 day liquor license for High Forest Old Settlers Association.
Accept the Climate Smart Food Systems Regional Food Coordination Grant. Award contract for Oxbow Park Caretakers Home. Approve amended contract for C24-01 County State Aid Highway 1. Accept the grant for the victims of crime act to
fund one victim witness full-time staff beginning October 21st through September 30th of 2026. Uh accept the annual comprehensive financial report for the year ending December 31st, 2024. And lastly, set county truth and taxation dates for the
2026 budget. I move to approve the consent agenda. I guess second. Okay, we got a motion, a second. All in favor say I. I. I. Oppos carries. Next up, discussion, decision items, authorized issuance of sale of general obligation bonds series
2025A. Fredo. Well, good evening, commissioners. Um, Wilfredo Roman Catala Homes County Chief Financial Officer um, and I know I I handed out some financial plan for you. Um, and I'll I'll try to be as brief as I can and
then allow you if you have any questions. Um, let's start here. You know, um, back in in January of 2000, this January, January 7th of 2025, we approved the 2025 2029 CIP, which is the capital
improvement plan. and is basically our community roadmap of projects, big projects, things like fixing roads, upgrading parks, uh building new facilities or replacing important equipment. That's basically what it is. And uh that's kind of in in a way starts
our journey before we decide to issue bonds, right? We we explore what different avenues we have to fund different projects, different equipment and things like that. And then eventually uh we come to the realization that some of it needs to be funded through a financing mechanism as debt by
issuing bonds. So what bring us tonight together is the set sale which uh is basically uh a resolution where you formally authorizing us to enter into a competitive sale uh process that will
take place uh on um September 16th that you'll see in a in a few uh clicks here later. After that, we have on August 27th uh we'll have a bond rating uh from one of the rating agencies. And basically what
it is is somebody assessing our credit worthiness. You know, are we able to pay back uh the amount of money that we're borrowing and if we can do that very successfully, we get rewarded by lowest interest cost and what they call a AAA
rating. SE County is one of the very few counties in the nation. There's only 3% of us that have a three uh aa rating. Only 3% of nationwide counties have such a high rating. So then we move on to actually on
September 16th where we're going to actually offer in a public sale in a competitive bidding process. Our uh municipal advisor Northland Securities is helping us with this process. So as is the our legal counsel uh Dorsy and
Whitney so we can make sure we're following rules and following the specific statutes and laws related to the sale. And we have chosen this process because it will reward us with hopefully the best lowest possible interest cost at
the time when the bonds are sold versus going into a private negotiation with one particular investor. And finally in this timeline we will have a closure of the bonds which is basically when the money is shifting hands right the those those are
purchasing our bonds are are sending us the money and it takes between the time of the sale to the time of the closure three to four weeks there's a lot of administrative work legal processes and and financial mechanisms that need to be uh finally finally tuned before we get
the money in our uh coars if you I'm going to stop here just in case there's any questions so far about the timeline. Okay, wonderful. So then quick overview, you know, what is the purpose of these bonds? Well,
like I mentioned before is all related to capital. Um we have a a significant portion of these dollars uh will go to the materials recovery facility. Um about 15.2 2 million of the sale will go towards that and the balance of about
6.3 million will go to other equipment building needs and things of that nature unrelated to the waste energy facility uh for general purpose use in the county as you can see here. Uh what is the
security to against these bonds? Well, obviously those that are solid waste related are the proceeds of the of the waste energy facility and those services are what secure the bonds and the rest uh will be secured by property taxes.
These bonds are general obligation bonds. Meaning that we are going to be giving the the certainty of those bond uh the people the investors buying the bonds that even if the waste energy facility is not able or the material recovery facility is not able to pay
those we will tax our community to be able to do that. We don't anticipate that will be the case. That hasn't been the case uh ever. But that's one of the asurances we gave those bone holders and that's why we get favorable ratings as well.
And as you can see here the table below those are the paramounts. Uh the 15.2 million is for solid waste over 20 years. And the rest is something that we have done uh in the past and will continue to do is matching in a way the
um the the the the estimated useful life of the assets we're financing with the amount of time that we take to to pay those bonds. So for example, uh we have $835,000,000 for CIP five years, meaning that those
are equipment that we believe have five years of estimated useful life. and we will pay that principle within the first five years. We will not allow that principle to elongate itself through 20 years. That'll be kind of irresponsible in our part. So even though most likely
many of the assets we will be paying in five years have an estimated use of life a little bit higher than that because vehicle may have seven years versus five. We have chosen to amortize the principle over five years. Okay.
Then as you can see here um the term uh these bonds will mature the final maturity will be in year uh 2046 but will we have the option to prepay depending on how favorable the economics are by year 2034 with the 2023 bonds
will be the ones that we can I'm sorry 2023 uh that we can prepaid if if that becomes available to us in the future. And then the structure like I mentioned before the bonds have been structured to be annually uh the level annual debt
service um which ranges between five to 20 years and as I explained before we try to match the best we can um the principal payback period with the estimated useful life of the assets and finally uh the tax status. These
bonds uh will be tax exempt based on IRS rules which means they can only be used for uh public purpose uh things not for any private uh purpose activities and
also means that because the bond buyers uh these are taxes the bond buyers will receive tax exemption from the IRS they won't be able to they don't need to pay federal taxes on it meaning that then we'll get better ratings on the sale of
the uh of the of the bonds as well. So, I'm going to stop here again just in case there's any questions or comments before I conclude. Hearing none. And then basically what we're asking you is to uh approve the
resolution to allow us the opportunity to sell these bonds in September 16th. Okay, Greg. that we're working with. Correct. They are our municipal advisor
and so then they stand out to all potential people. Yeah, they they're working uh in the market to make sure that people know that we're selling these bonds so we hopefully will get the highest amount of Thank you very much.
Yes. Any more questions? Chair. Yes. Uh thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm trying to understand with with respect to the solid waste facility in the MURF, uh obviously the price tag on that is a lot
more the we have $10 million worth of state money and and now we're augmenting that apparently with 15.2. And so that as I understand this $52 million project we're we're you know we're at about half the money we need to do it. How how did
we decide on 15.2 as opposed to bonding for what we really need to do to complete the project? Yeah. So if you recall we had the conversation that uh is the board's desire to go and try to attempt to u ask for additional funding from the state.
Okay. So that's the reason for it. So eventually, if we're not successful in that request, we will be coming back next year to finalize the the the finance plan in adding or selling additional bonds in order to make it happen. So, Mr. Chair, just follow up on that.
So, we'll know the answer to that by by uh by May of next year. Correct. Is it possible then if we want to move this forward uh that we would have the opportunity to to pursue additional bonding at that point to make up that difference if they so choose?
You mean in bonding asking the state for bonding dollars? Well, we'll we'll do that anyway, but uh you know uh we may or may not be successful. Correct. So then what will happen is in the next not this fall the upcoming fall in 2026 we'll be going the same process and
asking you now we need to issue these many dollars to finance the the last part of the project. Yeah. My question Mr. Chair is is that we'll we'll know we'll know the outcome by the end of May of this next 2026.
uh if if we are not successful and if we want to proceed, can we not then just proceed say in June of next year to to pursue this or is this on some kind of a schedule? Yeah. So it's up to us when we sell bonds, right? Yeah. Normally we have chosen to sell the
bonds in the fall, but that's a that's our personal choice. Sure. So we could execute earlier. Earlier. Yeah. Okay. That's Thank you. Sure. Any more questions? Okay. Hearing none. I'm looking for a
motion. Okay. As outlined. Yep. Second. Okay. We have a motion to second. Any questions? All in favor say I. I. I. Opposed. Carries. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Informational items. Minnesota
Inner County Association Micah 2025 annual county visit. Hello. Uh good evening, Mr. Chair and commissioners. My name is Nathan Jessen. I'm the executive director at the Minnesota Intercount Association. Um so I just first wanted to start off by
talking about uh what Micah is. So we're a voluntary group of 17 counties from across the state, both metro and outside the metro. uh that work on the issues that really uh not on individual specific issues per county but the issues that affect all counties. Uh we
try to take an analytical approach to our work too. Um I'm also new to the job. I started in January prior to coming to Micah. I worked at the League of Minnesota Cities. We've got a team here of lobbyists who will introduce themselves as we go along here. Um so what we do is we really just try
to establish connections for counties at the capital. Sometimes that's us in committee. We're able to be in committee every day, but we're at our most effective when we can bring your stories or sometimes you to the capital and make sure that we're making the uh making the problems and issues we're bringing as
relatable to legislators as possible. And that's by really highlighting local stories. Uh we also provide weekly updates from the capital. We provide an end of session report um as well as policy committee work that happens throughout the year. Um, we also do property tax comparisons, levy data, and
economic forecast breakdowns. So, if you're ever curious about any of those things as they come up, uh, just please don't uh, hesitate to reach out to me for more information on them. Um, and speaking of that, I did just want to start with a little bit of a picture of uh, Mstead County and how it compares to
the state when it comes to your share of property tax and what you're taxing. So this these are the major property types that get taxed and uh the percentage that Mstead like but the percentage of the pi that's made up by them in Mstead compared to the state. I've also showed
the data for 2020 in Mstead and Minnesota and compared it to 2025 for both of them. And so what you'll see here is that Mstead is essentially following a statewide trend of residential values increasing uh as a
percentage of the overall PI and commercial and industrial values as a percentage of the overall PI decreasing. That's not to say that uh commercial industrial valuations are decreasing overall just the percentage of the pi that they're paying. And notably in 2020 for assessment year 2025 and Mstead in
particular uh commercial and industrial valuations in Mstead are uh increasing significantly. But that just kind of gives you an idea of like what you're taxing when you're you're putting together your levy and where it's going and where shifts happen um uh amongst property taxes when the legislature
makes changes. And if you ever have any questions as I'm going along here, don't be afraid just to speak up and let me know or any of the people that follow me. Um so I did want to talk a little bit about what happened at the capital this year uh in the tax realm. So the dynamics of the
capital which you all know we are facing a $6 billion structural deficit. So in taxes that resulted in a $118 million cut target this banium and 190 million the out bianium. When you're talking about a cut target in taxes you're talking about either taxes going up or
aid uh payments to local governments many of which go to counties going down. Right? So, this is something that immediately put um us on the defensive here. Um and one of the changes that was made was that in 2023 when the legislature decided to uh legalize cannabis, they set aside 20% of the
gross receipts tax revenue to go out to local governments. Uh half of that to cities, half of that to counties. The governor, House, and Senate all proposed repealing this aid. I think part of it is that uh this money hadn't started coming in yet. So unlike other areas where we were saying, hey, if you repeal
this, you're going to be increasing property taxes, it was a little bit more difficult uh to to make that argument on the cannabis aid. Um the other uh aid changes, uh these are a little bit less significant tool county, but aquatic invasive species cut in half starting in 2027. PILt was held constant. Uh Mstead
not a huge recipient of PILT, but the governor had proposed reducing it by one/ird. I did want to talk about CPA a little bit here. Uh Mstead's going to get a modest increase. That's not because the appropriation increase at the capital. It's just a little bit redistribution every year. Um, Mstead
does receive slightly above average uh, county program aid on a per capita basis. It's about $59 statewide, $64 per capita in Mstead County. And Mstead's uh, CPA is going up again in 2026 just because you're uh, on both the need
side, which is measured by percentage of families on SNAP or percentage of population 65 or over. as well as the tax base side. So, um that that's kind of what happened in the tax uh realm this year at the legislature. One thing that we've been working on for a long time, weren't able to make headway on
was the construction material sales tax refund. I've had conversations with Commissioner Sanjim about this before on counties having to pay sales tax when they're on the billing materials. We are working with Department of Revenue to see if we can come up with a solution that doesn't have an $80 million
statewide price tag because nobody thinks it's a bad idea, but it's it's seldom anybody's highest priority. So, we are working with them on that this interim. It it is uh an ongoing process and project though. anytime you're talking to a state agency about a big change like that though. Um so unless
there are questions on that part, I will turn it over to Amber to go over some of the transportation and bonding issues. Good evening, Mr. Chair and commissioners. My name is Amber Bakis. I'm with United Strategies and this was my first term serving as a transportation liaison for Micah at the
capital and it's been a pleasure representing you all and I also must say I'll be enjoying the evening tonight in Rochester as my parents are constituents of Commissioner Hopkins so always great to be in town. Um with regard to the transportation bill um that was kind of
an ugly mess to get it done. You had some issues in terms of interpersonal conflicts between the co-chairs and the house. it was hard for them to come together on a bill which made it even harder than to negotiate with the Senate. So this bill was not done during the regular session. It was one that was done during the special session and was
completely negotiated behind closed doors by leadership because the chairs could not get along. Um the other issue was that it was a tough bill for the committee to reach their target. They had a very high negative general fund target. They had to find reductions of $115 million in the upcoming bianium and
$133 million after that. And that's onethird of the general fund spending in the issue of transportation. The bulk of those cuts fell largely on transit, both greater Minnesota and the metro transit um as well as active transportation. There were some cuts made to uh roads
and bridges too. If you recall during the 2023 uh session when a big transportation package was passed, the legislature decided to dedicate the revenue from the um sales tax on motor vehicle parts to transportation purposes and phase that in over time. Well, with
the impending def deficit and their budget target, um the transportation bill slows that dedication. Um so the sales tax on auto parts is going to um lose $83 million in fiscal years 2829 um to help keep those monies in the
general fund. Fortunately, they were able to offset some of those cuts by increasing the search charge on electric vehicles. That amount is currently $75. It's going to be as much as $200 depending on the make and model of your vehicle. Um so that means that overall
in the next four years the trunk highway fund is going to be down $18.3 million with $ 8.6 million coming from CASA and the 2829 bianium. The one bright spot amongst all these cuts was the fact that the uh the
committee and the leadership did find some money to put aside for the local government road wetland replacement program. three million in general fund dollars was provided by the transportation committee which is pretty huge considering that program is overseen by Bowser which is typically funded in another part of the budget.
Um Mr. Was there was there any bonding? Yes, that'll be coming up too when I talk about the bonding. Yes. So that program did do well um in light of all that. Um, and I don't have it listed on the slide here, but another win for counties was the fact that the legislature decided to provide some monies so that your licensing center can
be reimbured for no fee transactions. For example, if somebody comes in to change their address with their vehicle registration, that's not something that they would pay a fee for, but there will be reimbursement for the state for that as well as some other transactions where the customers don't pay fees right now.
Oh, I've got the clicker myself, don't I? Great. Um, I also wanted to just touch on some of the provisions that weren't included in the final transportation bill. And the first one was one that we wanted to see. Um, another new program that was instituted in the 2324 sessions was a program to
require the greenhouse gas and vehicle miles traveled um associ associated with um new trunk highway capacity or new interchange projects on state roads to be calculated and then offset. Um, I think everybody agrees that's a very noble intention, but unfortunately
there's no money associated with that program and there's a lot of questions about how it's going to be implemented. So, we were hoping that the delay in the house version would have gone through, but that did not make it. But we continue to have conversations with Mindot about how this will work and have them presenting actually to our Micah
engineers next month. Um, the other provisions we are very happy to see that they didn't make it into the final package. These were all provisions that the Senate was pursuing. Um they wanted to change the state aid design standards um and it would have um reduced some of
the uniformity we see um in terms of our county state aid road standards across the state. Um they also had language expanding the definition of how trunk highway funds could be spent. Um right now as you know those monies are dedicated to roads and bridges. This would have expanded it the uses to
transit um active transportation, greenhouse gas emissions and some other offices within Mandot that aren't related to roads and bridges. Um we had concerns about that just because the resources are so scarce for our road and bridge program now. Um but that did not make it in the bill. Uh the Senate also had some language mandating speed limits
on certain county roads, which again takes away local control from the county. So we weren't very excited about that. And then lastly, there was also creation of a new program in the Senate bill to pay for the costs of interruptions to businesses impacted by highway construction projects. Again, I
think that's something that business owners would welcome, but there were concerns on our end about having that come from the cost of a transportation project itself and raising the cost to do those. Um, so we expect some of these to be back next year probably. So, we'll keep working at them and hopefully can find um resolution that's um that works
for all of us. Um any questions there before I touch on bonding? Um and then yes to uh Commissioner Senum, the capital um investment bill, which we weren't actually sure if there was going to be one or not since neither the House nor Senate passed one or even
really presented one throughout the session. Um we didn't know until the special session came together that there would in fact be a uh bonding bill and we were very happy to see that since there hadn't been one in 2024. Um, Senator Mark Johnson, the Senate
minority lead, agreed to provide the votes votes to get one off the Senate floor. Um, and he also insisted that there be more money for infrastructure in that bill, which is a boon for us as that increased the amount available for transportation projects. So, three programs that are very important to counties, including the local road
improvement program, local bridge replacement, and then again the uh wetland replacement program, all received funds, and these amounts were far in excess of what anybody had imagined as the 2024 bill. um only had I think the wetland replacement program funding in it, none of the other
programs. So, this was a pretty big win in terms of getting those funds. Now, of course, it's it's not much when you look at the overall need, but it still keeps things moving forward. Um so, I will pause there unless there are any other questions. Great. I'll turn over my colleague Nancy. Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks. Good evening, Mr. Chair and commissioners. Nancy Celeleski and I represent Micah in the area of uh public health and human services and it's great to be here today. We uh started our morning this morning in Blue Earth County and we've been um hanging out in
Rochester all day. So we we we uh we've been spending some money and having fun. So just wanted to tell you it was great. Um in terms of the Health and Human Services priorities this year, all of the county organizations had the same three pri top priorities. The first one is one that you're very familiar with
and that is the SSIS systems modernization. Um Dan Jensen from Olmstead has been very active in this and I just want to call him out because he's been very much at the table on this. Um they ended up putting uh $35 million in the Health and Human Services
bill for that this year. There was an additional $10 million set aside last year. So with that, we are now able to draw down federal dollars and hopefully we can be able to say uh goodbye to the green screen technology at some point. Although some of the things I've been hearing of late is that it's a year to a
year and a half away. So we're we're still um working on that. But the second item I want to mention is men choices. We had a reform bill that we brought forward this year. Um in terms of uh folks whose situations are not going to change from year to year. They have a a disability that's not going to change.
We only have to do the reassessment now every three years. um before it was annually and it's quite a difficult long tool for both the client and and county workers. The client can uh request an annual reassessment, a complete reassessment if they want, but for right
now um we'll be doing that every three years. We also were given the authority to do additional remote reassessments. Um it was increased from two consecutive to four consecutive assessments. uh verbal attestation is replacing the required reassessment signature for a
service initiation. However, when the uh when the uh completion has occurred, the assessor then does have to get a written attestation to get a signature from the client within 30 days. At that point, they made some modifications as to uh
the credentials or the qualifications for the assessors. One only has to have a two-year degree now to do that. So hopefully that will help in some of the backlog that we're all experiencing. And then uh DHS is required to create a dashboard on their website that will have information related to the
assessment completions. The third item again has been around for um a while. This deals with priority admissions and direct care and treatment. Uh there was a uh review panel that was appointed a couple of years ago that made a number of recommendations to the legislature.
Specifically, it was addressing the 48 hour rule where a person that's housed in a jail kind of was bumped to the top in terms of getting them into AMRTC. There was a two-year reprieve for that um that was about to end. The legislature did agree to extend that for
another two years and that was a recommendation from the review panel, but that was conditioned on there being additional capacity created for folks um you know at at AMRTC within the state system. So, I just want to mention that the human services finance bill does
contain $20 million for that expansion at AMRTC. There's an additional $34 million dollar for operating expenses starting in fiscal year 29. And we also were very pleased to see that the bonding bill passed because the additional $55 million was contained within that
bonding bill. So, that $75 million will create an additional 50 beds at EMRTC. In terms of other things that um were included in that bill, the review panel will continue and has a report due in February of 2026. One of the things that didn't happen
that we were working on, I think you all um are aware that for the last two years, counties have enjoyed a reprieve from the county cost share for those folks that have been deemed mentally ill and dangerous are awaiting a bed in one state operated facility uh going to
another. So AMRTC to St. Peter, as an example, we did have a a two-year reprieve, like I mentioned, saving significant dollars over the last couple of years. Unfortunately, we will be picking that up starting July 1st of this of this year. Um, estimated to be
about a $14 million cost to counties the first bianium and about 18 in the second. And then the thing that also is lacking at this point is the need for community beds. We all know that there's a shortage for mental health beds and we continue to to talk about that a lot.
Everybody's everybody's aware of that. The next item I think you've got on in your packet the cost screen or I'm sorry the cost shift document. Um I'll just mention that these were the proposals starting with the House, Senate,
Governor and then the gold column on the right. I guess I can do this. I'm sorry. I was thinking yours. There we go. Then in the right was the conference committee agreement at the end. And if you look down at the bottom figures, if you can see those, it's a
little bit bit small. You can see that there were significant cost shifts recommended by all parties. Um, so we were on the defense u mode rather quickly and I want to thank all the county commissioners and county staff that reached out to their legislators. They were hearing from people daily and
in the end I think we tempered those um cost shifts fairly significantly. I would just point out a couple of things in the gold column again. Um that second item where the negative number is $89 million of savings. That is something
that the legislature created a work group and it is charged with finding savings within the health and human services system and they're anticipating that they're going to we're going to find 90 million. Um there are six county positions, two from Micah, two from AMC, and two from MAXA. And we're in the
process of kind of going through those those appointments right now to make sure that we have the correct size of counties, geographical balance, etc. covered. So that is something that we'll be facing if they don't come up with that 90 million. But I did want to point that out. That second item of of the $18
million on the right, again, that is relative to the the cauter for MIND folks that we picked up. Again, the $18 million dollar deals with um a flat reimbursement proposal for long for the min choices assessment. Currently, we're
reimbursed under the random time moment study. And Senator Abler and others have said that there has to be a better way of doing that. And so, the department is charged with trying to come up with a methodology by next year on what that might look like. And they're estimating the savings again of $18 million um in
2829. And then again, the totals there, those two numbers, the $61 million versus the $151 if we do not find that $90 million in savings that the work group is charged with doing. I think moving on here to
Mr. Chair, uh Nancy, what what if we found 59 million instead of 89? Does it still is it just credit a portion proportionally? Mr. Chair, Commissioner, yeah. Yeah, I'm assuming that they'll Okay, they'll do that. Hopefully, we'll find a lot more.
I don't know about that, but um we'll be seeing more, I'm sure. Um the next item is the Health and Human Services bill and um I'm sorry that they had a negative target as well, but that wasn't
as bad as the human services target. But again, the the marquee um piece of legislation in that was the SSIS modern systems modernization that I mentioned. Um they also put some money into EMS uh ambulance services um finan or the rural
counties in particular have been in kind of a financial crisis um for a while. They did put $16 million into an ambulance operating deficit grant program, $2 million into uh training and staffing. And then they also created um
a pool for rural EMS uncompensated care. And that comes some of the money comes from the general fund and some of it comes from the healthcare access fund. So they did address um that to a certain degree. Terms of public health, they did put $2.6 6 million per bianium into the
infectious disease prevention. Another item that we had last year uh the legislature reduced um grants to counties and tribes related to cannabis related prevention and they the reduction last year was $7.2 million for
the bienium. They did partially fill that this year with $5 million for the bienium. So while we're not whole, there was progress made on in that area. other issues relative to um the department of health, they did reduce
funding for emergency preparedness and did reduce funding for public health infrastructure pilot projects and then there were a whole myriad of MDH increases. Other captured savings in the bill um the state is taking over the
administration of non-emergency medical transportation. We have come full circle on that since I started my career with Micah. However many years ago that was. Um the state had it then it was gifted to us in the middle of the night during a conference committee. County set up their own system and now the state is
taking it back again and says that they're going to find savings in it. So that's interesting to watch as well. Also um the public option uh language that was passed that was repealed this year and so they returned $21 million to the healthcare access fund for that and
then the elimination of Minnesota care for undocumented adults um in the first bianium. its savings of 56.9 million and $91 million in the tales. What didn't happen and what we're going to see I think emerging in next year,
you're all hearing about it, is changes to the Minnesota African-American Family Preservation Act. As you know, that that um act goes statewide on January 1st of 2027. Henipin and Ramsey counties currently are doing a pilot right now and we are to learn from from um that
experience. We did have conversations with some of the powers that be this session saying we're concerned that we're not going to be ready for this and can we look at you know phasing us in or a possible delay. There was no appetite for that because there is a statewide work group that's working on this right
now. They just got started in June and they wanted to see what came out of that work group and then if changes need to be made we'll have next year to do that. Um the work group there's four county members in terms of Micah members it's Ottertale County Kurt Mortonson Washington County Carla Bigum and they
join uh Henipin County Angela Connley and Joan Lee from Poke County. They sit on that working group. They are to have an interim report um to the legislature on January 1st of this next year. I've been watching and following this workg group and they're, you know, they're
starting this, but they're it's been it's been slow. I think, you know, I think we're going to be looking at um needing an an extension on this, but we'll see what that report looks at like when it comes out. Um there was also language that showed up as an amendment this year, did not
pass, but it would have prevented counties from contracting for case management services. That was obviously a big concern of ours. it was in response to a particular uh situation in Ramsey County that the legislature brought it. I think there'll be further discussion on that, but that's something
that we obviously would be very much opposed to. And then uh the Senate Judiciary Chair did have a proposal that would have established a civil commitment coordinating division within the office of the attorney general and that was um opposed by by several of the
advocacy groups uh NAMI etc. because a lot of that work was being done by the department already. So they considered it to be, you know, parallel work or duplicative work. So that was pulled out of the out of the omnibus bill. And finally, I would just mention that the provider tax um remains at 1.8%. There
was a proposal to increase it to 2% which is the max that that it can be increased. That did not happen. So it remains at 1.8%. And lastly, I just want to mention that I want to call out your staff. Work very closely with a number of them, including
Jen Burkwam, Amy Rocker, Dh Denise Daniels, mentioned Dan Jensen, and also Amy Tom Thompson. Very much um active in the Micah groups and want to mention that they're not only um helpful for for your county, but for the county statewide. And thank you for allowing
them to participate as much as I do. Thank you. Any questions? I forgot to do this. Sorry. Sorry. M chair. Uh everybody's doing good work. I just want to compliment uh
Nancy on on that chart that uh you know the big question coming out of session, what was the effect of the shifts? And uh it's like everybody knows there were shifts, but nobody knows where the dollars were, what the categories were. And uh I don't know if you put that
together yourself or not, but but somebody did and I'll give you credit. Oh, thank you. It was a joint effort. We worked with Thank you. Yeah, we needed to just get that because it was changing constantly and yeah, we're happy with with the end
result. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Other way. All right. Good evening everyone. My name is Rachel Cinoic. I am Micah's environmental leazison at the capital. Great to be here with you
tonight. Uh so first before I dive into kind of how things played out with some of the specific bills that we're tracking uh for Micah's environment agenda uh are the issues that fall under that agenda touch a lot of different committee jurisdictions. And so we're
watching uh bill hearings and and conversations that play out in the environment committee of course, but in the energy space, in agriculture, in the legacy committee, um and so in taxes, right? And so there there are kind of a lot of moving parts and uh we try our
best to kind of prioritize in terms of how we're spending our time. Um but want to make sure that we're giving at least kind of a high level overview of of what all is going on um when it comes to our our agenda. And so really overall, I think the kind of the uh full summary of
the 2025 session, as you've heard from other folks who've already presented, is uh there just wasn't a lot of money to spend. And in some cases, committees were having pretty significant cut targets that they had to to make work. And so when we think about Micah's environment agenda, uh a lot of my time,
the vast majority of my time is spent talking to legislators about um solid waste and the significant costs. your conversation just earlier tonight even, right? The the significant costs um that counties face uh when it comes to solid waste management and the investments that you all are making uh in some of
those kind of emerging technologies or innovations and just trying to to better manage waste more responsibly. Um and so when we think about uh just kind of the dynamics the fiscal dynamics of the session this year, uh it's hard it's hard to get resources to support that kind of work, but we're gonna we're
going to keep at it. that that was really um kind of overall uh how things played out. Um when I would say the the main exception to that was the legacy bill. Uh and so not solid waste specific, but I know Mstead County is is very invested in uh clean water
initiatives and addressing groundwater contamination um in the southeast region of Minnesota in general. Um and so a lot of that funding is available through the Clean Water Fund. And so there's over $300 million going out over the next two years in clean water funding. Micah has two of our our uh board members actually
who serve on the Clean Water Council. And we were really grateful to see that the the final bill, the final version of the Clean Water Fund appropriations were exactly what the Clean Water Council had recommended. And so there's a lot of expertise that goes into making those recommendations. Um, we know that that's a really important funding source so
that even when you know there's not a lot of resources in the general fund, at least uh we can rely on on something like clean water fund to support those activities. Um, Nathan already mentioned the 50% reduction in aquatic invasive species county aid. I know that's not as much of a of an issue here, but still
just want to want to reiterate that because I know that's still a loss of funding. Um, uh, going back to solid waste, um, like I mentioned, a lot of my time is spent talking about that. And so, uh, one of the things that we look to when we don't have as many resources at the state level to invest and support
this work is how can we reduce, um, the amount of waste that's coming into the waist stream or reduce the cost that counties are facing, um, by just better managing waste and being more responsible. And so, in 2024, we worked with other county partners, other local government partners to advocate and pass
the packaging waste and cost reduction act. Um, and so that is now in kind of the early stages of implementation. They've established an advisory board uh that's met a few times already this year. And so that's really targeting packaging and paper products um and trying to bring the producers of those
products come more into the fold and and share some of the burden of of the cost of managing um that waste. And I know that's a place where I think, you know, when it comes to solid waste in generally and especially issues like um kind of product stewardship that are a little bit uh harder to understand kind
of what that benefit looks like and when it's fully implemented because it takes time for these things to actually play out. County perspectives, county voices, both county commissioners and and staff are really critical and really valued by legislators. Um and so I can see I think
that was going to be a place where counties will continue to take the lead and be really influential. Um in this last session we also worked on uh trying to expand a similar model around um electronic waste and batteries uh knowing that there are a lot of just safety risks when it comes to managing
those products as they enter the waist stream. Um and they're just really expensive costly for you all to deal with. Um and we were not able to get that past this year. Uh but I think we'll again we'll continue to to work on these issues as we as we move forward. Um data centers ended up being a pretty
significant point of contention which I don't know how many folks would have expected that uh a year ago and and that's not a place where Micah had an official position but wanted to keep you all updated. Um you know we tried our best to do that throughout session and are are including it now because it did take up a lot of energy no pun intended
from the session this year. uh a lot of time spent in committee and on the on the Senate and House floors talking about data centers. Um and so I'll share a little bit about some of the kind of water use considerations that were included as part of that that data centers bill that passed. Um and then
finally um you know resources to deal uh to help mitigate the spread of emerald ashbor and deal with wood waste um is fairly high on MA's agenda environment agenda. Uh there's a lot of conversation a lot of acknowledgement from legislators that this is a concern. And I know it's, you know, kind of passed through southern Minnesota, so maybe
more on the woodway side for you all is is more important, but with little with few resources available, not a lot of action was ultimately taken um on that issue this this session. Um so now we'll get into just a breakdown from some of the different
bills that we were tracking um and some of the kind of most relevant items. Um I already mentioned the legacy bill and the clean water funds included there. Um the environment bill uh I mentioned, you know, no the e-waste and battery product stewardship legislation um was not
ultimately included. Um but we were able to play pretty really strong defense on protecting the packaging waste and cost reduction act. Um you know, some industry groups are are participating in kind of the advisory board and will ultimately be involved in the implementation process, but there are some folks who would like to see that
repealed and and see that go away. So, um, a lot of education with legislators went into keeping that hole and not making any changes or, um, rolling anything back there. Uh, there were a couple different fee increases, uh, that'll send more money to state level aquatic invasive species management
activities and groundwater protection activities. Um, there was an increase in the closed landfill investment fund spending. So, um, prior to the passage of the environment bill this year, um, the state, uh, was only able to access $4.5 million each year to support those
activities. Now, it's up to 6 and a.5 million. Um, and the statutory language also had to be extended. Um, Commissioner Sundum, I know that you have asked a lot about the shotgun uh, the repeal of the shotgun only zone, and so that was ultimately included in the environment bill as well. Um, there really wasn't actually a ton of policy
that made it into that bill. Um, but this was one of the one of the items, but counties do counties in the shotgun only zone are able to pass their own county specific ordinance um on what uh can be used for deer hunting. And so that is an option that's available to you. The DNR is also required to to make
sure all counties who are affected are notified. So if they have not done that already, you should be seeing that communication um soon enough. And so wanted to make sure that I mentioned that um as part of this part of this overview. Um in the tax committee uh this is where
the conversation around score plays out. Um so the solid waste management tax revenue um there is 27% of that that just gets put into the general fund and can be used for for anything. And counties have long advocated that all of that tax revenue should actually be
going back to the counties who are responsible for managing solid waste and meeting statemandated recycling goals. And uh we've had really great, you know, there's been some good progress in 2023. We were able to get a little bit more of that money um going back to counties,
but we'll have to continue really pushing there. Um we had really great hearings in the House and Senate tax committees this year. Commissioner Russ actually came up and testified in the Senate uh hearing and I know Senator Nelson was very excited to to see her and they took a photo and it was great. Um and so this is really a place where
there's bipartisan support. Our House score bill had all 35 available author slots filled with members of both parties, members of the environment committee and the tax committee. Uh but it's a place where the limited resources really uh make it hard to to see
significant change. And so we'll continue that and hopefully can keep chipping away and getting more and more funding because it's, you know, it's over $30 million every year that counties are losing out on that we think we should have access to. So we'll keep that going. Uh and then for data centers, so again took up a lot of time
and and space and session and so they ended up needing to pass just a standalone data centers bill. Um a lot of the uh provisions were related to um tax issues, but they did include a couple things related to water usage. Um because a lot of these projects use
significant amounts of water for cooling purposes. And so um they have to include, you know, anyone applying for a permit. Um there's just evaluations of water usage. They have to ensure that public health is protected for the communities um located near these projects. Um, and if there's concerns
around impacts to the aquafer, then the applicant would have to pay to conduct that test and and make sure there's not going to be any any issues there. So, that is it for me on environment, but happy to answer questions if if anyone has them. We're a quiet group today.
All right. Well, thanks so much. Thank you. All right. Uh, just wanted to touch on public safety issues really briefly. Unlike a lot of other committees, public safety actually had a positive target, but uh most of that money went to state agencies to fill deficiency and
operating adjustment requests. Um there was a three-year averaging implemented and the community supervision funding formula. Uh that'll just allow for more stable uh and predictable funding of uh probation services uh from the state. And then the sentencing to serve uh
funding sunset uh removes the state's 25% contribution to that uh program. counties are still able to continue that uh if they so choose, but there's not going to be the state picking up 25% of the tab there. Um did want to touch on earn and save time and paid leave really quickly. We spent a lot of time working
on these issues. Um functionally there was very little that happened at the end of the day. I would say the biggest thing on ESST was that the notice requirement if you're uh under prior law, you only need to provide official documentation if you're taking more than three consecutive days of ESST. So under
the new law, you need to provide documentation if you're taking more than two consecutive days of ESST. We've been pursuing some broader changes, but and they did pass the Senate um but got wrapped up in the House. On paid leave, we'd again been pursuing broader changes. The one you know uh I don't
want to call it significant even shift was uh the premium rate cap reduction. So under previous law, the rate had been capped at one a 1.2% maximum. They've moved that down to 1.1% but that's not going to impact your county budget because right now the rate's just at 088
though theoretically it could increase in the future. Um there's also uh changes to open meeting law to allow uh broader use of it and a remote participation for public officials and the uh 8:00 p.m. inerson absentee ballot
drop off deadline was moved back to 5:00 p.m. Uh but of course people can still vote after 5 p.m. in person. um did want to talk about pensions a little bit. Um one of the most notable changes uh for counties came uh on the duty disability or PTSD changes. Um so basically the uh
the the usage of this uh of uh people claiming PTSD and and receiving these benefits and moving out of the workforce uh had increased significantly. Um and so basically groups came together and said okay well let's uh rather than say
provide these benefits through age 65 for prospective cases we'll allow them just for 60 months total and that'll just kind of give us a chance first of all it'll help the overall health of the pension fund which the police and fire pension fund is the weakest of the major
funds at the at the state level. Um, and it'll give us a window. There's not effectively nobody's nobody that was receiving benefits before will have that changed and it'll just give us a window to figure out is this working? Do we need to make other changes down the line? The other thing I want to talk
about probation officers, uh, they brought forward a change to increase their pension benefit that would be funded through a higher employee contribution. uh that didn't move forward at the legislature, but the legislature does what it often does when something doesn't move forward and says, "Hey, let's have a workg group over the
summer." So, we are participating in that this uh summer and fall. There will probably be preliminary recommendations that come out by November, but the goal of PAR is to say, let's only bring forward something if we've got public employers and public employees kind of
on the same page here. I would say that the 911 telecommunicators, they are part of that working group. They're asking for something different than the probation officers. They are asking for a an increased employer contribution by a significant amount. Obviously, we're always going to be sensitive to that
because it impacts uh county budgets. Um and just the other thing about the pension bill this year, there was a an increase through general fund dollars to the general police and fire pensions as well as for teachers. Um so, basically, where does that leave us at the end of the day with the the
budget picture, right? uh at the beginning of session, depending on how you count it, the temporary surplus was as low as 456 million with a structural deficit as big as 6 billion. Um so what you can see here, this is end of session
budget data that I've kind of tried to distill into one table, but it's data from MMB, uh which shows basically, okay, here's how much the state is taking in in revenue and here's how much the state is spending. And as you can see still for fiscal years 2627 and 2829
the state is spending more than it is taking in in revenue. That is you know a fundamental like budgetary issue. Um the good news is that after the 2025 legislative session the money left on the bottom line is about $1.9 billion.
So there is a a bigger cushion than we had before that's basically just rolling over from previous surpluses. but it's not going to help your structural issues. So, um the these numbers are all going to change by early December when
the next economic forecast comes out from this state. But I think that the likeliest outcome and things can always change in between now and then is that we're going to be talking about these in the same kind of way. We're gonna have a temporary surplus for fis uh for the 2026 legislative session and still have
the structural deficit, but the structural deficit isn't going to appear as big as it did um back in February. Now, this is all kind of complicated by the fact that in 2023, the legislature decided to include inflation in all of its budget forecasts. I've got that information up there, but this past
year, basically, they decide not to spend any of that money, and as long as there's a structural deficit, I would assume they continue not to. Um, but the other good thing in Minnesota's favor is that budget reserve. So, I've got that number up there. It's about $3.2 billion. That's really that's basically
at 100% full health. So, that's something that MMB is always really protective of and it does give us a little bit of a cushion. The other note that I've got on there is just if you compare where the US economy is compared to the last time the the economists came together in February to provide a
forecast, we do have a little bit lower growth and higher inflation. But I would say that Minnesota's uh revenues have been pretty resilient. Uh we came in 850 million above uh general fund revenue for fiscal 25. Though that revenue month
by month can go up and down. In July it was $62 million down. So I mean that's you know it moves around but you'd rather be on the positive side than the negative side for sure. Any questions about that chair? Oh yes. Yep.
So there's a constit constitutional obligation to p pass a balanced budget and I'm trying to I'm trying to see a balanced budget in this chart. Well, uh I I would say that basically the the budget is balanced because um we
the states essentially uh the surplus it's it's balanced temporarily is what I can tell you. The budget is balanced with the with the reserves. Uh, no, not not with reserves because we've got that $ 1.9 billion cushion on the fourth row essentially. Okay. Um, okay. Forward. All right.
Yeah. And like our budget wouldn't be on track to be balanced if there were no changes for the next benium, but that's kind of a next bianial problem from the legislaturator's perspective. Thank you. Um, just a few other notes here. uh the passage of the OBBBA act or
HR1 is causing I mean you all know this uh you all sent in a letter um uh it's causing significant uncertainty. We did have the state budget director present to our board uh last week I believe commissioner Sanjim and Wright were there. She kind of broke down some of these numbers. They're starting to try to dive in more deeply. We should have
more data soon but we don't have all that yet. There's a lot more special elections than are typical and there could be kind of a cascading effect of special elections if a representative becomes a senator. But I think most people are assuming that the current or the composition of the legislature won't
change fundamentally that the incumbent parties in those districts will likely retain those seats though, you know, I'm not an election specialist. Um, and then of course the legislature returns on February 17th. The governor said that any special session before then is very
unlikely. And then just want to wrap up talking a little bit about our policy committee process. We have the commissioners set what our top priorities are. We had that meeting next week. They'll continue to uh be updated as we go along. Then we have the policy committee staff kind of work through the individual issues and the details of the
phrasing on some of those kind of longstanding and any new priorities that counties may want to bring forward. Um, so that process basically runs from August to December and then the commissioners vote on the final product and then I've just got our information up there uh so you have it for your
reference if you ever have questions or anything we can be helpful with. Great. Any questions? Again, we're quiet. Uh, hopefully that's not a bad thing. I hope not too. All right. Thank you.
Thank you. appreciate it. Mr. Chair, just just a comment and I think uh Commissioner Wright as well. I mean, we we we serve on the Micah board and uh and it's it's pretty obvious based on their presentations tonight that this group really does their
homework and does it pretty well and is is very very helpful. And I think in terms of passing on information to to at least us, I'm not sure we do as well to pass it on to you, but but nonetheless, uh they're an outstanding group and and
uh Nathan as a as a new executive director is doing a fabulous job, I would say. Thank you. He's responsible for the chart. I like charts. That's great. All right. Thank you. All right. We're on to board and committee
reports. We'll start with Greg. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, you know, today in the HH committee, we talked about um aging in Homestead County and um in case you're not aware of it,
everybody's aging. Uh and uh some groups, age groups, the group is aging faster than others. But I just wanted to point out that uh for the past two years I have been involved with a group that's
working at a state level uh to hopefully eventually get a state department level on healthy aging. And so the progress that has been made uh last year was is that it went through a committee study
group and um and that that was uh in law by legislature to create that and they were to have a report then um at the end uh of the year and the committee did
finish its work and we were very pleased uh that they did recommend that this go to the next level, which is then to have MMB uh supervise in a a a planning group.
All right? And they would hire somebody uh that would be in charge of that plan. And the plan would include all the things and even more than what was reported in today's HH committees to look at all of the things that affect
aging and how the state can create a plan uh that would improve those uh situations for the aging and get us prepared for what's coming even though we're 10 years behind in that preparation.
So, uh I'll I'll report on the progress of that again of how that uh group is coming and how who's going to be appointed to lead that study group and and how they're going to proceed. So,
uh, I I I'm I'm pleased first of all that Dome State County is one of the lead counties in the state of Minnesota looking at aging, but I'm also pleased that the the state legislature is willing to look at a plan uh how to
create a better plan for our aging population. So, thank you. Thank you, Greg Laurel. Yeah, I have one um committee report. Um I attended the public health services advisory board meeting and that is our
one remaining um advisory board. So uh I take that as a charge to be very observant and to reflect back to my colleagues the um the kinds of conversations that we have and the especially the tone and the direction of
those conversations. Uh so at our last meeting um Jennifer Burrwam gave us a legislative update particularly with regard to public health. So, as we know, it's no it's no surprise to us that the federal and state budgets handed down to
counties are are just generally bad news for counties. It puts a lot of strain um and stress on our budgets and on our um ability to deliver programs and services, most of which were mandated to
do so by the state. Um it it turned out that the that the the um the legislative changes at the state level weren't as severe as anticipated and there was some good news coming down from the state level. Um, but I would be remiss if I
didn't reflect back to this group the conversation that the the public health services advisory board um members had about the federal changes in particular.
So you just know that this is a board made up of our community's most passionate, expert, and dedicated professionals working in public health um in some capacity. and they
characterize these federal changes, especially uh with regard to the Medicaid eligibility changes and the SNAP changes um as uh devastating and catastrophic. I found these were just
very strong words um worth repeating and um many of these um board members expressed that they foresee struggle and suffering um as a result of
these changes amongst the populations that they serve. Um and in particular the the um the changes to the reductions of uh
grant um grant and research funding is just devastating to a number of people on that board. and the staffing reductions at HHS, the CDC, FDA, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services, and the USDA. These will uh create a cascade effect that um will just put a great deal of strain and stress on their agencies and their ability to perform their work and to
provide the care that that they're dedicated to. Um, and I wanted to reflect the the cander and sincerity of the of the conversation that we had last week. Thank you, Dave.
I uh I don't think I have anything. I'll pass. Okay, Bob. Nothing to report. Ryan. Okay. I got I got a couple things. I know I got a short quote. one um for the public that's that's speaking to us. I
think we're we're we're out of this room now for the next two months. So, if you're going to come to us next month, we're at at the campus. Um it's 21 2100 building. There we go. We like to call it the public health building, a few of us, but it's the 2100 building down at
the campus. You're welcome to come. Same same Tuesday schedule. Public health. Um, two, I'd just like to just reflect a little bit. We had a meeting last last week uh that was scheduled with uh Congressman Finstead for the for
board members to have a discussion with Congressman about issues that were important to our residents and to the board itself. And I just it was it was ended early because uh there were some people there, not not all people, but some people there that didn't want that
conversation to happen. And I just want to uh reflect that I don't think it's better to have a one-way conversation where we're yelling each other at each other than to have no conversation. And we need to figure out as a society how we have uh respectful and true
discussions with each other if we want to move forward. So uh hopefully that we get better behavior out of everybody in the in the future and we can move this country forward and come to some uh some understanding of each other and a different perspectives on issues.
All right, last short quote and it's again from Shell Silverstein. It's becoming a favorite of mine for quotes now. If you're a bird, be an early bird, but if you're a worm, sleep late. Entertain a motion to adjurnn.
On that I move to adjourn. Ajourn.