Allegiance after the Pledge of Allegiance please remain standing for a moment of silence for Steve Ebert who passed away and has funeral was last Saturday aliance to the FL of the United States of America and to the repblic for
it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and jce e thank you we were supposed to have a service here's a service re uh recognition tonight for the Winston volunteer fire department three of the members couldn't
be here tonight so that'll be on next uh next time they can come possibly next meeting agenda tonight consists of the following items item a declare a 2018 Ford Explorer sport utility vehicle SUV
and Equipment as Surplus equipment and eligible for sale is recommended by the police chief and authorize the mayor and city clerk Treasurer to execute an agreement with the city of Lester pre Minnesota for the sale and delivery of the same in accordance with terms and conditions of the agreement for a total
purchase price of $10,000 Item B authorized the city administrator to execute a land lease with &n Structures Incorporated to rent land adjacent to property with identification number 21.0
66.1 0 incor Incorporated to rent land adjac to the property with with identification number 21. 06601 in the amount of $1,200 in expiring December 31st 2024 for Material Handling purposes
item C terminate the land lease agreement between the city of winad and Mr Randy sidola and Mr David caran for hanger number 19 at the Winston municipal airport item D approve the land lease agreement between the city of winad and M Mr Jeffrey solum for hanger
number 19 at the winad municipal airport based upon the successful submission of all required documents and fees to the city of Winstead item e adopt resolution r- 24-14 accepting a donation from Security Bank and Trust Company on on behalf of Bernice D at state in the amount of
$10,000 to be dedicated to the winon volunteer fire department's Capital Improvement plan and the Winston Police Department's Capital Improvement plan item F adopt resolution r245 accepting a donation of three custommade active shooter gear bags from
Atomic tarp LLC to be dedicated to the Winston Police Department item G authorizes a bicycle sponsored by tour DET Tonka on Saturday August 3D 2024 on designated streets and routes within the city limits as approved by the Winston
Police Chief and authorized arrest stop for the event in the parking area at Dennis M Campbell field item H approve the off sale on sale and Sunday lior licenses from July 1st 2024 through June 30 2025 for the following aleski
Holdings LLC the Corner Bar janen slel Enterprises the Blue Note Hong Liquors off sale only approve the liquor wine club wine club or 32 license from July 1st 2024 through June or 30 2025 and
wave the fee for said license for the Winston Baseball Association Incorporated Winston Wildcats at Dennis M campbellfield approve a 3.2 offsale liquor license from July 1 to June 20 of 2025 for Casey's General
Store number 1673 24th 6th Street North item I approved licenses to sell tobacco products and tobacco related devices from July 1st 2024 through June 30th 2025 for the following Casey's General
Store to 40th 6 Street North DG retail doing businesses Dollar general6 Street South Bang's liquor 13 132nd 6 Street North and Al Lego the blue not
Ballroom item G appoint Miss Lori qu the position of fire secretary with the Winston fire department with a term expiring December 31st 2025 and last item item K approve the claims list for May 7th 2024 um that's the consent agenda
looking for a motion to approve Mr Mayor I'll motion to approve the consent agenda as presented we have a motion do we have a second I'll second uh I have a couple questions though uh let me know when I can ask
goad uh regarding items c and d uh I take it this is what's done when a hanger gets sold from one person to another correct and so the lease is a specific uh term correct a number of years they don't they don't assume the
lease a new one is written and is it determined that the purchaser does indeed own and fly a plane at that time that is part of the I don't know if they have to own the plane necessarily but they I think they
do have to have their pilot's license so that's all part of those requirements of getting filled in so Mr Solem has a plane that he's keeping in that hanger yeah as far as I'm
aware yeah I know we look through Insurance requirement process to transfer the hanger necessarily that was adopted but far as when the transfer happens I don't know if that
step takes place at that time if I understand right we don't know whether he's got a plane or not right I have no idea but that would be Amanda's been working through that um so I think we're talking two
different things things as far as with the lease itself right um as part of our airport policy you do have to have a plane there but with the lease itself it is just you're leasing The Hanger and you're leasing the land from
us well not the hanger sorry just the land from us the hanger they if not enforcing through this how do we enforce that they need a plane in there so that is the um on our list of goals for that airport checklist
uhuh so I know that we talked at the goal setting meeting where it would be our Airport Manager and chief he or one of his officers going through and um checking
to see that everybody is up to Snuff I guess to the meeting their requirements at the airport so so I I'm not quite sure how this is done but I I object to item c and d and will not vote for
[Music] it okay so did you make a second he did I I but I wasn't quite sure you can make the second excluding those two okay then I would make a second exclud and you'll
vote no with those two and and excluding c and d uh which I do not plan to vote for okay we have a motion to a second all in favor I opposed I'm opposed okay motion
carried uh no public hearing old business nothing and under new business we have the audit report you're up I got good evening I am Justin mcra I'm a CDS the city's Auditors uh and I'm here
tonight hopefully we can hear me I'm here tonight to discuss uh the city's uh December 31st 2023 audit report uh and you probably got a few different products from us uh the larger PDF or if you have the bound document that's your actually audited financial statement themselves um the format I'm going to
follow is up on the screen here uh all this information I'm going to cover tonight comes from your financial statements or the management letter it's itself so if I'm going through this and you have any questions that's a great place to start otherwise feel free to stop me and and ask your questions as as the come up uh starting with the
independent audit report you know what is it um it it's um it's our opinion on the city's overall financial statements our auditor report outlines uh the responsibilities of both parties us as Auditors you as the city it describes the intent of our audit which is determine if your financial statements
are free of material misstatement um the auditing standards we use to come to that conclusion um and then on page one there at the B letters at the top in our opinion if you if you don't take anything else away from my presentation tonight uh your Finance STS are presented fairly they can be relied upon
for gauging performance of the city as well as for future decision-making purposes and on page two we have some other information in our that we referenc to in our independent honors report one of those items being the management discussion analysis or mdna
as we call it and that really gives your leadership team here a chance to explain some of the activities some the changes you saw in your balances in 2023 uh in more of a narrative format so it's not just all numbers it's an explanation of why those numbers are changing or why those numbers are what they are and
speaking of the numbers on page three I'll jump into those uh starting with your statement of net position so your statement of net position is the overall balance sheet of the city if you will um we look at it uh kind of two different ways we look at it at a point in time as December 31st 2023 and compare it to
last year December 31st 2022 so you can see where some of those changes are happening uh throughout the year and this covers all operations all activities all funds that the city has uh starting at the top current assets these would be your items like like your cash balances your accounts receivable
balances uh prepaid expenses those types of items uh you can see here you had a a decrease in your current Assets in 23 compared to 22 and a large portion of that is due to cash use for some of the capital projects uh
around the city so you kind of several larger capital projects uh the County Road 5 extension the storm sewer projects Street lighting The Herald Journal uh extension project all of that used those cash resources that the city had on hand uh then right below it your
Capital assets you can or your non-current assets which are typically your Capital assets the infrastructure building equipment Vehicles those types of items you can see that had a a corresponding increase in and a little bit more actually than your decrease in your current assets uh largely due to
the converting those cash balances into a physical asset uh the projects I just discussed as as well as new equipment that was purchased throughout the year um outpaced the depreciation of your existing assets and you saw an overall increase there on the bottom half of that slide
uh your current liabilities these would be think your routine bills uh accounts payable salaries wages payable uh and one thing that that is included in there is also contracts payable so uh contracts payable are typically items the construction work or materials
purchased uh before year end and and paid for after year end and you had a larger one in 2023 here for the downtown street light project so you you received the materials uh and then made that payment subsequent to December 31st so you had a higher incre or a higher
amount of contracts payable at the end of 2023 than you did at the end of of 2022 um then your non-current liabilities uh your pension liability is a piece of that that's the liability that you are proportionately responsible for of the Public Employee retirements
associate that did have a big big decrease in 2023 compared to 2022 uh that's largely due to the performance of P's Investments uh decreasing the overall liability for the plan and you uh you recognize a portion of that as well uh the rest of them are
are primarily your debt balances so bonds notes payable uh you know you did Issue one small debt issuance of $200,000 for the County Road 5 project um so that would have increased your debt balances but your your regularly scheduled payments on your old outstanding handing debt um resulted in
an overall decrease in your your debt obligations and at the very bottom uh the net position of the city so this is kind of what's left over if you could pay out or sell all your assets and pay off all your debts this is what um would be left over at the end of the year um so you had some changes in your
classifications the net investment in capital assets this is your Capital asset balances less any debt owed against them with the increase you saw in your Capital asset balances and the subsequent payment of your your debt uh according to your debt schedules uh no no big surprise to see a pretty healthy
increase there but overall you're overall in that position of the city uh kind of continues that Trend that we've seen over the past several years of of increases on the next slide we look at start to look at some of the individual funds starting with the general fund the
general fund is the main operating fund of the city uh we look at your cash and investment balances not only in 2023 but the prior four years you can kind of see where those TR have been um and for the general fund it's kind of been all over the place uh the general fund has been
used to help uh maybe Gap financing for some of the larger capital projects around the city over the years so one thing you have to look at this is is the amount of cash that that fund has on hand and any in fund borrowing that has been done um over the years so You' had a pretty healthy increase in 23 compared
to 22 a lot of that is due to repayment of that in fund borrowing uh with all the all the airport projects that have been going on over the years and the federal and state funding that are related to that um it's on a reimbursement basis so you you spend the money up front and then you submit your
expenditures to the uh Minesota Department of Transportation and they approve them and they reimburse you uh a lot of those reimbursements finally came in in 2023 uh so the some of the airport Improvement project funds were able to pay back the general fund and then on the next slide you can look at the
operations of the general fund again 2023 in the prior four years um similar Trend in in 2023 of your of your revenues exceeding expenditures uh one thing that is included in here is transfers in and out of the fund uh you did have a higher level of transfers out
of the general fund in 2023 to support other areas of the city the big ones being uh the count 5 extension project and uh The Herald Journal extension project so you had arpa funds or if you remember the past couple years you received the Caris funds and the
American Rescue plan act funds those are all recorded in the general fund they were spent in 2023 in the water and sewer funds respectively so that cash was transferred out all of the general fund uh into those funds uh and then your overall fund balance so one metric that we as
Auditors like to use is we have to look at your fund balance your mainly your unassigned fund balance or the fund balance that's available to spend on really whatever you deem necessary in in terms of months worth of expenditures so uh right now or as of I guess I say December 31st 2023 you're you're sitting
around 7 months worth of expenditures sitting in that fund balance which is a pretty healthy ratio you we usually recommend 6 months is kind of a minimum you look at some of your big Revenue sources of the general fund property taxes local government Aid they typically come in about 6 months apart
so uh having a healthy Reserve in that general fund will help cover any uh expens expenditures in that time period as well as any uh maybe unexpected expenditures that may come up uh for the city and then on the next slide we'll look uh in a little bit more
detail at the the general fund Revenue so and we look at this as uh by The Source where does the revenues come from uh for the general fund taxes have historically been your largest source of Revenue that's no change excuse me in 2023 um and then you did have a pretty
healthy increase in your investment income uh from the prior years you 20121 2022 were not great years for uh Savers and now 2023 seems to be with interest rates Rising seems to be better time to save uh and invest that income um and then your in government of Revenue this is one item I touched on a little bit
earlier but you know in 2020 they had the cares act you had an influx of cash for that and then 2022 excuse me 2021 and 2022 you got half of the allotment of your Arta funds uh so 2021 or 2020 through 2022 are probably uh
artificially elevated due to uh some of the legislation that was passed uh now in 2023 you don't have that large influx of uh federal dollars or even some State dollars uh so you kind of went back to pre-pandemic levels for your intergovernmental revenue and that's
depending on what the state might do yet or any new uh Federal Federal um bills it's probably going to be what you see in 23 that's probably what you're going to see going forward on the next slide uh the expenditures of the general fund and we
look at this those revenues we just talked about um you know what department is using those revenues that are being br brought in uh in general government public safety are departments with the highest amount of expenses that's typically been the case one thing that can um distort the numbers is capital
expenditures so if there's Capital needs that the general fund is paying for whether it be General government public safety Public Works cultur and wck um that those numbers can swing uh that kind of that allocation or that percentage um of each Department's total amount of expenditures of the general
fund uh for instance in 2023 there's some uh Street worked on in the general fund uh so you see your Public Works is a little bit higher than it had been in the prior years uh and then transfers as well we had touched on transfers out of the fund to water sewer and the county
Ro 5 fund uh you see your transfers are a little elevated as well uh in 2023 so that was the general fund moving away from the general fund to a few other funds of the city starting with the special Revenue funds the city has a handful of special Revenue funds special
Revenue funds are typically dedicated at for a to serve a specific purpose within the city um and you have a few of them and I'm I'm not going to touch on all of them but just a couple um the fire department did have an increase in its overall fund balance um you you had a
little lower capital outlay in that that fire department operations fund uh your transfers out of that fund Into the Fire Equipment fund were pretty consistent uh between the years uh and then your airport your airport saw an increase was actually a pretty good year for the airport operations fund uh some of it is
is one-time funding like you you have a larger insurance reimbursement in that Fund in 2023 uh that's um kind of driving part of that increase as well as as fuel sales within the uh out or excuse me fuel sales out at the airport uh then you have a new Tiff District tax
tax increment financing District uh that's 2-9 so that's a new fund that was set up or a new District really that was set up in 2023 uh it had a it has a deficit fund balance currently as there were expenditures related to setting up that District but uh the Tiff revenues
have not come in uh as of 1231 2023 on the next slide capital projects so uh you do have quite a few larger projects going on around the uh and with a capital project the idea with it is that going to capture all the financing sources and all the expenditures related
to larger uh Improvement projects and you have a few of them uh in this slide kind of has some that are at at the end of their life some at the beginning of their life and some that are kind of in the middle of that life cycle um um you know the largest increases you saw were the the Fire Equipment fund that's donations into that fund as well as
transfers from from the operating fund and then the 2015 airport Improvement project uh that had also had transfers into that fund from the airport Improvement fund uh to support the city share of that project uh then your Capital Equipment fund uh that one had a
decrease in 2020 2023 uh cuz there was a lot of activity in there uh this last year uh from Storm SE street lights uh and Equipment purchases so you saw a decrease in that fund as well um the uh the County Road 5 project uh also has a
deficit fund balance uh largely due to the expenses in that fund but that fund hasn't been the fund hasn't been fully funded um from uh expenses related to that project and then you have the McLoud County Wetland project and the phant Run project those ones are those projects are complete so we've closed
those funds um as there's no long longer expected to be any expenditures related to those projects um and that's that's all the governmental funds of the city that I was going to cover tonight uh moving away from the governmental funds to the the business type activities of the
city uh starting with the water fund uh again looking at the trends of the water funds cash and investment balances uh you know we we've kind of talked about these cash and investment balances and rates and things like that you're seeing here a slight decrease in that um cash
balance of the water fund some of that is is due to um operations leing into that uh margin you have or you're operating expenses you the margin you have to make your debt payments to make Capital Improvements and that was kind of what's driving your your decrease here in 2023 is Capital Improvements
within the fund the hero gal extension being one of the larger ones um you can see the impact it has on your cash balances uh on the next slide we'll look at the the operations of the fund um so we got operating nonoperating revenues these do clue include transfers in and
out of the fund uh so you you had a little bit um higher revenues and and transfers into the fund in 2023 um you know those arpa funds being transferred from the general fund to the water fund are are kind of what's driving that uh higher uh Revenue Mark
uh cuz you did have some expenses go up as well um so you have maybe a smaller well you back out the transfers piece of it you have a smaller decrease in your net position obviously those transfers into the fund results in an increase in your net position but that's kind of a
onetime onetime item to help fund that heral journal extension project and then on the next slide we look at uh this slide is is really meant to show the water fund's ability to pay its debt so that that blue line is kind of what the idea is
it's the cash being generated by operations of the fund um and depreciation is removed that's a non-cash expense to wear and tear on the current water infrastructure um to show what what the cash is being brought in from water operations to the debt
service requirements um on on the existing assets that the city has uh you can see here in 2023 uh it's it's bringing in enough cash to uh make its debt service payment so that's great um the one thing you did see though is you're decreasing that cash balance a
few slides back uh it kind of tells us uh maybe a review of the rates would be appropriate to to not see that Trend constantly go down and you may find yourself in a pinch if you have a large water expense um in the
future on the next Slide the sewer fund uh sewer fund cash and investment balances uh yeah you a slight decrease in that that cash balance and then again it's a lot of capital activity in that fund the her journal extension uh lift station pump there was the um County
Road 5 improvements there are some of those expenses are also in the the sewer fund as well um so you can see the impact that had on your sewer fund cash balance sewer fund cash balance is a little bit healthier position than the water fund uh but it also has more does have more infrastructure that needs to be maintained um and possibly replaced
in the future uh looking at the operations of the sewer fund on the next slide uh you can see here again this does include the transfers into that fund uh but the change in 2023 was pretty similar to 2022 um your revenues and your expense
kind of rose at the same page Cas uh and then of course there was that transfer in help Finance The Herald Journal extension then on the next slide similar we looked at with the water fund we also look at it with the sewer fund uh the sewer fund's ability to to pay its debt just with cash provided through
operations and you know we remve that depreciation you can see here uh you're you you're maintaining that margin to bring in enough cash to make those uh prior debt obligations and I think you have I think the longest one out standing is still 14 years so this is always an item uh to look at to see okay
is is the water or excuse me sewer fund going to be losing ground making those debt payments as well as to continue provide the service that it has been at the level it has been uh one item too in 2020 that one's a lot higher but there was that 2012 a bonds that were refunded
that year so that is a onetime item that unless you refund your bonds going forward we don't expect to see that um in the future so that was all the numbers I was going to cover tonight uh in addition to auditing the balances of the city we also look at the city's compliance and
and there's a few different rule making bodies that uh you have to be in compliance with the first being the state of Minnesota so we look at compliance with um laws related to contracts and bidding conflicts of interest depository public funds issuance of debt uh and we're happy to
report we came across no issues of non-compliance so that usually tells us as Auditors a few different things one that your team here knows what those laws are and two they're making sure they're being followed uh the next one is government auditing standards and we look at we look at internal control within the city who does what in that
financial transaction recording process and if youve if you listened to me talk before you probably heard me talk about a couple of these uh one of them is being The Limited segregation of Duties so with a smaller office staff it can be very difficult to break up every piece of that transaction process from who's
authorizing it who's recording it who has the custody of the city's assets uh so I kind of like to use as opportunity um to to talk to you at the governance level you you're another set of eyes in that process when you get that claims listing or you see a vendor that you don't recognize you know ask those questions of of your team here um and
I'm sure they'll be able to get you the answers you're looking for and then Auto Repair financial statements so with the products we provided um today while it's all derived from your financial records we do put it in that format to be in compliance with uh the government Accounting Standards Board so we have to
disclose that as well then on the next slide we also issue in addition to the financial statements we issue what's called we call it a management letter really it's a letter from us as Auditors to you at the governance level let you know you know how the audit went any difficulties we encountered any changes in accounting practices and and with the
difficulties thing you know we're happy report there were none and and we know we ask a lot when we come in of your team here and and it's not just them but we also ask a lot of your vendors your engineers your Banks the county the state uh there's a lot of parties involved in the audit process and and
we're very thankful for everybody who helped us uh get through that process and get us to the point where we can deliver the audit tonight and then on the very last slide well second the last slide I should say is uh discussion points so if you come across any new accounting standards that you need to be
aware of we like to put that in here or in this case it's it's a new law the earned safe and sick time law so the state passed um a new law that took effect January 1st of this year uh requiring employers to provide leave time to all employees who who qualified and it changes um who qualifies how much
they qualify for it expands the circumstances of their use uh there's notice and documentation requirements um and and just like most good laws it it seems to change as it comes out so the Department of Labor industry is still working on the implementation and the roll out of this new law as far as who
qualifies a big question is volunteer firefighters you know do they qualify for this or not um and we don't quite have a 100% answer on that yet from the state um so that's one thing to be aware of as as these um as the program is being rolled out by the Department of Labor
industry uh when we find out we'll make sure to pass along the information but just to be aware that this is a a new requirement and uh you're probably already feeling some impacts of it on your day-to-day operations here at the city so then on the last page is my
contact information so if you're looking through some of this stuff in your free time and and you think I should have asked just in this or I wish I would have asked in that you know feel free to call email or or if you're ever driving through the field stop by our office so um with that I'll open up to any questions anybody might have right now
are there any fund balances that concerned you you know it's I wouldn't say there's any that are concerning it's it's your Capital project funds and and the funding um the in fund borrowing to cover those you know you have I think it's the industrial park one that's kind
of historically um a negative fund balance because you have this Industrial Park land that's sitting out there uh how realizable is that value is they're going to be able to pay back the general fund uh the rest of your Capital project funds seem to have a uh a dedicated funding source to um pay back the
general fund and that's a big one I think it's I want to say it's like $535,000 or something um so that's one you know you still have the land so that's the asset you have on your books uh but is it going to be able is it going to be realized at that value to pay back the general fund and and I
think that's been quite a while it's been sitting out there um but that's the only one that uh I'm keeping an eye on from an hitor standpoint and then your water and sewer rates like we kind of touched with your cash balances kind of steadily decreasing um staying on top of the cost of operations what that rate
level needs to be to fund um not only your future Capital Improvements that need to be made in that fund but or to those systems but the debt payments that you have um and the nice part is the debt is is all scheduled out so you know what those are going to be it's really trying to predict what's that change in
operating cost going to be for that fund and what are the capital needs that are going to be needed in the future well those margins though and those two funds are a little smaller than you like to take it typically yeah typically I mean it'd be nice to have a gap where the cash you're bringing in you know you
have to pay your debt uh debt requirements but we like to see building a reserve you know your cash balances were going down I kind of like to see it going the other way cuz it's probably not going to get any cheaper to maintain those systems or improve upon them in the future so um yeah we' like to see your cash trending up not necessarily
down we have um a number of bonds uh that were paying off and um how are we positioned in terms of bonded indebtedness you know I mean can what
could we I'm what's a number that we could bond for today that's a good question that's a good you know right now you're sitting pretty well with your bond and you know a lot of your bonds at least the recent ones you've taken out have a very favorable interest rate um obviously interest rates have increased so the cost of borrowing is going to
increase in the future maybe that'll come back down um I I can't give you a number off the top of my head for well you know here's what you can comfortably take out and still pay but you're the eom yeah I I didn't prepare for that question tonight um but you know for the
water and sewer funds specifically like you kind of saw those slides you don't have a lot of wiggle room to take on more debt right now you know without raising rates or in those funds yeah in those two funds specifically um without raising rates or finding a way to cut the costs in those funds mhm you don't
have a lot of margin okay so you're not concerned with what we pay our city administrator no that didn't come up I think it came up as too little he was concerned about that yeah was he easier to work with this
year uh so actually last year we didn't get a lot of chance to work with because Adam was still kind of bridging that the answer is yes yeah so yeah he was here this year so we got a chance to work with him well thank you yeah thank you very much for having us out like I said if any other questions come up feel free to let us
know all right J thank you uh we've come to the organization report tonight it's McLoud Cony commissioner and no Cony administrator thank you it
wasn'ted Nathan is your term up this year we'll get to that oh we'll get to Sheila sits next to me will she show up on video right there you can see she is right now okay good first off I'd like to thank uh
mayor and Council and uh Raquel for inviting me in to uh address you this evening um it's much much appreciated um and I I'm excited exed when I get the invitation and uh certainly uh plan to to be here to try to make myself
accessible to you city of winad and the constituents that you represent as well a lot of times um I'll introduce myself for those maybe who are watching online but I'm Nathan schal I'm McLoud County Commissioner of District 1
District 1 includes the cities of Lester Prairie Winstead and Silver Lake along with the townships of buron winad and hail townships um sometimes we think we're forgotten out here in our corner of McLoud County
but I just wanted to highlight a few things that took place at today's County board meeting which definitely affects our local area here in the city of Winstead uh at today's meeting in case you haven't had a chance or didn't have
a chance to zoom um we started out by processing uh the windstock large assembly permit uh you've already uh done that um when topics like this come up before County Board um it's not just processing it but I try to educate the
other County Commissioners as well on what's happening out here in our district and and how huge the event is and and what a task it is to put it together not just to host the event but to put the permitting together extremely
uh extensive uh process to go through and along with that we uh processed the windstock liquor license uh for the event also on today's agenda we um
looked at the Winsted Lake uh treatment request for curly Leaf Pond weed and approved that expenditure um it's part of our AIS program in McLoud County we also review reviewed uh uh County Parks plan which includes
removal of the brick and mortar restrooms at our County Parks including Will May and replacing those with handicapped accessible ADA Compliant uh I guess we call them porta potties at those Parks um the uh the
buildings that are um there now will be torn down and uh if there's a pit below them they'll be filled in um along with that will come some uh some screening to offer some protection around uh these
porta potties when they're installed and then uh also as part of the county parks plan um we approved some new signage kiosks which are going to be installed at the county park the kiosks will serve as a place to uh post
information maybe post some mapping and other information uh pertain aining to McLoud County and the parks where they're located um at any time if you have questions feel free to interrupt me and bring it up I hope we can have an interactive conversation as we go
through this um I brought along a handout which um thanks to Administration was prepared for our um annual meetings that were held at the township uh level here back in March um there's a lot of information uh in the
pamphlet very well done and I thought I could share that with uh all of you tonight and feel free to share that with other people that you may have contact with and I'm going to go through it a lot of the pages don't probably concern you um very much um but we'll just go
through it quickly ask questions as we go through it and uh and um and I'm privileged to bring along our County Administrator Sheila Murphy this evening so I mean if you have questions that you want to direct to Sheila uh feels please
feel free to do so our contact information is on the front page uh we have our department heads on the second page um information on page three about uh Board of appeal and Equalization I don't think we need to unless you want
to ask questions about that um Board of appeal comes up in our second meeting in June uh you've already processed uh year part of it I suppose previously uh in McLoud County Drainage projects are uh a huge deal um and you
can see uh we have a whole page of projects and it it's not just uh ditches in McLoud County our system also includes ditches that join our neighboring counties as well and on page five um you know you
happen to know the uh tree spraying what does that entail what is there's a lot of tree spraying on this do you have any idea what that is the systems that we have in McLoud County I mean are we have a lot of miles of ditch in McLoud County
and the spraying um takes place after we get some of these ditches cleared from the trees um some of the maintenance on the ditches has been shall we say put off over the last de few Decades of
course with uh the considerations on County budget in mind but now we see the need of of U maintaining these ditches to a higher level um we see how expensive it is to remove a tree so once
we get that done we have a a spray program in place to make sure that we're not spending an extravagant amount of money trying to remove adult trees down road so that's why you see the the spraying on the it's similar to um what uh winst Township had uh started uh when
I became a superviser um we weren't spraying or we were spot spraying and it's really if you don't have a plan in place it's hard to carry out a a plan so uh you know when Winston Township started our spray program we started a program where we would spray uh half of
the Township in one year and the other half of the township the following year and then come back and do the another half again that way we spread out our costs uh and it seemed to be very effective as long as we kept up that schedule by the time you we came back
and sprayed the second or third time um it was very evident that it was a good program to be following and we hope to apply that same uh criteria to our County ditches as well not all ditches are County ditches I mean if you drive to Lester Prairie you'll see a private
ditch um so if you do get into a discussion with uh someone about uh a Waterway or a ditch you first have to identify what they're talking about what that person is referring to uh to see
whether it's a private ditch or a county ditch we go back to Parks yes go ahead question regarding William a park is there any thought or plans to connect that Park to the Loos land trail
Sheila do you remember um a discussion I thought we had a discussion about a connection uh from the park to the loose line but I can't remember where it went I know it was talked about we're going to talk a little bit about Parks during
the American Rescue plan act so maybe that is is that what you're referring to one of those projects or a different one I'm not familiar with the area exactly without yeah I thought uh who's in charge of the park John derc I
thought we talked a while back that they were looking at making a connection somewhere out there to connect that park with the loose line and I remember that discussion as well and as of now I have no information to share with you on that
plan or what uh John jbc's plan is for making that connection well I want to ask I don't I don't want to misquote it but I do know what you're talking about because I was in the American Rescue plan act funding group with you and we
had first talked about that connection where the trail goes around your Lake and it's going to be paved from there up to the gravel road to come towards the park so I know of that for sure being included in the funding I don't know that that's done though I don't think but that's not the same connection
correct corre okay so I would need to check in with John and I know that he was out of town but he should be back now and we can email you I was just wondering I mean CU I know some people have asked about it good question thank you and if there aren't any other
questions I'll let Sheila um discuss uh page five uh related to arpa funds there aren't too many changes from the last time that we came and get gave you an update or had discussion um I don't know if all of your funds are expended already I know that they all had to be
allocated of course by the end of 2024 which seemed like a really long time away when it came and of course now we're creeping up on it um and they all have to be spent by the end of 2026 so everything every city county Township that had the dollars has to have them
allocated by the end of this year they have to be spent on what you allocated them on by the end of 2026 so really a lot of what we've been working on over the past year is just carrying out implementing those projects that we had already allocated
those dollar towards there really isn't any aren't any changes do you have any questions about the funds so the fair being free is part of this arpa fund the agricultural Association chose to use those dollars for that that was
the hope and the intention um but our fear was if we said you have to use it for that every single year of this that if it didn't work out to have it a free fair that that could cause a problem for them um but they have been able to sustain that and that was the hope and
the intention of doing that having a a place where everyone in the community could go for free bring their family and enjoy the time there um and it has worked out so I would I would assume that it will keep happening through 2026 at least through 20 yeah and then their
hope of doing that is building sustainability into it so that they can continue doing that they didn't want to start a free fair and to stop it right um so I I do think that as long as everything stays all right that they would keep doing that too CBL Count's fair is free I think it has been for
years so yeah that was the I mean it was the hope that we could have a free Fair as well so been good and I think to add to that I believe that um we do have funding in place to have a free fair for a time period of 5 years yeah they don't have to though the
that's the only catch we did when you guys voted it they wanted to make sure it wasn't that we were forcing the agriculture Association to commit to a free fair in case it wouldn't work out but I would assume it will continue any other questions about arpa funding okay on page six we talk about
uh our County veterans service office of course we've had uh a retirement with Jim laow last year and uh Cassandra herrian um moves into the lead position at veterans uh service office um I can
say that Cassandra is very capable at what she does she's a very good asset for McLoud County and the veterans of McLoud County I have total confidence in Cassandra and um the department that she leads I've heard positive feedback as
well so yeah we were actually very lucky we just celebrated Cassandra's active duty retirement mhm couple of weeks ago um she's a definite asset to the county and Grant and Brianna have been great on her team as well
yeah um page seven recycling I I really um it's is disappointing that we don't have the recy recycling capabilities that we once had at uh the site in hail Township at County Road 15 in Highway 7
uh the site was just becoming too hard to manage as far as uh people abusing uh the site uh dumping garbage off and it was clear that without security without
fencing uh without even uh someone U observing what was happening out there that it just couldn't continue our recycling options are still uh taking place in hutchingson at Solid Waste um
they do operate I believe one Saturday a month uh for more you know Saturday mornings uh once a month and your schedule is printed on page seven um it's the best we can do for now and
it's still a point of discussion on what or how to recycle we just um don't have a clear Direction uh on that part at this time I I have a question to Neil or
Regarding why are we not taking appliances anymore was that our choice or the county yes well yes it's our choice um partly um partly due to the funding from these guys stopped and uh for for that portion of it and the same
reasons that they had to close them down is it was just more of a hassle than what it was worth well def Define worth I mean it it was a nice uh it was a nice service to be able to
provide winstonian so I guess I'll just give you examples of worth would be somebody has to come here get the permit then they have to bring it out there if they didn't know that they had to come here to get the permit then they would go out there then
this person had or our brush site attendant would have to go and tell that person you have to go to the city city officer are closed at that time now that person is extremely upset and there's other pieces to it as far as
the um when it gets picked up how we get reimbursed from the county for the pieces um just different things that weren't working along with all the other sites that you guys have had in the county and so I'm on the other end of it I had
a dishwasher a couple of weeks ago I came here to buy a permit and was told that we were no longer doing that and I imagine my surprise we never discussed that um it was a nice service to offer the community and and I wish we'd
reconsider that okay sorry guys but it was discussed we did talk about it I I don't recall that and yeah you might I don't know if you were there when we did it but I don't believe it was talked about in a city council meeting or work session uh that I recall and I haven't
missed one so I I do believe it was but but it's not neither here nor there at this point I mean we can bring it up again right you could revisit and uh city council and councilman alur I will remind you that um September 11th the city of winad is
included in Appliance curbside collection as you see and it there's a fee involved but it's a service as far as I think believe uh getting it picked up right in your driveway uh it's available to uh my Township as a Winston Township resident and hopefully the same
service is available able to you and your residents as well can I just ask a followup he already said it but can you explain why some of the other sites took that that remote um allliance recycling away was
it because of the abuse of the sites also where people were leaving um Electronics outside of the parameters of what guidelines were am I remembering that wrong try because I have no experience with um remote site with
Appliance Recycling I don't either but I do know that the only reason that we've had to discontinue any of our any of our programs or where they're located is due to abuse I mean just for instance at the courthouse which is across the street from you know or the site that's across
the street from the courthouse and law enforcement center people I I would watch people walk up and dump illegal materials and I would go up to them and say you literally can't do that and they' just go oh drive off and then say
someone say well why you guys have cameras just process that cost way more than disposing of an illegal dumping um so it just became unmanageable and I'm guessing that that's probably what happened if that was if that was a service the remote um Appliance
Recycling right because I remember us talking about it it's closing closing and because of that use in other sites and because of um the funding that will stop in 202 for our attendant that's
that's what was talked through at work or a budget meeting maybe the 20204 budget meeting last summer right around in that time but thank you for that um I hope that's accurate I would assume our site was manned is manned I
mean you couldn't you couldn't drop those appliances off and you know unless the the leaf dump was open right so Wednesdays and Saturday mornings but I think we have had I shouldn't speak but I think there have been instances where it's outside and we has I mean happened
I don't know how many get dropped off they do get dropped off that did a that that was one of the largest concerns of and the other weren't open piece right now with it being open we weren't going to be able to have somebody there all the time all
the fencing because of the Construction Construction right right not pertaining to um Appliance Recycling but as Sheila mentioned uh right across from the courthouse facility last year someone dropped off a piano well what's what's the county supposed to do with
the piano um so uh the abuse was widespread almost at every drop off site and uh it was just um too much to ignore the abuse ruined a well-intentioned program
unfortunately uh if you have specific questions pertaining to recycling I would ask that you contact uh Mark tki our Environmental Services director or Sarah Young uh would be a great contact uh working in Mark's office uh to
further explore options Appliance Recycling want to speak on County attorney please sure um in not I in the near future there'll be a annual report coming from the attorney office and the sheriff's office we used to do that
annual report during the student government day which was recently um we didn't have your area of schools at Student Government day they were invited and we really would encourage you if you have a connection with a teacher if you are a teacher um if you are
administration at any of your schools that your students attend we would love for them to come whether it's one student or 20 it's a really good event so typically the attorney's office and Sheriff's Office save their annual reports for those times but they were not um in April this year so what you'll
see in those nice annual reports which are posted on our website is just kind of a summary of what kind of items that they've been dealing with throughout the the year the attorney's office as you know Ryan Hans took over last year as the new County attorney things are going
well there's just been a lot of change due to turnover in the office which to be honest is mainly due to the competitive competitive environment with wages for attorneys throughout the state it's not a McLoud County issue the
office is doing well we have great staff um but we are staffed right now and it's it's going well and would you do the Sheriff's Office sure Sheriff langenfeld um you all know him I'm sure and today him and his chief Deputy Aon Ward were at our
meeting to recognize Kevin Matthews he retired after 29 years as our Emergency Management director we haven't faced the same challenges that other counties and cities have faced throughout the state which Chief H could tell you about more
um I know that cities have had to be so responsive in their Staffing we I think we've been pretty lucky actually in having some good retention um because we have the jail the corrections and the Sheriff's Office Sheriff's Office and
the communications um it's just been going pretty well overall from what the feedback is that he gives us so I don't really have anything else than that and and credit to Administration you know on heading off some of those issues uh related to uh uh wage compensation I
mean the foresight that uh Administration brings to the table is much appreciated by me as a commissioner in uh trying to um create that continuity in McLoud County on page 10 there's uh some
changes ahead for um assessing um the board did approve um to go to what they call a true County assessing system I did not vote in favor of that be just because of the timeline involved
um one of our government entities in district one uh Silver Lake was still using private assessing as part of their assessment in their city and I wanted to be sensitive to their situation and give them uh you know as much time as possible to adjust
to what we call true County uh true County not only will affect uh our government entities out here in uh district one it also affects the assessor's office as well um and some of the people that staff the assess
assessor's office um so if you have any questions about uh assessing uh feel free your questions might come up as the change occurs it's going to be a little bit of a difficult change between private assessment and and going to the true County model for our office even
and the changes have already caused confusion when some of our assessors are out in the field so if you do have any citizens that bring a concern to you about someone assessing their property and who should be there and who shouldn't um just default to us and we'll help how over we can but for our
municipality nothing has changed right like and uh so quite a few of the townships hired like independent contractors to do assessing and that's all going away that's changing right a lot of the the
independent contractors for people who already work in our office oh the most won't like a side gig yes oh and that's what I was referring to as far as being sensitive to uh the assessor's office and uh the people that staff are staffed
by the assessor's office too to try and give them some time to to work through this as we go it is set to um um be implemented uh January 1 of 2025 um page 11 I won't really speak to uh Gravel Road St stabilization study uh
construction projects on page 12 um it's kind of an off year for um our corner of McLoud County a lot of times these projects are staged you know so that we can take advantage of um mobility and having contractors work let's say within
a District or within a certain area um one thing that um is happening of course is the the cony Road 5 extension hopefully um that can be uh completed as planned here this year um uh one uh thing that started uh just
today or yesterday was uh the morning side uh intersection at Highway 212 in Glenco uh is getting a roundabout so uh if you're driving through that area PR prepared to um follow the detours
um let's see other than that we look forward to next year um County Road 1 is still on schedule for a concrete overlay from where um the project was uh uh terminated or left off Southwest alester
Prairie the plan is to come now from that point uh into Winstead and also we're um setting that project up uh to cooperate with uh the county of Wright County as well so that uh concrete
overlay is planned to go all the way to Howard Lake did that project change a little bit cuz I thought last year when you were here said it wasn't going to be or has it always uh it is not most of it's going to be concrete but not
through City the municipalities sometimes will reserve the option of because of the under utilities utilities under the road I believe that Lester Prairie and winad are both looking at uh maintaining an asphalt section uh
through through their city limits along with the it' be hard on the businesses for the closure being that long because of the concrete takes longer the assho but if you had to dig up dig something up that much more right as well yeah yep
so it was really um something that we explored right to keep it all the way through concrete but um in the end Mr Engle and we just didn't feel like it would be feasible and I can say that you know um
our uh um our County engineer uh Andrew Engel is in constant contact with uh Bolton and mink uh for your city engineer as well to make sure that we're we're cooperating and and doing the best we can to serve the community needs
um I did have a uh ukap uh joint Powers board meeting uh last week and um you know some of you may be cons have some concern about uh application process that we're looking at expanding in the community um I asked uh Dr um lockart
findings on uh the timeline um she will be putting in for grant funding uh for Early Head Start and a Head Start program and um she may not um hear if the grant has been approved or not until
around the September time frame uh they were very excited with the um participation and the interest that the community had given us uh when uh we visited with you um and a special um a
special thanks to uh superintendent uh wal brush and his active uh particip ipation and and looking at this program and and what he brings to the table uh with him and the school district as well and then Tom asked about uh my
service as commissioner I am in my fourth year and it is an election year and um I do enjoy uh serving the people of District 1 and I hope that that can continue for myself I will be filing for reelection here in 2 weeks okay so
hopefully we'll be successful with that and uh and uh and hopefully I can continue serving in the capacity that I do good any questions uh you'd like to address to Sheila or myself Sheila are
there any departments in the county that are underst staffed uh there there always is on an enough it changes you know we have over over 400 employees right but Health and Human Service is hard it's always going to be difficult to staff but yes we have
openings on and off throughout Health and Human Services our auditor Treasurer's Office runs a licensing center that seems to have openings throughout time as well it's been going better since we've been at the government center it's a a nice setup Janet Connie they do a great job there
Barrett does a wonderful job upstairs um Public Works was really difficult for a few years without we had such a large amount of people retiring near the same time just like everyone else yeah I mean we weren't 3M thankfully we didn't have like hundreds of people retiring at the
same time but when you have plow truck drivers and people who Run Road graders all leaving they have to train people and it's difficult so we've gotten through the toughest parts of that I would say and our staff that's training in they're doing very well we're fortunate we're not in as tough a
position as other counties when I go to my meetings I'm like you feeling good I can't complain the Licensing Bureau get a fair amount of complaints about that do you no the way it's set up uh I I sure hear a lot
about it because you've got to talk to the person at that desk when you first walk in and then seems like you know when I've gone there it seems like you sit a while before before your name gets called um and I've heard that time and time again from people
that's funny I think that honestly if you were talking about it in a sense where you had to wait you're going toar from people who had to wait I see it all week though we have people drive from Minneapolis to get their license in our office it's quicker quicker so they come there to get their passport there are a
few times during the week that are really busy especially Fridays you know people take off work on Fridays to go in um lunch break from like 11: to 1: those are difficult to cover but when people call in sick it can be hard one of the biggest problems is when you walk in and
it's shaped kind of like your Das there you you see all these people so you think well if they're standing there why can't they help me m you have to be you have to have a segregation of Duties like you talked about during your audit we can't have someone who does a passport do license you can't have someone that does um like Connie who
does the election or J they aren't going to come up and do your license um so there are only certain people that can do it I think the visibility is an issue M and it has been hard for the people working behind that wall as well so we are going to put up sort some sort of
Separation so that just it looks I don't want to say just so looks better when you walk in because that's not it it's also for the people working there they need some quiet looks more inviting yeah so I do think that that is it because I've sat there and thought
well why are those three sitting at desk and not helping people well that's not their job title or job description right and it's probably really frustrating for them and by having the open able to help the open concept you're not you're looking at uh uh people who work in the
assessor's office people who work in the treasurer's office um people who work in the register's office they probably are not they're not cross trained they're not qualified to be doing what I call the counter service yeah they won't finish their job if they're doing so
when Sheila talks about the screening I think that'll hopefully improve the perception of what's going on there and um I get a couple complaints a year so I guess I'm fortunate that it's just just a couple but usually the first thing I'll ask someone who has had a bad
experience there is is did you have a reservation did you reserve a time slot and to me that's always the key um it's pretty easy to do you go to the County website you reserve a time slot um I've
used it every time I've needed tabs or licensing and um it seems to work very well or even call the General line just I think it's I'm not going to say it off the top of my head I'll mess it up however if people don't use the the
internet a lot they can call us we'll we'll make them an appointment on there it takes us 2 seconds but I think it's not like and I told you so but I anticipated this happening when they showed us the plans I'm like that's not going to people are going to like that because if you have to go in a spot and
check in somewhere and go somewhere else it's the same thing like if I go to the clinic it may not be that bad but I probably still anoid I don't want to do that right so I've thought actually we talked about it a few weeks ago at our department head meeting about not having someone at that front desk I've always
been kind of fought on that but I think that if they could go up to where they need help it would probably just FL initially didn't you there was no one there right and and we were supposed to use the the kiosk by ourselves or not no they just the person that we hired right
when we moved in didn't work out so sometimes there were openings yeah I remember the first time going in there I think I had to do it myself and and yeah whatever so I get it they don't do driver's tests anymore
yeah they do well bring my kid to Grand Rapids you might want to check into it because we've I mean they have openings you shouldn't have to be going to Grand Rapid yeah that's what I thought you have to be awake at midnight when the is that what it is but sometimes
they I know maybe if you call there and ask Candice who answers the phone typically to help you would should you be doing that she would be able to give you the tips and tricks we're on it yeah there's there's something with uh you can only schedule so far in advance we 30
days we ended up going to Olivia well I have till Friday in closing I do I like to remind uh the public that uh they should check into the County website welcome to McLoud uh they can see our meeting schedules they
can uh get County News uh they can view our agenda our board packets and our Workshop topics um uh just you can find a lot of things uh that you'd have questions about if you just go to the website um and lastly I'll say if you
know of people who are struggling in life who financially aren't making it um I like to say uh try to refer them to ukap United Community Action uh we have an office in Leno we have an office in
hutchingson and um they seem to be well equipped or at least they know where to send people for resources who have needs and we know they're out there um this week we we celebrate uh mental health
awareness uh in in our state uh we read a couple of proclamations uh regarding mental health awareness here in in McLoud County and uh I'd like to say mental health awareness is something that affects all of us it
affects everyone in and affects every community and it's if it were an easy uh problem to solve we maybe get there but it's not it's very difficult it takes a community effort it takes a there's a it
takes a a faith-based organizations it takes governmental organizations one entity can't solve the Mental Health crisis that we we have today not just with adults with uh children as well so uh remember that
also remember today is I think uh we observe um uh National um nurses uh day today as well so if you have a nurse in your family uh tell them thank you uh for the service that they do to the
community any other questions you have of Sheila or myself you mentioned ukap so just an FYI about a month ago go Food Shelf they are office sh building and uh quite helpful
those two entities kind of go hand in hand and it's a nice service yep and we're happy to have their presence in uh Glenco and you are correct they run an office out of the U McLoud County Emergency Food Shelf
building as also well thank you yes thank you both thank you have a good evening good luck with the election oh thank you we've come to the open Forum section of the meeting tonight if anybody has anything they want to address the council please step
forward all right members of council thank you for having me just wanted to mention uh we have a driving seminar that'll be May 16th here at 2 p.m. in the vulmer room uh Joan SS is her name she's coming out she has a uh she's funded through our tzd uh Grant and
she's going to talk about aging driving so um we will have some refreshments so I would recommend coming to that and on the 22nd of May is our Bike Rodeo at 6:00 p.m. at Winston Elementary um and then if you haven't
seen it uh we have our truck now um so that's parked out front if you want to take a peek take a first spin let me know thank you the sirens and lights work found out today okay we've come to the city administrator and any announcements
updates uh hopefully the street lights are going to be being worked on tomorrow what I've been told so cross your fingers on that uh Lake Association is doing their plant sale this weekend and i' just like to thank the staff that did
take the time and a lot of time and effort to put together that audit they do the bulk of it I'd like to thank them Tom you have anything I do not well I mentioned sheriff langfeld and just I had no idea
he was going to be a sheriff right but about 30 years ago um I did test his abilities and very professional pulls you over you uh certainly have a way [Laughter] with Jesse uh no sir look for a motion
to adjourn make a motion to adjourn we have a motion do we have a second second a motion second all in favor I oppos meeting adjourned