Budget Committee August 01, 2023   8/1/2023

Good afternoon.

My name is Emily Koski and I'm the chair of the Budget Committee.

Councilmember Payne.

Present.

Wonsley is absent.

Rainville is absent.

Ellison is absent.

Jenkins.

Committee.

This is approval of a special law allowing the city to create more deputy police chiefs in our police department as well as the creation and retitling of positions in our police department to accommodate this change.

Before I invite our human resource department to do their presentation, I'll ask that our city attorney offer a brief explanation of the meaning and process for special laws as this is the first time our council is considered a special law together.

Sure.

Thank you, Chair Koski.

And I'll be brief.

This won't be what I'm sure Casey Carroll could give the constitutional history of special laws.

And I won't delve into that.

But a special law is essentially legislation that applies to part of a class.

So a particular person, thing, or location within a given class.

And those types of laws are prohibited by the state constitution.

It's Article 12.

However, there is an exception for special laws applicable to local government.

So an example, what everyone is familiar with, a Minnesota statute is a general law.

Cities are authorized to do X, Y, and Z.

Cities of the first class are authorized to do X, Y, and Z.

A special law would be a law that's applicable to Minneapolis specifically.

and that's what you have with number two here.

It's specific to Minneapolis, our structure and the MPD.

There is a statute that does require when a special law is adopted by the state legislature, there is a Minnesota statute at 645.021 that does require the approval of the local government unit, the governing body of the city in this case.

That approval has to be by resolution adopted by a majority vote of all members of the governing body of the unit.

and then if that is to occur, the city clerk will file that with the Secretary of State as evidence of the local approval and thus the effective date of the special law.

If the council fails to do that,

file that certificate of approval prior to the first day of the next regular session of the legislature, and so in January the law is deemed to be disapproved and then thereafter cannot be enacted.

Thank you, appreciate that.

Good afternoon members of the Council.

I'm here today to talk about the appointed positions the Deputy Police Chiefs.

As background, the Council had previously approved three appointed positions at 733 points grade 16.

These were the Police Deputy Chief Administrative Services, also known as the Deputy Chief Internal Affairs, that is currently occupied by Troy Schoenberger.

the Police Deputy Chief Investigations which is currently held by Kathy Waite and lastly the Police Deputy Chief of Operations also known as the Deputy Chief of Patrol currently occupied by Eric Force.

So if approved these three positions would be retitled to simply Deputy Police Chief.

and then we would have two new deputy police chief positions that we'll be overseeing.

One, the Constitutional Policing Bureau and two, the Internal Affairs Bureau.

All five positions will report to the police chief in the police department.

Here's an org chart of the positions that we're talking about.

The two positions in gold are the new positions that we're asking for.

The other positions, as you can see, there's an Investigations Bureau, which is the position held by Kathy Wade.

There's the Patrol Bureau, which is occupied by Eric Fors, and then there's the Professional Standards Bureau, which is occupied by Troy Schoenberger.

The job duties of the Deputy Police Chiefs are that they are close advisors to the Police Chief and have responsibility for helping to implement the Police Chief's full executive vision, managing projects, performing general and specialist law enforcement duties, coordinating planning, reviewing and supervising the activities of the Police Department.

Combined with the two additional Deputy Police Chiefs, the five positions will provide leadership and accountability to key bureaus in the Police Department.

This represents a critical first step in the implementation of the MDHR and eventual DOJ agreements.

In 2023, the fiscal impact of these positions are that the annualized cost of base salary, benefits, and fringe for the three existing positions is about $218,000 and are reflected in the 2023 and 2024 police department budgets.

At Step 2, the estimated 2023 annual cost for the two additional deputy police chiefs, including base paid benefits and fringe, is about $436,000 and will be covered by sworn position cost savings.

The estimated total 2023 cost for all five positions is about $1.2 million.

You can see the base salary below, which starts at $153,500 and goes up to $181,900.

This position meets the criteria of 2010-10 of the Minneapolis Code of Ordinances.

So the criteria is that it reports to the head of the designated city department or designated city department heads.

In this case, they report to the police chief.

They must be part of the designated department head's management team.

In this case, they will serve as members of the executive management team of the police department.

Their deputies must involve significant discretion and substantial involvement in the development, interpretation and implementation of city or department policy.

In this case, they will lead the development and implementation of the City's policy, goals, and strategic planning for the Police Department.

Next, duties must not primarily require technical expertise where continuity in the position would be significant.

This requires leadership, vision, team building, strategy implementation, and progress evaluation.

And finally, they must be accountable to, loyal to, and compatible with the Mayor, the City Council, and the Deputy Head.

Deputy Police Chiefs establish policy goals and strategies that are consistent with the goals and the priorities established by the Mayor, City Council, and the Police Chief.

So our request is that you find that the Deputy Police Chief meets the criteria of appointed as defined in section 2010-10 of the Minneapolis Code of Ordinances and that you will forward it on to City Council for approval.

Thank you, Ms. Miller.

I appreciate it.

Are there any questions for staff?

Thank you, Chair Koski, and also for the Clerk, if I could also just be recognized for today's meeting.

I did want to just share a quick observation on this item, which I did notice on the RCA under the fiscal note that it says this item is a cost neutral item because MPD is using

basically cost savings from unfilled positions and sworn peace officers to pay for these civilian unsworn positions and I just wanted to flag this because we're constantly hearing some inconsistencies on the council side when we are looking at these dollars for additional budget allocations and saying that you know MPD are currently they're estimated to

So I just wanted to highlight the fact that, again, there's this inconsistency.

If we're using those dollars for these two positions, clearly there's somewhat of an access point to these dollars.

and I would like to continue at least this body in exploring what are alternative ways we can use those dollars.

Specifically, I know we've been able to do that through economic development means with the warehouse life initiatives and seeing what other programs we can, again, support using similar funds.

So I just wanted to highlight what often feels like a double standard in regards to this funding source.

Thank you.

I am not seeing any further questions, so I'll move approval of both items.

Thank you, Chair Koski.

I was just curious if Ms. Dye or someone could address the issue that was just raised.

It seems to me that those funds were allocated for staffing.

And this is staffing.

Good afternoon, Chair Koski, Councilmembers.

This action is an HR action to create the position, but it does not add funding to sustain the position.

that would go through the normal budget process.

And we do a budget personnel cleanup every spring, and then departments have the option to submit budget proposals for additional funding.

Right.

I understand that.

But I think the question was, these are, quote, surplus dollars that are being used.

Thank you, Chair.

Just for what I could add, these are positions for sworn members, so it would be current sworn members that would be appointed to those positions.

That's not what I was asking.

And I get, Council President, your efforts to try to clarify what I was saying.

What I said was what I said in terms of in the fiscal note for this item, it does say that you are using existing or using sworn position salary savings.

So the way that I interpret that is savings from unfilled positions for these salaries in order to fund.

No, that was never my question.

I think that was maybe Council President's.

I'm saying in terms of your fiscal notes saying unfilled savings from unfilled positions are being used to fund.

I believe what HR is trying to say is that there are existing personnel dollars.

We budget, of course, for 731 sworn positions.

We know that we're not at that level.

So these positions are being funded through the existing appropriation for personnel.

Right.

And just clarification, I said exactly what was in the fiscal note of using savings from unfilled sworn peace officer positions.

So I don't think we say anything different.

We're on the same page.

Thank you.

Oh, OK. All right.

Not seeing any further questions, I'll move approval of both items one and two.

Not seeing any, I will ask the Clerk to call the roll.

That motion carries.

Next we have item number three.

It is the appointed position of director of public health initiatives in the Health Department.

The new Director of Public Health Initiatives has been evaluated at 558 points in Grade 12.

The position oversees the divisions within public health, which include the emergency preparedness, opioid response, maternal child and adolescent health and epidemiology.

Unfortunately, I discovered an error on the fiscal impact slide on the final version of the presentation, so I will speak from memory, but I will certainly get the proper information to you after we wrap up.

So it's approximately between $150,000 and $170,000 in total fringe benefits, etc.

I believe the salary schedule was somewhere between $99,000 and about $150,000.

But again, I will get the exact numbers to you following this meeting.

We are asking, of course, that you find that this position meets the criteria section 2010-10 of the Minneapolis Code of Ordinances.

Again, this must report to the head of the designated city department or the designated city department head's deputy, and these report to the deputy health commissioner, or this reports to the deputy health commissioner.

They must be part of the designated department head's management team, in this case the Public Health

They will be a member of the Public Health's Executive Management Team.

The duties must involve significant discretion and substantial involvement in the development, interpretation, or implementation of city or department policy.

In this case, the position leads the development and implementation of city policy goals and strategic planning for assigned divisions in the Health Department.

Next, the duties must not primarily require technical expertise for continuity and the position would be significant.

Again, this position requires leadership, vision, team building, strategy, implementation, and progress evaluation.

And finally, it must be accountable to, loyal to, and compatible with the mayor, the city council, and the department head.

and in this case the position establishes policy goals and strategies that are consistent with the goals and priorities established by the Mayor, City Council and the Health Commissioner.

Thank you, Ms. Miller.

Are there any questions for staff?

OK, not seeing any.

I'll move approval of item number three.

May I have a second?

Second.

Is there any further discussion?

Councilmember Payne?

Aye.

That motion carries.

Finally, we have item number four.

It's a resolution appropriating funding for a truth and reconciliation program.

This was submitted by Councilmember Wonsley and heard at the July 18th Committee of the Whole meeting, where it was referred to today's Budget Committee meeting.

Since that meeting, Councilmember Wonsley has submitted a revised resolution, and that motion is before us today.

I will invite Councilmember Wonsley to move approval and to speak to this item, which is being co-authored by Councilmember Chavez.

Chair Koski, just for clarity on this.

So this original budget amendment was brought forward last week.

Council President, you, I, and Council Member Chavez will be co-authoring a legislative directive that will come to Cal right after this.

But this budget amendment is basically a revised version of what we moved last week to allocate dollars towards the Truth and Reconciliation programming costs, which

For three years now, it's been unclear of how much dedicated funding had actually went towards the programmatic side of truth and reconciliation.

This is also in light of the third precinct report where it clearly recommended the public wanted to see a truth and reconciliation process move forward.

That builds upon the work that Council President did in 2020.

that our staff started around that time and finally gives us space to fund that work and then later in CAL you'll hear about legislative directive where we'll actually get updated on the actual work plan of how this work is being advanced for the rest of the year.

budgeting department to get a funding source and the funding proposal that was actually in alignment with the staff needs to move this work forward and want to give thanks to our budget staff for helping get us to this place.

But with that said, source.

is changed.

Now that's coming from REIB as opposed to unassigned funds from MPD's budget.

So I just wanted to clarify those two changes between the last cycle's motion we brought on this and today's motion.

Thank you, Council Member Wonsley.

I want to make sure then Council President is on there as an author.

I apologize for not having that and she has moved for approval.

Is there any further discussion?

Councilmember Payne?

Aye.

Rainville?

Aye.

So that candidate is eliminated.