Budget Committee September 12, 2023   9/12/2023

Discussion

• • Emily Koski
  • 00:00:16
    Good morning.
  • 00:00:17
    My name is Emily Koski and I'm the chair of the Budget Committee.
  • 00:00:19
    I'm going to call to order a regular committee meeting for Tuesday, September 12th.
  • 00:00:24
    At this time, I'll ask the clerk to call the roll to verify the presence of a quorum.
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 00:00:29
    Councilmember Payne is absent.
  • 00:00:31
    Wonsley?
  • 00:00:32
    Present.
  • 00:00:32
    Rainville?
  • 00:00:33
    Present.
  • 00:00:34
    Vitor?
  • 00:00:35
    Present.
  • 00:00:35
    Ellison is absent.
  • 00:00:37
    Osman is absent.
  • 00:00:39
    Goodman?
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 00:00:40
    Present.
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 00:00:41
    Jenkins is absent.
  • 00:00:42
    Chavez?
  • 00:00:43
    Present.
  • 00:00:45
    there are nine members present
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:00:54
    Let the record reflect that we have a quorum.
  • 00:00:57
    Today we will begin hearing presentations from city departments on the mayor's 2024 recommended budget.
  • 00:01:02
    On the agenda today is the mayor's office, the legislative department, and the city attorney's office.
  • 00:01:08
    We will begin with a presentation from the mayor's office.
  • 00:01:12
    And here to present is Mayor Frey's chief of staff, Michael Wachowicz.
  • 00:01:17
    Welcome.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:01:23
    My name is Michael Vlachovich, the mayor's chief of staff, here today to discuss the 2024 proposed budget for the mayor's office.
  • 00:01:35
    Starting with an overview of how our team is structured, we're broken down into three programmatic divisions.
  • 00:01:41
    That's communications and engagement, policy and government affairs,
  • 00:01:46
    Operations and Constituent Services.
  • 00:01:48
    You can see that the plurality of those positions reside within the Policy and Government Affairs team.
  • 00:01:54
    Today we have seven FTEs supporting that body of work.
  • 00:01:59
    It grew by one in 2023 thanks to the new funding you all approved for additional safety aid.
  • 00:02:06
    the Operations and Constituent Services team.
  • 00:02:09
    It's four full-time staff.
  • 00:02:10
    That's thanks to one additional FTE.
  • 00:02:14
    That's the Vacant Repurposed Reclassified Crime Prevention Specialist that we discussed last year that has become our Constituent Services Coordinator.
  • 00:02:26
    Our communications and engagement team presently has three staff as we discussed again last year We're hoping to grow that by one FTE through new funding in the 2024 budget those three departments report up to the chief of staff which in turn reports up to the mayor and
  • 00:02:46
    and our office's mission is simply improving the daily lives of Minneapolis residents.
  • 00:02:51
    That's through clear and consistent direction to the cabinet as well as administrative department heads.
  • 00:02:57
    Included for your reference there are the mayor's core policy priorities.
  • 00:03:02
    Achievements and risks from a budget perspective, those two FTEs that we had
  • 00:03:07
    I've previously discussed the safety aid focused on the broader OCS portfolio that's the non-law enforcement body of work has been hired a few weeks ago and then the constituent service coordinator was tasked with centralizing and really better tracking the individual responses that our office receives.
  • 00:03:27
    From a risk perspective, I think that those our office faces mirror the enterprise as a whole.
  • 00:03:33
    Its capacity challenges under the new structure, turnover, and of course, burnout.
  • 00:03:39
    That's happening against the backdrop of a very competitive job market, as I know you all know.
  • 00:03:47
    On the staffing front, we sit at 20, or excuse me, in 2023, set 16 FTEs.
  • 00:03:54
    Again, under the 2024 proposal, we would seek to grow by 1 FTE.
  • 00:03:58
    Both those figures are inclusive of the mayor, and we presently have zero vacancies.
  • 00:04:07
    The budget itself, the final figure for 2023 was $2.7 million.
  • 00:04:13
    We had ended the year anticipating a roughly $180,000 increase.
  • 00:04:18
    That's been offset thanks in large part to a decrease in our contractual services budget item, specifically the amount MBC charges for rent changed and decreased for our office.
  • 00:04:29
    And the same is true of the fund the formula that it relies on for how they expense their services.
  • 00:04:34
    So we're holding steady at roughly 2.7 million for this year's recommended budget.
  • 00:04:43
    Again, that full-time staff that we had discussed bringing out to support the communications team, their overriding focus would be on enterprise communications.
  • 00:04:52
    We've heard clear and consistent feedback from city staff as well as members of this body that we've got room for improvement when it comes to effectively sharing information from the administrative side, the executive branch, with you all and with the broader enterprise in City Hall.
  • 00:05:08
    So that would be the overriding focus of this new staff member.
  • 00:05:13
    and they come at a cost of $159,000.
  • 00:05:14
    That's new, ongoing funding.
  • 00:05:20
    That concludes my presentation.
  • 00:05:21
    Happy to stand for any questions.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:05:25
    Thank you.
  • 00:05:26
    We have Council Member Payne in queue.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 00:05:29
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
  • 00:05:30
    I'm curious now that we have the new government structure, we've done a lot of work around effectively creating a cabinet level so that the mayor has direct access to the entire administration.
  • 00:05:42
    Can you clarify for me the division of responsibilities between policy staff that exist within the mayor's office and policy staff that exist within the administration?
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:05:57
    Chair Koski, Council Member Payne, I am happy to take a crack at that.
  • 00:06:04
    It might be helpful for some example of the sort of enterprise staff you're considering just to make sure that I'm hitting my mark.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 00:06:12
    For instance, housing policy, we have a ton of staff in CPED that focuses around housing policy, financing, zoning, planning.
  • 00:06:23
    We also have people with that portfolio within the mayor's office.
  • 00:06:29
    Full cards on the table, I feel like under the previous government structure where the mayor didn't have as much direct access control and authority over the administration,
  • 00:06:38
    It was really beneficial to have dedicated staff within the mayor's office so that you could have that one-to-one relationship.
  • 00:06:45
    Now that we have the new government structure, I'm curious as to what that division of labor should be now that the mayor is the authority over the entire administration and should have that access and control, especially by way of the COO and the Commissioner of Public Safety.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:07:02
    Chair Koski, Council Member Payne, thank you for clarifying.
  • 00:07:06
    I think that it would vary on a case-by-case basis, but the example you identified is really useful.
  • 00:07:15
    our policy staff are not necessarily meant to be subject matter experts within in a technical sense I should say in those respective fields rather serving as liaisons and connective tissue between the mayor's direction and effectively ensuring that that direction is carried out across the enterprise so if you consider our housing staff for example they did a lot of work designing and discussing the
  • 00:07:41
    setting up the vision for stable homes, stable schools, for instance, we wouldn't expect that staff to be responsible for administering that particular initiative or program.
  • 00:07:52
    They serve as liaison both with community and departments on behalf of the mayor.
  • 00:07:58
    Not as much hard technical side expertise as city enterprise staff, if that makes sense.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 00:08:07
    And then my follow-up question is, do you think there's an opportunity to have a deeper integration between the mayor's office and the administration at large?
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:08:17
    Chair Koski, Council Member Payne, yes, I do think that.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 00:08:22
    Thank you.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:08:26
    Next, we have Council Member Wonsi.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 00:08:28
    Thank you, Chair Koski.
  • 00:08:30
    Just a quick question regarding slide number four where
  • 00:08:35
    It's mentioned that there was an FTE for 2022 and 2023 dedicated to the Office of Community Safety in building out that work.
  • 00:08:45
    Is that position being carried over into 2024 as well?
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:08:48
    Chair Koski, Council Member Wonsley, yes.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 00:08:51
    Okay, that's good to know considering, I know right now in Pogo, we're considering a gift item for executive support services for an outside partner with Ryan and companies to do exactly, it seems like similar work to support the rollout of OCS.
  • 00:09:09
    So just making sure we're not duplicating efforts.
  • 00:09:11
    If there was already executive resources available to support OCS, that's good to know for 2024.
  • 00:09:18
    as we're taking up that item in POGO.
  • 00:09:21
    The other question that I had was around this FTE position, which the components is talking about supporting enterprise wide communications
  • 00:09:31
    and streamline the communications between the executive and legislative side.
  • 00:09:36
    Can you identify in what ways that's not being carried out by these two buckets that already exist in the mayor's office where we have, I see three existing FTEs for communications and engagement.
  • 00:09:48
    That seems like that would be the place.
  • 00:09:50
    or to have staff, at least three, to do that communications piece.
  • 00:09:53
    And then the operations side.
  • 00:09:55
    If there's something lacking there around enterprise-wide administration, there's also three FTEs.
  • 00:10:03
    So between those two buckets, there's six.
  • 00:10:05
    Why there's a shortfall where we need or where the office needs additional full-time position to support that capacity building.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:10:13
    Chair Koski, Councilmember Wonsley, thank you for the question.
  • 00:10:17
    I think if I'm interpreting it correctly, the focus of the existing staff, especially within the communications engagement team, is more externally focused.
  • 00:10:29
    That's media relations, community relations, and this position would differ in as much as we would have more dedicated, less ad hoc communication
  • 00:10:40
    think with you all and with the enterprise as a body.
  • 00:10:43
    So I know that in other executive offices like the governor's or similar structures this is a really useful position in terms of making sure that everything that happens on the executive branch is being coordinated and that relevant information is being effectively shared internally.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 00:11:00
    And that's still a little bit confusing because in the description it does mention that two-way where
  • 00:11:07
    currently this position or proposed position would do the internal and external.
  • 00:11:12
    I know we get the press releases and there has been ongoing emails that we receive each week about some of the work that the mayor's office is doing.
  • 00:11:20
    So I was under the assumption that whoever is doing that work, I can't remember the staff member's name who would receive those emails.
  • 00:11:26
    It seems like there is that communication.
  • 00:11:28
    I know also a number of us meet with some of the mayor's office.
  • 00:11:32
    They come to agenda settings like keep us in the loop.
  • 00:11:35
    so maybe that's been a gap that's been identified by colleagues but it seems like there has been some staffing support to be present in that way to do both that internal and external communications and to kind of keep you know council members abreast on what's happening when we're doing policy work and connecting with specific staff like yourself
  • 00:11:55
    and the Mayor's office.
  • 00:11:57
    So still a little confused about the need for this position in recognizing that it seems like some of these duties or responsibilities are being handled by the six between those two divisions.
  • 00:12:09
    But outside of that, those were all the questions I had.
  • 00:12:12
    Thank you so much for answering them.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:12:15
    Thank you.
  • 00:12:17
    Next we have Councilmember Vita.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:12:18
    Thank you, Chair Koski.
  • 00:12:19
    Just a couple questions.
  • 00:12:22
    I had a similar question to Councilmember Wonsley's about the work that this proposed position is going to do that's different than the existing positions.
  • 00:12:33
    But I also wanted to know if you all have written job descriptions somewhere for every position in the mayor's office.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:12:43
    Chair Koski, Council Member Vita, yes we do.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:12:46
    Could you please share those with my office or any other council members that would like to see them.
  • 00:12:52
    I mean we did vote to give you all additional positions and I'd like to match what we voted for to the actual people that are working in the mayor's office.
  • 00:13:03
    I know I have
  • 00:13:04
    your staff who comes to my agenda settings and I'm sure all other committees do as well so would love to just see like what the expectations are out of the mayor's office and similar to what Councilmember Payne said about the overlap like how do those relationships work with our offices also and then the next thing is did you say that
  • 00:13:31
    your staffing, like the policy aides are subject matter experts or aren't subject matter experts.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:13:38
    Chair Koski, Councilmember Vita, I did introduce that concept and I want to be clear.
  • 00:13:45
    I think that from a technical expertise perspective, if you were to cross reference those job descriptions for the mayor's policy aids and contrast them with some of the department level staff, I imagine there would be greater weight assigned to technical expertise and technical background than that of a policy aid similar to those who staff your offices.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:14:05
    So they're not subject matter experts?
  • 00:14:09
    because you sure got around that one.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:14:12
    Sure.
  • 00:14:13
    I think that as a term of art, I would be hesitant to put them in the same bucket as who we classically refer to as subject matter experts, but certainly within their given fields they bring or have a focus on those areas, core areas of expertise for lack of a better term.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:14:32
    Okay.
  • 00:14:33
    Thank you.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:14:35
    Thank you.
  • 00:14:36
    Next we have Councilmember Rainville.
• • SPEAKER_00
  • 00:14:39
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
  • 00:14:41
    Mr. Volakovich, thank you for coming down.
  • 00:14:43
    Excuse me.
  • 00:14:45
    I just want to stress how important it is to have that human contact between your staff and the Council members.
  • 00:14:52
    It's at times lacking.
  • 00:14:54
    At times it's good.
  • 00:14:55
    You have some really good subject matter experts and I'd like to call out John Freudl.
  • 00:15:02
    Peter is doing a great job, Suzanne.
  • 00:15:05
    but others on your staff that you oversee do not have that expertise and their lack of communication with us makes your office suffer.
  • 00:15:18
    So as we go forward, that's really important.
  • 00:15:22
    I can't stress how important relationship building is between your staff and the council members.
  • 00:15:28
    So please tuck that away and think about it.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:15:32
    Chair Koski, Council Member Rainville, couldn't agree more and certainly this additional capacity would be in service of strengthening those ties.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:15:43
    Thank you.
  • 00:15:44
    I put myself in queue really quick.
  • 00:15:46
    I just thought if you could just go back and re-clarify.
  • 00:15:50
    I know Konsmara-Wonsley had brought up the potential gift through Ryan Companies to talk about the difference between those two.
  • 00:16:01
    I think that would be helpful.
  • 00:16:04
    to just kind of get a clear delineation between what the current role that you have that's supporting OCS and then what this role is intended to do.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:16:15
    Sure.
  • 00:16:16
    Chair Koski, thank you for the question.
  • 00:16:18
    I think that with respect, I don't want to speak on behalf of Interim Commissioner Sheehy and what exactly his intent is for that
  • 00:16:27
    to the transition and an organizational analysis of
  • 00:16:47
    already underway.
  • 00:16:48
    So take, for example, either the Safe and Thriving Communities Report, the DNS portfolio, that sort of extra non-law enforcement day-to-day body of work, whereas this gift that Interim Commissioner Sheehy has proposed would be more administrative clerical reporting directly to the Office of Community Safety.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:17:11
    Okay, thank you.
  • 00:17:12
    Appreciate that.
  • 00:17:14
    I see Councilmember Tuktai.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:17:16
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
  • 00:17:18
    Mr. Vlachovich, thank you for coming in and for your brief presentation explaining the proposed changes to the mayor's office budget for 2024.
  • 00:17:27
    I really could not agree with what other colleagues have said so far.
  • 00:17:34
    and I guess I've been reflecting on your responses to Councilmember Payne's questions earlier regarding the role of the policy staff in your office and how that kind of lines up with policy staff within departments and what I heard from you, please correct me if I'm wrong, is the role of the aids, the policy aids in your office
  • 00:18:03
    is ensuring that the mayor's priorities within that subject matter area take housing, public safety, alternatives to safety as three examples that I can think of off the top of my head.
  • 00:18:19
    the aides in your office, their role is ensuring that the mayor's priorities in those areas are prioritized within the relevant departments that the mayor's vision is carried out and policy priorities are aligned within departments to carry out that work.
  • 00:18:37
    That makes a lot of sense to me.
  • 00:18:39
    I think what doesn't make sense or what I feel a little stuck on is under the new government structure where department heads are reporting directly to the mayor,
  • 00:18:53
    How is that not the role of directors, right?
  • 00:18:57
    Like people who are not necessarily technical subject matter experts, but are experts in the field that they're overseeing, also oversee all of the policy staff, also oversee the staff administering the city's priorities and policy priorities.
  • 00:19:16
    Is that not the role of a director to be essentially the liaison between your office and that department and the work it carries out?
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:19:24
    Yeah, Chair Koski, Councilmember Chuck Dye, thank you for the question.
  • 00:19:28
    I think that yes, that's right, with respect to the directors overseeing the implementation of that work.
  • 00:19:36
    I think maybe it would help clarify, there's 27 departments now that report up ultimately to this office.
  • 00:19:42
    We're all well versed in the art of doing more with less, but as a matter of raw numbers, helping triage that incoming information from across the enterprise,
  • 00:19:51
    having those aids dedicated to those specific areas or fields, that's their job to help funnel that information up ultimately to the mayor.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:20:03
    And that doesn't happen through the cabinet?
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:20:06
    I think it, Chair Koski, Council Member Chugtai, yes it does.
  • 00:20:12
    They're both tasked with sharing information with the mayor ultimately.
• • Aisha Chughtai
  • 00:20:19
    Got it.
  • 00:20:19
    Thank you.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:20:21
    Next, we have Councilmember Rauncy.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 00:20:23
    Thank you, Chair Koski.
  • 00:20:25
    Also, thank you for that question, Councilmember Chuktai.
  • 00:20:29
    It makes me think of if there's similar to Councilmember Vitas like request for, you know, job descriptions,
  • 00:20:37
    is there a flow chart outside of the organizational chart of how the department heads are relaying or connecting with you all in the executive office or mayor's office because I will say there has been points of confusion where there has been items that some of us might bring to agenda setting
  • 00:20:57
    and where a department head will have a different understanding of like, yep, I'm on board.
  • 00:21:02
    We've had other staff from the mayor's office come in and maybe not be up to speed or, or we'll, you know, double back with the department head about, are we sure we want to do that?
  • 00:21:12
    So I will even say there has been some confusion in some instances where it seems like the staff and the department leadership are not fully in conversation or there's just a lack of communication breakdown that also
  • 00:21:26
    impacts the work that we're trying to do on the council side, especially when we're getting to agenda setting.
  • 00:21:31
    So I've also been under the same understanding that it's been department leadership and the mayor's executive staff that are having frequent communications about work that's happening and that you will be ready to show up with that clear understanding when we get to agenda settings.
  • 00:21:46
    That seems like that hasn't been happening.
  • 00:21:48
    So maybe that's a gap as opposed to like relaying information to council members.
  • 00:21:52
    There seems to be a breakdown between department leadership
  • 00:21:55
    and staff.
  • 00:21:56
    So thank you for flagging that because that has been a challenge we've had to navigate in my office and just trying to figure out, like, is there a communication breakdown actually happening between that department level and executive staff?
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:22:12
    Chair Koski, Council Member Wonsley, yes.
  • 00:22:16
    So taking those in turn, I guess on the information flow chart, I would need to caucus with the cabinet and
  • 00:22:25
    whether or not it's formal.
  • 00:22:28
    The short answer is we'll get you something on that front and then very much appreciate your comments on the continuity across the enterprise.
  • 00:22:36
    I do anticipate that this new position's focus would be on helping shore up or close those gaps perceived or otherwise between department heads and the policy aides tasked with relaying that information back to the mayor's office and community partners.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 00:22:53
    And when you do bring something, can you also include kind of decision-making points?
  • 00:22:57
    I know right now we're having an item around PCAR where one of the mayor's staff is saying that we can't connect with the staff that's responsible for doing the work.
  • 00:23:06
    And we're also trying to work with the department lead.
  • 00:23:10
    So who, in my understanding, if we're hiring department heads, they are the ultimate decision-making authority for the work that lies under their department.
  • 00:23:19
    And again, there seems to be staff that's not fully clear of what their role is in that.
  • 00:23:27
    If a department head says yes, I'm ready to move forward, to me it seems like the executive staff who's supporting that work should be in alignment and not interpreting their role as having decision-making.
  • 00:23:39
    authority over any legislative process.
  • 00:23:41
    So if you can also include in that flowchart of information actual grounded decision-making like authority that's grounded also in our charter and in the government restructure ordinance so that everyone can be on the same page.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:23:57
    Tchaikovsky, Councilmember Wonsley.
  • 00:23:58
    Yes, happy to work on that.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:24:01
    Thank you.
  • 00:24:01
    And going back to Councilmember Vita, I think just best practice that the information is both the org chart and the information flow chart we're talking about is distributed to the entire council as a reminder.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:24:13
    Understood.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 00:24:15
    Councilmember Goodman.
  • 00:24:16
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
  • 00:24:18
    Without question, it's going to take more than a year and a half to learn about the new government structure and to operationalize it.
  • 00:24:25
    you can't go from one system that's been in place for 100 plus years and then hit the ground running to do the work while making changes within the structure.
  • 00:24:36
    We are frustrated by that because we'd like to see a legislative department move more quickly and I'm sure the mayor's office is frustrated by it in the way that in the vacuum their office is perceived as having their staff doing the work.
  • 00:24:50
    My question to you, Mr. Vlachovich, is what do other cities with executive mayors do about their office staff?
  • 00:25:00
    It's my understanding that cities of similar size with executive mayors have like five times the number of staff.
  • 00:25:07
    that this mayor's office had and that you could have asked for 15 more people just like we're asking for four people and you've ratcheted it down because we've ratcheted it down at the same time.
  • 00:25:20
    But what is your knowledge of what happens in other cities that have strong mayors and how have you adjusted your request based on what we have requested?
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:25:33
    Chair Koski, Councilmember Goodman, thank you so much for the question.
  • 00:25:36
    I hesitate to get too specific because I don't have quantitative data in front of me or any hard comparative figures, but just exposure to different conferences connecting with different mayor's offices from across the country from major municipalities.
  • 00:25:53
    Yes, your assumption about capacity is.
  • 00:25:56
    Right, in my experience they have significantly more staff to operationalize the mayor's direction or see to it that it is.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 00:26:05
    I mean ultimately we all want more communication with the mayor's team as it pertains to all of the work we're doing and the work that they're doing.
  • 00:26:13
    It's especially a keen thing for people who chair and vice chair committees because the mayor's team is involved in coming to those meetings and working with us on issues but like for example I don't serve on the committee the council member Ellison chairs and so I need to find out what happened
  • 00:26:29
    in that meeting on my own or from your team and I think they've been really responsive and so if we want that level of ongoing cross communication and I think there should be more people in the mayor's office because clearly we're not getting the amount of information that many of us would like.
  • 00:26:46
    We might want to consider increasing the number of people on his staff to accommodate those requests.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:26:53
    Sure, thank you.
• • Linea Palmisano
  • 00:26:56
    Council Vice President Palmisano.
  • 00:26:59
    Thank you Madam Chair.
  • 00:27:00
    I think Councilmember Goodman's comments really cover a lot of my own especially in regards to government restructure.
  • 00:27:09
    I'm curious and I look at all of our offices and I see how particular offices get you know kind of slammed on particular issues that directly impact their community.
  • 00:27:22
    with outreach from the community, whether it's a huge sinkhole in uptown or whether it's a particular topic of high importance.
  • 00:27:34
    And something I've always tried to appreciate when working with mayor staff is that they get hit by all 13 wards worth of information.
  • 00:27:44
    Do you have a sense, Mr. Vlachovich, of what your constituent contact
  • 00:27:51
    rate is or your constituent load.
  • 00:27:53
    And I ask for that not being able to know off the top of my head what that is for my own office.
  • 00:27:59
    But I'm just curious from I think you put it in the operations segment of your organization chart, but I work extremely hard to try to get back to everybody that reaches out to my office.
  • 00:28:12
    I can't imagine what that looks like from a citywide perspective.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:28:16
    Chair Koski, Council Vice President Palmisano, thank you for the question.
  • 00:28:21
    The latest figures that we had since October of last year is there have been 5900 unique contacts and that's just through the mayor's general intake lines.
  • 00:28:33
    His email inbox, the front desk and so I don't have a
  • 00:28:39
    Breakdown what that looks like weekly of course ebbs and flows with news of the day But I do know that since October that figures about 5,900 and can help with additional Information if useful as our constituent service coordinator has been keen on keeping close tabs on those figures
• • Linea Palmisano
  • 00:28:55
    My goal for my office is that everybody that reaches out to our office gets a return phone call or a return email or in whatever capacity they've reached out.
  • 00:29:07
    What kinds of goals do you have for that in your office?
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:29:13
    Yeah, we strive to meet a 72 hour turnaround time.
  • 00:29:17
    That, of course, can vary depending on the complexity of the issue.
  • 00:29:21
    It takes staff time, resources to track down good information and make sure that it's vetted before it's communicated out to a constituent or community group.
  • 00:29:29
    But the goal is 72 hours.
• • Linea Palmisano
  • 00:29:32
    Thank you.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:29:35
    Councilmember Wansi.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 00:29:37
    Thank you Chair Akoski.
  • 00:29:38
    I just want to, and to say I volunteer our clerk Carl's labor on this especially since there was a request for analysis of the mayor's
  • 00:29:48
    staff in capacity and in comparison to what other cities have done around strong mayor.
  • 00:29:53
    We spent majority of 2022 all of 2022 really diving into exactly that where you know our staff work to do a comparative analysis of the very materials that's being requested right now so that information does exist.
  • 00:30:08
    I know it's on limbs, but I know Clerk Carl is great in sending emails that thoroughly help us revisit some of the things that we've dived into before.
  • 00:30:18
    So instead of you having to create a memo of sorts, and maybe it's just working with Clerk Carl on this of just recapturing all of 2022, a lot of those data analysis points around staffing capacity, around
  • 00:30:32
    about regional approaches for strong mayor.
  • 00:30:35
    Also, I don't recall, I think there was some analysis of how that improves efficiency and all those things.
  • 00:30:43
    Those were spelled out in numerous meetings all throughout 2022 around the executive branch, especially since we didn't get to the legislative conversations until this year.
  • 00:30:54
    So if that could also be included in the materials that you send out to council, that way everyone can have the same information
  • 00:31:00
    on the same page that we had a very long conversation around the executive structure all last year and kind of how that got you to the place where you've requested the staffing that you did and how that supports in, you know, enforcing or administrating this overall new structure.
  • 00:31:16
    So I think that would be helpful to just another piece of data to include.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:31:21
    Chair Koski, Councilmember Wonsley, thank you for the suggestion and I'm happy to work with Clerk Carl on that.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:31:28
    All right.
  • 00:31:29
    I am not seeing any further questions.
  • 00:31:31
    So we are finished with that presentation.
  • 00:31:34
    Thank you so much for being here and for your thorough answers.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:31:38
    Thank you.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:31:40
    And before we move on, I just want to note that President Jenkins has joined us, Council Member Ellison and Council Member Payne.
  • 00:31:46
    I'm not sure if he got in before he spoke there.
  • 00:31:49
    So next we have the presentation from our legislative department and kicking us off is Kate Redden, the Manager of Administrative Services for the Clerk's Office.
  • 00:31:58
    Welcome.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 00:32:09
    Good morning.
  • 00:32:10
    My name is Kate Redden and I have the privilege of serving as the Manager of Administrative Services for the Legislative Department.
  • 00:32:16
    I am joined today by our City Clerk, Casey Carl, our City Auditor, Ryan Patrick, and other members of the Department.
  • 00:32:22
    May it please the Committee, we are here to present the Mayor's 2024 recommended budget for the Legislative Department.
  • 00:32:28
    We will start by reviewing the current organization, staffing levels, risk and achievements for the department as a whole, and from there we will then dive into program updates and budget proposals for each of the offices that make up this department.
  • 00:32:43
    To start, under the new government structure, the Legislative Department encompasses the City Council and the offices of City Clerk and City Auditor.
  • 00:32:51
    It is established as a separate department of and within the city government and under the general authority of the council.
  • 00:32:57
    The City Council ultimately makes the laws that govern the city and represents the needs of their individual wards.
  • 00:33:03
    Their work is supported by the politically appointed staff in the 13 ward offices and the non-partisan staff in the offices of City Auditor and City Clerk.
  • 00:33:12
    To start, the Office of City Auditor generally provides comprehensive assurance, consulting, analysis, research, and evaluation services for the city.
  • 00:33:23
    Currently, there are two divisions in this office, audit and policy and research.
  • 00:33:27
    And you will note in the chart on the screen that the mayor's proposed budget does include a third new branch, oversight and evaluation.
  • 00:33:34
    The city auditor who oversees the work of this office is appointed by the independent audit committee that you also see represented.
  • 00:33:41
    On the other side, we have the Office of City Clerk who maximizes access to municipal government and enables informed decisions for community governance.
  • 00:33:50
    Currently, there are three divisions including elections and voter services, information governance, and legislative support and administration.
  • 00:33:58
    In addition, this office does provide support for the city's 57 appointed boards and commissions.
  • 00:34:04
    The City Clerk who oversees the work of this office is therefore appointed by the City Council.
  • 00:34:09
    Now going into a staffing level, the City Council currently has 39 positions and there are no proposed changes for next year.
  • 00:34:18
    The Office of City Auditor has 11 positions and the mayor is proposing two new positions for 2024 that you will hear about later in the presentation.
  • 00:34:26
    There are also currently no vacancies.
  • 00:34:30
    And finally, the Office of City Clerk has 48 positions and the mayor is proposing five new positions in 2024.
  • 00:34:36
    The mayor has also approved funding to cover the reclassification of four positions that already exist in the department.
  • 00:34:44
    This includes a program assistant becoming a director of administration, two program assistants becoming administrative program coordinators, and a legislative clerk becoming a code reviser.
  • 00:34:55
    There are also currently 12 vacancies, and the department expects to have the bulk filled by early October.
  • 00:35:01
    All but two of these are currently in various stages of job reclassifications with the Human Resources Department or active recruitment.
  • 00:35:08
    And just to give a bit more context, seven of the vacancies that we started off with this year rested in our Elections and Voter Services Division.
  • 00:35:16
    and at that time they had a number of reclassifications submitted to the human resources.
  • 00:35:21
    Those weren't largely approved by that team until about May or June and from there the team then started working on filling the highest positions first working its way down.
  • 00:35:29
    The first one was a new deputy director of elections and that was closely followed by a new administrative assistant.
  • 00:35:36
    Last week they were conducting interviews for a manager position and in the next two weeks we'll also be interviewing for two voter outreach and education positions.
  • 00:35:44
    All this to say we've been working very intentionally this past year to fill our vacancies, not only based off of where our current needs are, but where the city is going in the next 10 years.
  • 00:35:54
    We have also been working as quickly as we can given the current limitations with the Human Resources Department.
  • 00:36:02
    And finally, we have achieved much this year thanks to the initial budget investments that were made and really the need to modernize our operations under the government structure change.
  • 00:36:11
    Now to start, I would like to invite Mr. Patrick up so he can speak to the items falling under his purview.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:36:19
    Welcome.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:36:20
    Thank you, Chair Koski and members of the Council.
  • 00:36:24
    Talking briefly about the City Auditor achievements, it's been a pretty whirlwind year for us creating the Division of Policy and Research and continuing to do all the good audit work we have throughout the year, including the risk assessment, following up on two massive HR audits that concluded last December,
  • 00:36:44
    building out that policy and research division and filling all our vacancies.
  • 00:36:48
    Just noting a couple of risks, we have a highly specialized team so each member of the team has significant experience in their respective subject matters and we do need to retain our staff so making sure retention stays high is critical for me.
  • 00:37:03
    The other risk that we have is we have no in-house IT auditors.
  • 00:37:08
    We use our professional services dollars for that, which makes a lot of sense.
  • 00:37:11
    IT auditors are expensive.
  • 00:37:13
    But as we know, IT risks are some of the highest in the city.
  • 00:37:17
    It's just the nature of the changing world.
  • 00:37:20
    Those remain ever present.
  • 00:37:21
    So maintaining good working relationships with vendors who can provide those services is critical.
  • 00:37:27
    Turn it back over to Ms. Reden for the clerk.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 00:37:31
    Thank you.
  • 00:37:33
    So on the clerk side, we start off with our first win, which was the merger with MPD's data practices team and taking responsibility for the complex public safety tickets.
  • 00:37:43
    In addition, we've really been prioritizing projects that fall under the umbrella of digital democracy.
  • 00:37:48
    including, to name a few, digitizing historical records and making them available for the public on LIMS and Municode.
  • 00:37:55
    This means that City Council proceedings now go back to 1997.
  • 00:37:58
    They previously only went to 2014, and we also have selections from various years.
  • 00:38:04
    We've also launched some new software this year, including MuniDocs, which is where a lot of these historical records reside, and other things such as the previously adopted City Council budgets.
  • 00:38:13
    We have launched a new campaign finance software for this year's municipal election and we are extremely thrilled to share that the constituent relationship management tool will be available later this year.
  • 00:38:24
    And finally, as always, we are working on a long list of LIMS enhancements to not only improve the system for ourselves, but for public access.
  • 00:38:32
    Now, like everyone else, though, we do have some challenges in front of us.
  • 00:38:35
    And while there are a number of items on the screen, the most important one that I really want to touch on is the elections facility.
  • 00:38:42
    We've been operating out of our current facility since 2019.
  • 00:38:45
    And it's really been too small for us since day one.
  • 00:38:47
    And we've been able to get by through modifications.
  • 00:38:50
    Half piecemeal efforts if you will and should we not find Dedicated expansion space prior to next year's presidential election.
  • 00:38:58
    We do have some very serious concerns for voter services and potential security risk Now at this time we'll go into more specific program information and budget proposal with each of the offices and we'll start first with City Council and
  • 00:39:16
    The City Council, together with the Mayor, enacts local laws and governs the community, public policies to direct and oversee city government.
  • 00:39:23
    They additionally oversee and evaluate the performance of the administration, have control of city property and finances, and represent the needs, priorities, and interests of their wards.
  • 00:39:33
    Under the Mayor's proposal, the City Council has a 2024 budget of $5.4 million, and this funding is used primarily for salary and wages, shared operational expenses, and the 13 ward office budgets.
  • 00:39:46
    Now, while it won't be represented in this budget total, the mayor did also propose $1.2 million in one-time funding to make security and accessibility improvements to City Council chambers.
  • 00:39:57
    This funding proposal is currently allocated in the capital fund, and that project would be scheduled in coordination with the City Hall restack should receive final council approval.
  • 00:40:08
    Should there be no questions about the City Council update, I would like to invite Mr. Patrick Backup to share updates following under his purview for the Office of City Auditor.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:40:20
    Thank you Ms. Redden.
  • 00:40:22
    Talk through our various divisions and our new proposal.
  • 00:40:26
    So first, audit.
  • 00:40:28
    The classic mission which comes right from the international standards is to enhance and protect organizational value by providing risk-based and objective assurance advice and insight.
  • 00:40:39
    I know that's a lot of auditor speak but really you know we're here to make sure things run efficiently and effectively in the city.
  • 00:40:47
    So we really center our audit work around risk that is the primary driving force for how we choose our audits that we conduct and We want to make sure that while we do so we are independent and neutral That's one of the biggest highlights of audit is that they report to an Audit Committee and no one else and the work stays outside of the general functioning of the city so they can they can have that independent neutral viewpoint
  • 00:41:12
    So just some example projects working on this year, looking at emergency communications has a number of third party contracts, so working with outside entities, reviewing those are building maintenance processes, revenue and collections processes.
  • 00:41:28
    And as usual, every year we work with either the park board or the police department on a body wearing camera or automated license plate reader, state law compliance audit.
  • 00:41:39
    There are no changes proposed.
  • 00:41:41
    There's a slight decrease in the budget that's due to some rollover funds from last year.
  • 00:41:49
    For policy and research,
  • 00:41:51
    You've all heard about this ad nauseam this year because we've been working with each and every one of you to build this division out.
  • 00:41:58
    And that's to provide that nonpartisan research analysis and consultation services directly to you to support your legislative functions.
  • 00:42:10
    And the goal being that increased transparency, that independent access to staff who exist to help you do policy work.
  • 00:42:19
    In this year, beyond building out that function from scratch, getting staffed, figuring out the respective functions, created a database to track requests for services.
  • 00:42:31
    They'll provide some details in the future on the number of requests we receive, projects that we've completed, but as you've heard recently, presentations on legislative departments,
  • 00:42:43
    On consent decrees and costs, there will be a number of future projects to come, but that's really at your direction.
  • 00:42:50
    We're not currently proposing a change in this budget for this year, coming year.
  • 00:42:55
    The change in the budget is due to adjustments for those positions and how they came over in the prior year's budget to actually meet the staffing needs.
  • 00:43:08
    This is a new proposal, currently doesn't exist, the oversight and evaluation division.
  • 00:43:13
    So if you recall, at the end of the budget cycle, there were a number of changes that were kind of made to how the city auditor's office would be structured, keeping in the function of supporting council in its oversight role.
  • 00:43:26
    That function still existed within the policy and research division, although it's pretty distinct and unique work from that upfront, future-looking policy work that that team is doing.
  • 00:43:38
    So this requested funding would help establish that oversight and evaluation division.
  • 00:43:43
    One of the primary functions is supporting the council and its review of the mayor's proposed budget and working with the legislative body to provide targeted services so that you can effectively fulfill your oversight mission.
  • 00:43:57
    So an example project for this year, even though this division didn't exist, it has been working with the Budget Committee Chair to develop and test out a Budget Committee work plan for the year to come.
  • 00:44:10
    Just a little more detail on that.
  • 00:44:12
    The mayor's budget proposal has two FTEs to support that work and help build that team.
  • 00:44:20
    It's essential to ensure transparency.
  • 00:44:22
    This independent, nonpartisan group will help you as you review policies.
  • 00:44:27
    And the two FTEs can help build that work along with 50K in program support to continue the contract with our financial expert who we've just recently contracted with.
  • 00:44:37
    Of course, equity analysis will be embedded in all aspects of the work and that will help effectively ensure that we reduce disparities.
  • 00:44:46
    I'm happy to answer any questions related to the City Auditor budget.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:44:52
    Council Member Monti.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 00:44:54
    Thank you, Chair Koski.
  • 00:44:55
    Just a question referring to the equity analysis on slide 13 that you just discussed.
  • 00:45:01
    How do you anticipate this division working with REID?
  • 00:45:06
    I know that's currently undergoing some transition with the new director coming into that position.
  • 00:45:12
    But, you know, for our legislative process, oftentimes, we in our office, your area, do you see this division supporting council members being able
  • 00:45:21
    go through that process, but also oftentimes we will work with REIB now as a department to also support around these equity or anti-racist analyses of our RCAs or legislative processes.
  • 00:45:34
    So just interested to see how those all kind of flow together to do this equity analysis work in this division.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:45:43
    Yeah, thank you.
  • 00:45:44
    Chair Koski, Councilmember Wonsley, I envision a strong working relationship between the two and with the finance and budget teams as fiscal notes are often attached to actions.
  • 00:45:55
    So this team can independently support you in that regard.
  • 00:45:59
    But again, they as the subject matter experts in their field are going to be someone that we always want to work closely with as we do those types of evaluations.
  • 00:46:08
    I'll note a kind of similarity to the audit work that we do.
  • 00:46:11
    We have a race equity analysis impact work paper in our audit process, so that makes sure that we're taking that into account.
  • 00:46:18
    And part of that is when necessary liaising with the team over in REIB.
  • 00:46:24
    So drawing upon them as subject matter experts, it helps make sure that we are taking those considerations into each and every kind of audit work that we do.
  • 00:46:34
    The same would be true for the oversight and evaluation division.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 00:46:38
    We will now proceed with the Office of City Clerk and I will recognize there is a lot to talk about with this particular office so what I plan to do is pause after each division update so if there are any questions about the budget proposals there's time to get to those.
  • 00:47:08
    We'll start with Elections and Voter Services, and their mission is to empower and engage all voters through secure, transparent, and accessible elections, fostering increased participation and trust in the democratic process, and their work is achieved through the following programs.
  • 00:47:24
    Voting.
  • 00:47:25
    In addition to serving voters on election day, we do serve voters during the 46-state early voting period and the number of options allowed under the law.
  • 00:47:32
    Election judges and polling place administration.
  • 00:47:35
    The city must recruit, train, manage and deploy over 1,500 to 2,500 election judges for each election day.
  • 00:47:44
    And there's always special focus placed on recruiting student judges and those fluent in other languages.
  • 00:47:49
    Voter outreach and education.
  • 00:47:51
    This program ensures all of our voters are election ready through outreach events, educational flyers, social media and website campaigns and collaboration with local groups.
  • 00:48:01
    Logistics and operations our staff must prepare pack and deploy over 150 unique polling place supply and equipment items for each voting site and this includes testing over 400 pieces of voting equipment to ensure there is no outside interference and Finally election administrative services.
  • 00:48:18
    This is the behind the scenes work and includes things like candidate filing and campaign finance for local elections and
  • 00:48:25
    The mayor is proposing a 2024 budget of $8.5 million which includes $5.4 million in one-time funding to administer next year's presidential election.
  • 00:48:36
    The city currently funds elections by providing a core base for essentially the items we need regardless of whether there is an election or not.
  • 00:48:43
    Everything else that relates to the election is then requested and approved through each year's budget process.
  • 00:48:48
    And we do this because of how varied the needs can be from one year to the next.
  • 00:48:54
    As mentioned, the election division is receiving $5.4 million in one-time funding to administer the 2024 presidential.
  • 00:49:01
    This will include a presidential nomination primary, a state primary, and a presidential general election.
  • 00:49:07
    $4.7 million of this was initially approved in the 2024 budget plan.
  • 00:49:12
    The City currently expects to receive an additional $1-1.5 million in funding under Minnesota Statute 207A.15, which specifies that the state's political parties must reimburse election offices for the administrative costs for the PNP.
  • 00:49:29
    This process is managed by the Secretary of State's office and funding would be expected later in 2024.
  • 00:49:37
    With the mayor's proposed budget for the division, the city can essentially maintain its statutorily required duties and functions under those items you heard about just a moment ago.
  • 00:49:47
    Temporary workers and election judges, supplies and voting equipment, opening up early voting sites, extensive voter outreach efforts, and many other things.
  • 00:49:56
    The chart on the screen shows our initial plans in comparison with the voter turnout levels achieved during the last comparable election in 2020.
  • 00:50:04
    Activities are expected to increase over the course of the year as voter interest increases and this generally means that the cost increases through the course of the year.
  • 00:50:14
    In addition, it is important to note that Minnesota saw a truly historic level of new election legislation passed in 2023 and part of our funding will be diverted to address these changes.
  • 00:50:25
    The chart currently notes the items we expect to have the biggest impact on our budget.
  • 00:50:30
    First, the soon-to-be-implemented automatic ballot list will likely cause many new voters to participate in the vote-by-mail program, which could mean more ballots, supplies, postage, and staff being needed prior to Election Day.
  • 00:50:44
    Second, we are exploring options to implement one-day pop-up early voting sites as now allowed under the law.
  • 00:50:51
    These sites will likely be opened in targeted areas such as underrepresented voting populations or universities.
  • 00:50:57
    Pop-up voting sites are expected to be cheaper than our current 46-day model, so we are excited to see what impact they could have not only on future funding requests but also turnout levels.
  • 00:51:08
    Plans are still being developed for the general election but would likely include some combination of these pop-up sites and the longer 46-day early vote centers.
  • 00:51:18
    Finally, we will be engaging a new voter outreach efforts due to the various changes in voter registration laws including pre-registration for 16 and 17 year olds.
  • 00:51:28
    Like all the city's outreach efforts, these will be focused on ensuring our new eligible voters have the resources and information they need to be engaged.
  • 00:51:39
    As I mentioned, I'd be happy to pause here for any questions about elections before moving on to information governance.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:51:50
    Council President Jenkins.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:51:52
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
  • 00:51:53
    Just curious about the pop-up voting sites.
  • 00:51:57
    Are those mobile bands or something?
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 00:52:03
    Chair Koski to Council President Jenkins.
  • 00:52:07
    They could be depending on the individual cities design I think how the city would be looking to do it is have it actually be inside facilities Modeled much like our early vote centers, but just less of the long-term use So we'd likely work with a group where we could still be inside set up the same tables and chairs you would expect and the same kind of security that you get from that
  • 00:52:28
    That's not to say we couldn't in the future look at some of those options, but we're looking for a little bit of stability during this change.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:52:35
    So it'd be like a one day event?
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 00:52:38
    Correct.
  • 00:52:39
    Chair Koski to Councilmember Jenkins.
  • 00:52:41
    For example, I think what we'd look at doing is if a university is having a big engagement day, that would likely be a good time for us to come with a pop up early vote center to do in collaboration with the university.
  • 00:52:51
    or maybe a senior living facility, there's a better day of the week where they're going to have all their residents together.
  • 00:52:58
    That'd be a good time for us to do pop-up early voting.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:53:01
    So it'd be by request more so than you planning it out.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 00:53:07
    Chair Koski to Councilmember Jenkins, we would likely be working with groups in advance to see where needs are like we do when we're planning out our early vote centers.
  • 00:53:17
    I'm not sure at this point we'd be doing on a quest basis just because there is so much planning that goes into it, but we always are eager for feedback on where we should be going in the future.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:53:26
    Thank you.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:53:29
    Thank you, Council Vice President Bomsana.
• • Linea Palmisano
  • 00:53:32
    Thank you Madam Chair.
  • 00:53:33
    I've heard a little bit about the, we've talked a little bit offline about these pop-up vote centers and I am so excited about them.
  • 00:53:43
    It was even just chatting with Councilmember Chavez here about if he'd be enthusiastic about having them in his part of our city.
  • 00:53:53
    I can't tell you how great I think that could be in terms of being able to increase participation in voting around here.
  • 00:54:04
    In addition to that, I appreciate the kind of expense that would go into that.
  • 00:54:10
    In an earlier slide that put you and the auditor in a table comparison, the lower section talks about risks, and one of them is about changes in election law.
  • 00:54:22
    Can you help me understand that one, election, impacts of new election legislation?
  • 00:54:32
    Could you help us understand a little bit about what those are in a way that's going to cost money for the City of Minneapolis?
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 00:54:40
    I think just because of how expansive the new election legislation was passed, we're looking at a lot of changes to not only how voters are engaging but in what part of the cycle.
  • 00:54:52
    Does that mean we suddenly see a much greater intake in the early voting period or do people really start going back to election day?
  • 00:54:59
    and all these things do have costs with it and a lot of them have perceived new increases of staffing that would go with it.
  • 00:55:07
    So with our current facility being maxed out as is the idea of potentially having to add on 20 or 30 more workers to meet early voting demands or some of the other engagement mechanisms that you might see.
• • Linea Palmisano
  • 00:55:20
    So some of the costs associated with the new changes would really be about accommodating different types of behavior.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:55:29
    and voting.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 00:55:30
    Chair Koski to Councilmember Palmisano.
  • 00:55:32
    Correct.
  • 00:55:32
    It's really making sure that wherever our voters decide they want to put their focus with all these new options, we can meet them not only with our facility, but with the staff capacity that we have now.
  • 00:55:42
    Thank you.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:55:46
    Thank you.
  • 00:55:46
    I put myself in queue as well.
  • 00:55:49
    I just had a couple questions maybe on this first slide of the elections and voter services with the program budget.
  • 00:55:56
    Could you just kind of walk through these figures a little bit from 2023 to 2024 plan and then to the recommended end?
  • 00:56:05
    What exactly was the difference and what was part of that from the 6.3 to the 7.9 and then another 600,000?
  • 00:56:16
    Could you kind of just walk through those changes?
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 00:56:19
    Chair Koski, so the financing elections is a rather unique thing.
  • 00:56:24
    As I mentioned, we do provide a core base, I believe it's about $2 million now that we get regardless of what is happening and that covers permanent staff salary, rent, a few allocation models, things that we need to pay to Hennepin County every single year.
  • 00:56:36
    Everything else then is requested for that election cycle and modified based off of how many candidates are on the ballot, expected voter turnout levels.
  • 00:56:44
    So 2023 is based off of what we would expect to see in a municipal election.
  • 00:56:49
    2024's budget plan did include an initial $4.7 million being allocated in last year's budget process for the presidential election.
  • 00:56:58
    The one component that wasn't included at the time though was the presidential nomination primary.
  • 00:57:03
    At the time that we were starting the budget process last year, there was a lot of debate happening about whether or not that date would be moved up potentially to move Minnesota in front of Illinois and potentially have a December or January presidential nomination primary.
  • 00:57:17
    The advice we were given from the mayor's office and the budget office was wait to see what it gets finalized out to because expenses on 2023 for 2024 could really change how it needs to be financed.
  • 00:57:29
    So the addition you're seeing in 2024 was the remaining 650,000 that we do need for the PNP.
  • 00:57:35
    Take into consideration though that a million is expected outside of the city's process.
  • 00:57:41
    Does that answer that question?
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:57:42
    Yes, thank you.
  • 00:57:47
    Right, I'm not seeing any further questions so happy to go continue forward.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 00:57:53
    The next division is information governance and their mission is to ensure the city appropriately creates, manages and disposes of its information assets.
  • 00:58:02
    They also enable the public to access city data and information as allowed under the law.
  • 00:58:07
    In Minnesota, three laws form the foundation for the management of government data.
  • 00:58:11
    The Official Records Act prescribes what records governments must make and keep.
  • 00:58:16
    The Records Management Statute regulates how government data and records must be managed, maintained and disposed of.
  • 00:58:23
    And the Government Data Practices Act regulates who may access government data and under what conditions.
  • 00:58:29
    In 2024, the mayor is proposing a budget of 3.6 million, and this does include a number of change items.
  • 00:58:39
    The first is $119,000 in ongoing funding to create a new public safety data practices position that will support management, coordination, review, and resolution of data practices request.
  • 00:58:51
    This follows the initial work done in 2022 and 2023 to create a single team in the clerk's office to handle all enterprise data practices request.
  • 00:59:00
    And we started that work with having five positions being transferred from MPD and taking on responsibility for complex public safety cases.
  • 00:59:09
    One-time project funding that was also allocated as part of that merger has been critical this past year in allowing our department to hire upwards of seven temporary workers and contractors.
  • 00:59:19
    Through them, we were able to prioritize and remove the 4,000 cases and backlog, and have since been working with MPD to really start looking at the larger problems impacting the system as a whole.
  • 00:59:29
    There is still much to that steady state.
  • 00:59:31
    This is when the same number of cases being received each month are also being closed.
  • 00:59:35
    And with that project funding due to run out later this year or early next year, gaining even one new position will be critical in not losing our progress towards public transparency.
  • 00:59:47
    Now related to that position, there is also $400,000 in one-time funding for a ServiceNow project.
  • 00:59:53
    This project is being organized in collaboration with IT and will allow us to hire skilled contractors that will implement seven larger and complex system changes to the ServiceNow application that is specifically used for data practices work.
  • 01:00:07
    When it was initially deployed in 2018, ServiceNow supported data requests only for the Clerk's Office.
  • 01:00:14
    Today, it's also handling MPD requests, and the volumes have grown.
  • 01:00:18
    For example, in 2019, the system managed 2,100 requests, and in 2022, it handled more than 22,000, excuse me, 12,000 requests.
  • 01:00:29
    And the complexity of the requests have also grown, meaning that many involve work between multiple departments now.
  • 01:00:34
    This project will essentially allow us to implement automation and hopefully improve the public's experience when they are requesting data.
  • 01:00:41
    Our hope is that this dual approach though between one new position and the system improvement will help the city match the increasing volume and complexity over the next few months to years.
  • 01:00:53
    The next budget proposal is the body-worn camera pilot program, which would transfer responsibility of the body-worn camera request under Government Data Practices Act from MPD to the Clerk's Office.
  • 01:01:06
    This would include $120,000 in ongoing funding for three positions.
  • 01:01:10
    One is new and two would be transferred from MPD.
  • 01:01:14
    There is also $300,000 proposed in one-time funding to hire temporary workers and to implement new video review software.
  • 01:01:21
    Should this item be approved by the City Council, we would work with MPD over the next year on the following goals.
  • 01:01:28
    Address the current backlog of body-worn camera requests.
  • 01:01:31
    Review processes and integrate workflows with ServiceNow, the city's management tool you just heard about.
  • 01:01:36
    Implement tools to improve search and redaction efficiency, such as those that use face and object tracking.
  • 01:01:42
    Determine how to support operational MPD video analysis needs that exist outside of data practices request.
  • 01:01:50
    Develop video review capacity in our office.
  • 01:01:53
    And the most important one, develop program metrics to inform future decision making by policymakers.
  • 01:01:59
    At the rate that this program is growing and how many requests we're receiving on a month now, we have no doubt that this proposed merger will take very careful coordination with MPD and will likely require future resource allocations to be considered by the Council and Mayor.
  • 01:02:17
    The final proposal for this division is $300,000 in one-time funding for a records retention scheduling contract.
  • 01:02:24
    Under state law, city records may only be destroyed in compliance with the records retention schedule.
  • 01:02:31
    These schedules must be submitted and approved by the state's records disposition panel.
  • 01:02:36
    Most of the city's current plans are dated prior to 2015, fail to account for the many changes in government structure, and are frankly too complicated for city employees to easily understand.
  • 01:02:47
    What this means is we're creating tremendous risk for the city.
  • 01:02:50
    The proposed funding would essentially allow us to hire contractors that would work with city staff to either review and update their current plan, or in most cases, develop entirely new schedules to better represent where their departments are at now.
  • 01:03:04
    This project will not only make it easier for the city to stay in compliance, but hopefully make it easier for city staff to use this and understand it.
  • 01:03:13
    I'd be happy to pause here for any questions about the proposals for information governance.
• • Emily Koski
  • 01:03:19
    I'm not seeing any questions, so please go forward.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 01:03:23
    The final division, then, for the Clerk's Office is Legislative Support and Administration.
  • 01:03:28
    This group provides meeting management services for the City Council and its standing policy committees, the independent audit committee and planning bodies, as well as other assigned decision-making boards.
  • 01:03:39
    It publishes and preserves the city charter and code of ordinances, issues a variety of legal notices, and provides administrative services for the entire department.
  • 01:03:48
    The mayor is currently proposing a 2024 budget of $5.5 million,
  • 01:03:52
    and this includes two changes.
  • 01:03:56
    The first is $129,000 in ongoing funding for one position in the newly formed Outreach and Constituent Services Program.
  • 01:04:04
    This item was previously included in the 2024 budget plan and it will generally support the department with constituent inquiries, outreach events, community-based forums,
  • 01:04:14
    listening sessions, sister city visits and messaging.
  • 01:04:19
    This will not only professionalize and stabilize these efforts during City Council election years, but also help the city to improve engagement with the community.
  • 01:04:28
    and we have been extremely fortunate this past year to utilize temporary workers to start this important work.
  • 01:04:33
    For example, these workers organized and attended local outreach events where they spoke with members of the public about how do you get engaged with council meetings?
  • 01:04:42
    How do you find out to sign up on an appointed board or commission?
  • 01:04:45
    How do you submit a data request?
  • 01:04:47
    And how can you use LIMS to find the issue that you care about?
  • 01:04:53
    And as you can see from the screen, they've even used some creative outreach mechanisms like how do local issues become a law hopscotch and translating city flyers.
  • 01:05:02
    All these efforts are really starting to help demystify local government for our community.
  • 01:05:06
    Another big win of their work this year has been the design and launch of the new constituent relationship management tool for the City Council.
  • 01:05:14
    This project has been a goal of our department for multiple years and is currently in the initial testing phase with our project team.
  • 01:05:21
    We expect to have previews ready for the council to review in December and to have the system go live in January.
  • 01:05:27
    Funding for this project is currently held in the IT fund.
  • 01:05:30
    All this to say we are looking forward to continuing this important work with the allocation of one position.
  • 01:05:37
    The final budget proposal for the Department is $500,000 in one-time funding for the Legislative Information Management System.
  • 01:05:45
    This system is managed by DataNet Systems and it supports the City Council, its committees, appointed boards and commissions.
  • 01:05:53
    LIMS has significantly enhanced the overall transparency of policymaking processes and official actions of the City.
  • 01:05:59
    Since the system was first launched around 2017, it has never received dedicated funding for project enhancements or improvements, and many of these things have been paid for by keeping positions open in our department.
  • 01:06:12
    We are therefore extremely appreciative to have this funding proposed now to not only continue our own work, but to work with other departments like procurement, budget, REIB, and many others to make the system better for them and to make government data more readily accessible to the public.
  • 01:06:29
    That concludes our presentation, and I would be happy to stand for any final questions.
• • Emily Koski
  • 01:06:36
    Thank you, Ms. Redden.
  • 01:06:37
    I am not seeing any further questions, so thank you so much for your time and thorough information.
  • 01:06:45
    Appreciate it.
  • 01:06:46
    Finally, we'll hear from the City Attorney's Office, and I will recognize City Attorney Kristin Anderson.
  • 01:06:51
    Welcome.
• • Kristyn AndersonCity Attorney
  • 01:07:08
    Thank you, Chair Koeschke, Council members.
  • 01:07:11
    I'm actually really excited to come before you today to talk about the City Attorney's Office.
  • 01:07:17
    I've not been here a full year yet.
  • 01:07:20
    My one-year anniversary is September 26th, but I can say with absolute certainty that the office is doing incredible things.
  • 01:07:32
    I can't take credit for it.
  • 01:07:34
    This office was an amazing office with talented staff before I got here, but in the almost year that I've been here, I've been blown away at the
  • 01:07:43
    the amount and volume and quality of all of the work that's being done in my office.
  • 01:07:49
    So I want to talk to you about some of those accomplishments today.
  • 01:07:54
    So just a broad overview, I think it helps us all to look at org charts.
  • 01:08:00
    On the screen is the org chart of the current structure of the City Attorney's Office.
  • 01:08:07
    As you can see, we've got my position, a deputy on the criminal side, a deputy on the civil side, our manager of administration, and then the new managing attorney for the implementation.
  • 01:08:21
    and then managing attorneys that report to both deputies.
  • 01:08:28
    The priority objectives for the office are to provide counsel on the creation of laws that support the city and protect the city's civil legal interests, minimize the city's liability, enhance the city's ability to uphold progressive policies and civil litigation.
  • 01:08:45
    constitutes both our client services and litigation work.
  • 01:08:49
    And then third, prioritize prosecution of offenses that impact public safety while using the tools available in the criminal justice system to promote equitable outcomes for both victims and offenders.
  • 01:09:02
    So some of the achievements that have occurred both prior to my time and during my time.
  • 01:09:08
    First, we've produced hundreds of thousands of pages of documents to both the Minnesota Department of Human Rights and the Department of Justice.
  • 01:09:18
    and as you all well know, we were able to successfully negotiate a settlement agreement with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights that provides a roadmap for significant systemic change of police reform and we are continuing discussions with the Department of Justice leading towards a very likely consent decree.
  • 01:09:39
    We've drafted ordinances and issued legal opinions to implement government structure creating the legal foundation to transform the city operations.
  • 01:09:49
    We began implementation of a new charging team which gathers data to avoid disparities in prosecution which may include the creation of additional diversion programs and alternative case resolutions beyond prosecution.
  • 01:10:02
    We've dedicated a position to continue one of the most robust Brady systems in the state to facilitate those accused of crimes receiving discovery of exculpatory information, enhancing the fairness of the criminal justice system.
  • 01:10:18
    And finally, we've been engaging during my time on an office-wide culture development project.
  • 01:10:25
    where we've actually had staff form think tanks to talk about things like how do we build culture in a hybrid work environment, professional development, and developing the mission, vision, and values for our office.
  • 01:10:41
    so it's been a very exciting year.
  • 01:10:44
    Risks.
  • 01:10:46
    I think chief among the risks that our office faces is that we are in a constant state of hiring and onboarding and training of staff.
  • 01:10:55
    We happen to be a law office that has such extreme talent that our talent is being poached, oftentimes from other jurisdictions that pay a lot more than we pay.
  • 01:11:09
    So we have a constant state of hiring and at the same time we have a constant state of complex work in all areas that the office touches resulting in stretched employees.
  • 01:11:24
    We also have space challenges and have had to start getting creative about hoteling and other sorts of ways to address a space crunch.
  • 01:11:36
    These risks are likely not going to be a one and done sort of thing.
  • 01:11:40
    This seems to be our new state of affairs and the climate of change that we all live in is one that creates additional complexities legally.
  • 01:11:50
    All of the government structure changes, MDHR and DOJ, all of these things are heavily regulated things and need considerable legal services.
  • 01:12:06
    At a glance, the office obviously has been growing over the last several years.
  • 01:12:15
    Our current FTE count is 112 and for 2024 we are proposing to grow by nine positions.
  • 01:12:25
    Two of those are transfers from budget from MPD and we'll talk about that.
  • 01:12:31
    One is the new implementation attorney that I talked about yesterday, a senior advisor, and then the five new requests that I'm going to talk about today.
  • 01:12:41
    In terms of the positions that we received for 2023, all of those positions have been filled.
  • 01:12:48
    the additional funds that we got to be able to do promotions.
  • 01:12:53
    We've been able to do promotions, which I think has helped a lot to retain great staff.
  • 01:12:58
    And we still have vacancies.
  • 01:13:00
    We have three vacancies, staff vacancies that are posted right now.
  • 01:13:05
    And we, again, as I said, we are constantly in a situation of doing new hiring.
  • 01:13:16
    So on the civil side, the Civil Division is headed by Deputy Attorney Eric Nielsen.
  • 01:13:23
    The goals, again, are to provide counsel on the creation of laws that support the city and protect the city's civil legal interest and minimize the city's liability, enhance the city's ability to uphold progressive policies in civil litigation.
  • 01:13:36
    So this comprises the Litigation Division and the Client Services Division.
  • 01:13:43
    Included in the mayor's budget for the Civil Division are two FTEs $360,000 of ongoing funding for two legislative attorneys in the Client Services Group.
  • 01:13:59
    These positions would support and advise the City Council through its legislative branch and
  • 01:14:05
    as they explore debate and operationalize the voter adopted executive and legislative functions.
  • 01:14:12
    All of the work that Ms. Redden had identified for you in all of the different divisions of the city clerk's office is very complex legally and so these two positions would
  • 01:14:24
    provide the legal services needed for things like data practices, ordinance creation, election law, all of the complexities that arise in all of those departments.
  • 01:14:38
    Our next budget request on the civil side is $204,000 ongoing for one FTE to be the labor and employment managing attorney.
  • 01:14:48
    So right now we have three labor and employment lawyers that are not currently managed by a subject matter expert.
  • 01:14:57
    This group of three attorneys are
  • 01:15:00
    self-assigned work, they train themselves and don't have systematic management of workflow.
  • 01:15:07
    Having a dedicated subject matter expert and working manager to manage and lead this group would allow us to be more proactive and forward thinking with our enterprise labor and employment issues and policies.
  • 01:15:19
    So this position again would manage the team and would help us to be able to focus
  • 01:15:24
    on things like policies, on training, and on implementing the huge changes that we saw at the state legislature on labor and employment laws.
  • 01:15:38
    The next budget request for the Civil Division is an additional litigation attorney, one FTE, $180,000 ongoing.
  • 01:15:49
    The city, its employees, and elected and appointed officials are party to litigation that has become increasingly high profile, contentious, complex,
  • 01:15:57
    and litigated by large and very well-funded teams of opposing counsel.
  • 01:16:02
    In fact, I think one of our cases has seven lawyers on the other side.
  • 01:16:06
    Litigation has become extraordinarily complex with multiple requests for preliminary injunctions that require immediate response, extensive discovery requests, imposing crushing demands to produce voluminous electronic records,
  • 01:16:22
    multiple amendments to pleadings, frequent motion practice.
  • 01:16:27
    So litigation has become extraordinarily complex and we simply don't have the staff that we need to make sure that we are safeguarding the city's interests, being able to put our best cases forward to uphold the legislation that you all pass.
  • 01:16:45
    And we obviously could
  • 01:16:50
    outsourced some of this through contracts with outside law firms, but that is a much more costly approach than staffing up the way that we need to staff up for our litigation unit.
  • 01:17:05
    Criminal Division is headed by the Deputy City Attorney David Bernstein.
  • 01:17:12
    Our goals, again, in the Criminal Division, prioritize prosecution of offenses that impact public safety while using the tools available in the criminal justice system to promote equitable outcomes for both victims and offenders.
  • 01:17:25
    So the mayor's budget request with respect to the Criminal Division is one FTE, $188,000 ongoing for a charging team attorney.
  • 01:17:35
    If you all recall, in 2023, the mayor's budget allowed for the formation of a charging team.
  • 01:17:41
    our request at that point in time was for three attorneys we were approved two attorneys so we're coming to you asking for that third attorney in order to be able to fully staff and enable the charging team to review all available video evidence prior to charging
  • 01:17:59
    In many cases, there are several hours of video evidence, so an additional attorney on the charging team will allow our office to review more videos with less delay in a larger number of cases.
  • 01:18:11
    This will result in a faster review period, increased level of scrutiny applied to more cases prior to charging,
  • 01:18:18
    An additional attorney on this team will benefit individuals who face the possibility of criminal charges by reducing the stressful waiting period to learn whether criminal charges will be made against them or not.
  • 01:18:29
    And finally, having three attorneys doing extensive review of incidents will allow for faster identification of officers who may need additional training, development, or further conduct review, which benefits the individual officers, members of the public, and the city enterprise as a whole.
  • 01:18:48
    I told you that I'd talk a little bit about the transfers that occurred in 2023.
  • 01:18:54
    So in 2023, three FTEs were transferred from MPD to the Civil Division to support the implementation team.
  • 01:19:04
    We absorbed three of those vacant FTEs from MPD so that we could get a head start on creating the implementation team for the MDHR settlement agreement work.
  • 01:19:15
    At the same time, we lost one FTE from the criminal division when the grant for the downtown improvement district ended, the position was eliminated and the employee was shifted to a general fund position.
  • 01:19:33
    So that's the end of my presentation and I'm happy to stand for questions.
• • Emily Koski
  • 01:19:38
    Thank you very much.
  • 01:19:39
    We have Councilmember Wonsley.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 01:19:43
    Thank you Chair Koski.
  • 01:19:45
    I'm just going back to the, there we go, slide eight, because I know there's an ongoing conversation especially for next year of how we're using performance metrics to evaluate our work.
  • 01:19:57
    I was interested in seeing what was listed here as a performance metric being the percentage of favorable responses expressed in leadership meetings.
  • 01:20:07
    is this actual metric that's being used to guide the goals that's identified here on this section?
• • Kristyn AndersonCity Attorney
  • 01:20:14
    I wasn't sure if this was accurate.
  • 01:20:25
    Yeah, the metric is really, it's a qualitative metric rather than a quantitative metric.
  • 01:20:30
    So we're meeting with department leadership and actually getting feedback from department leadership about what is the quality of legal services, what's their level of satisfaction with legal services and using that as our metric for evaluating our success in the civil division.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 01:20:49
    okay and is this also in regards because this is supporting the progressive policies pieces that also being quantified in conversations or I guess this one seems like that would need to be flushed out a little bit of like how do you quantify that I see the qualitative data of definitely those favorable suggestions that comes up during conversations both with department leadership probably even council especially on policies how are we working together to make sure
  • 01:21:16
    that could withstand any legal challenges, but when it was interesting to see if there was any conversations to flesh that out, I know performance management is held under our PMI division that's also undergoing a lot of transition right now, so wasn't sure if there was opportunity to work with PMI to maybe look at some of those performance metrics, but this was the first time I've seen that.
  • 01:21:40
    Chair Koski has been intentional of asking departments to include the performance metrics.
  • 01:21:46
    So I was excited to see this.
  • 01:21:48
    I was like, oh, this is the first one I'm seeing, and seeing it be fleshed out a little bit more.
  • 01:21:52
    Next question that I had in regards to the legislative attorneys, which I was really excited to see this, especially since throughout government restructure, I know that there was a number of colleagues, including myself, that expressed an interest in having our own
  • 01:22:07
    and the City Council.
• • Kristyn AndersonCity Attorney
  • 01:22:35
    Excuse me, Mr. Carl and I talked at great length about this proposal.
  • 01:22:41
    It really, you know, we already obviously provide legal services for the legislative branch, but the intent with kind of dedicating these two FTEs is so that
  • 01:22:51
    you know that full panoply of things that the city clerk and the city council does has dedicated resources so you know in terms of ordinance drafting obviously you know we have lawyers who have subject matter expertise and they'll always be part of the project but being able to have dedicated staff that is going to be able to you know
  • 01:23:15
    make the ordinance drafting a little bit more uniform to be able to sort of help you all with crafting your motions and all of those sorts of things.
  • 01:23:25
    Again, always going to need some of the subject matter expertise of the other lawyers in the group, but being able to have those dedicated resources, I think that will just help us all work together more seamlessly.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 01:23:38
    Awesome.
  • 01:23:39
    Yeah, again, we're super, super excited to see this piece and seeing this be responsive to a lot of conversations that arose during government restructure around this piece of me needing additional legal support or counsel on the legislative side.
  • 01:23:53
    So yeah, thank you for including this and providing some additional context.
• • Emily Koski
  • 01:23:57
    Thank you.
  • 01:23:59
    Next we have Councilmember Payne.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 01:24:01
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
  • 01:24:03
    Yeah, building on Councilmember Wanzi's question about the legislative support attorneys.
  • 01:24:08
    Is there going to be any firewalling our controls in terms of how those attorneys would work with Council relative to the administration?
• • Kristyn AndersonCity Attorney
  • 01:24:17
    Chair Koski, Council Member Payne, I'm not quite sure about that.
  • 01:24:24
    I mean, in terms of like privilege, frankly, privilege is something that we take seriously and that already exists when you have communications seeking legal advice from our office, those communications are already privileged.
  • 01:24:39
    So that would apply to these positions just as well as when you confer with any other lawyers in our office.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 01:24:47
    and then a different topic altogether.
  • 01:24:49
    I was wondering if you could just remind me about that division around the scope of our criminal division in terms of, you know, is it a just clean line of misdemeanor and below or are there categories that the city specifically focuses on and then others that are more county-led?
• • Kristyn AndersonCity Attorney
  • 01:25:12
    Chair Koski, Councilmember Payne, we prosecute misdemeanors, gross misdemeanors, and petty misdemeanors.
  • 01:25:18
    So, felonies, we were not statutorily authorized to do that, nor juvenile prosecution.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 01:25:26
    And then, how much discretion is there?
  • 01:25:28
    Are there, you know, things within those categories that you would kick out to the
  • 01:25:33
    County Attorney's
• • Kristyn AndersonCity Attorney
  • 01:25:50
    Mr. Bernstein will correct me if I'm wrong, but generally speaking, we don't actually kick any of those decisions to the county level.
  • 01:25:59
    If the county happens to be already prosecuting a felony and wants to add misdemeanor charges as well, they would just deal with the case overall, but we don't, to my knowledge, refer cases to the county.
  • 01:26:14
    From time to time if we had a conflict of interest we might refer a case to another city Jurisdiction that obviously doesn't happen very often, but but otherwise we handle those prosecutions.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 01:26:28
    Thank you
• • Emily Koski
  • 01:26:32
    I also put myself in queue here quickly.
  • 01:26:35
    I'm just wondering if so on slide.
  • 01:26:37
    I think it's slide 8 where the civil.
  • 01:26:41
    Side and just if we could walk through the program budget.
  • 01:26:44
    We went from 7.9 million 2023 to 9.7.
  • 01:26:48
    Could you just walk through that with what I'm in?
  • 01:26:51
    Maybe I'm just not understanding what exactly I see all these additional rules here, but that adds up to a little over 700,000.
  • 01:27:00
    and I see the three transfers, I believe, and just wondering how we get to the 1.7 million.
• • Kristyn AndersonCity Attorney
  • 01:27:08
    Chair Koski, I believe that the way that we get there, and I'm actually going to go to slide six,
  • 01:27:14
    Is where the FTE count actually increases by nine between 2023 and 2024 so that comprises the two legislative attorneys the labor unemployment manager the additional litigator the additional charging team individual the one ACA
  • 01:27:37
    for implementation that I talked about yesterday, the senior advisor for implementation that I talked about yesterday, and then the net two from the transfer.
  • 01:27:48
    So three came from MPD, and then we lost one FTE because of the ending of the DID grant.
  • 01:27:56
    Got it.
  • 01:27:56
    So that's my understanding, and the budget director can tell me if I'm wrong.
  • 01:28:01
    Okay.
  • 01:28:01
    All right.
• • Emily Koski
  • 01:28:01
    Thank you so much.
  • 01:28:02
    I appreciate that.
  • 01:28:03
    And then next, we have Councilmember Wonsley.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 01:28:06
    Thank you, Chair Koski.
  • 01:28:07
    Just going to the litigation attorney, it did make me think, especially since the role of this FTE is helping defend our ordinances, and I'm just thinking of 2040 right now, and you even spelled that out, of not having adequately staffed up city attorneys, how that jeopardizes or creates
  • 01:28:27
    risk around our ordinances having the legal staff needed to like justify them when they're being challenged.
  • 01:28:34
    Do you see this attorney also serving in that capacity?
  • 01:28:37
    I think we're in the next iteration of how we're going to move around the 2040 plan.
  • 01:28:42
    And I will say, since we do have council leadership here in our city attorney's office, it will be good to just get a briefing on what the heck is happening with that overall so that it'll be good to know if this position is going to be
  • 01:28:57
    also supporting some of that, because I can imagine that's going to be an ongoing kind of litigation process.
• • Kristyn AndersonCity Attorney
  • 01:29:08
    In terms of the staffing for the 2040 litigation, we actually just onboarded two new attorneys this week, and at least one of them is going to help with the 2040 litigation.
  • 01:29:20
    I can't really predict necessarily if we need more staffing, absolutely this position would help.
  • 01:29:31
    We've got a lot of really large, high profile litigation going on now.
  • 01:29:38
    Many, many hands are necessary.
  • 01:29:41
    So depending on where we're at on the 2040 litigation, this position could assist with that.
  • 01:29:47
    But we've got a lot of large pieces of litigation that this additional FTE would be extremely helpful.
  • 01:29:55
    In terms of updates on 2040, I'm going to always defer to council leadership.
  • 01:30:03
    I think having a closed session on 2040 would be absolutely well within council leadership's rights to ask for and I'd be more than happy to do that.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 01:30:15
    Thank you so much for affirming that.
  • 01:30:17
    Would a council leadership be open to that?
  • 01:30:19
    Because I can imagine we all have had questions around
  • 01:30:23
    one of the most significant pieces of legislation that this body has passed and trying to figure out what's the future of it and our legal kind of steps moving forward.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:30:36
    Thank you and thank you Council Member Wonsley for raising this issue.
  • 01:30:43
    I had thought to bring it up in this conversation, but
  • 01:30:50
    I think an update of where we are in this process around one of the most consequential policies that the city has passed would be in order.
  • 01:31:05
    So certainly we should consider a closed session to update the council on the issues as they transpire.
• • Emily Koski
  • 01:31:19
    Awesome.
  • 01:31:20
    Thank you so much.
  • 01:31:20
    Thank you.
  • 01:31:22
    And in queue, Council Vice President Palmisano.
• • Linea Palmisano
  • 01:31:26
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
  • 01:31:27
    I just want to echo Council President Jenkins' interest in doing that kind of a closed session.
  • 01:31:33
    I also just want to warn a friendly reminder that we're in litigation here, so that might limit some of the things that we can share publicly.
  • 01:31:43
    But boy, is it becoming an issue in
  • 01:31:47
    In my communities, maybe in others, people are getting asked about this and there's a lot of misinformation and other promises being made in different people's electoral campaigns on it and we have to be careful about giving the public accurate information and being in proceeding
  • 01:32:08
    carefully on this topic.
  • 01:32:11
    We are not in a position to go and redo the entire 2040 plan, and nor should that be something that's in the atmosphere being talked about at this point in time.
  • 01:32:25
    So I just wanted to say that.
  • 01:32:27
    Thanks.
  • 01:32:28
    Thank you.
  • 01:32:29
    Council Member Ronzi.
• • Robin Wonsley
  • 01:32:30
    Thank you, Chair Koski.
  • 01:32:32
    I will say in Ward 2, especially around identity apartments, there's been lots of conversations of
  • 01:32:37
    with a developer right now pissing off thousands of students.
  • 01:32:44
    What is the role right now that the city can, you know, play in regulating or, you know, supporting student tenants and ranchers and parents?
  • 01:32:53
    And I'm literally stuck to be like, well, 2040
  • 01:32:56
    right now is, I don't know what that means for our own legislative authority to do housing work right now.
  • 01:33:04
    So I think it would be good if in the closed session, one starting off or just getting an overview of where we are, where have we been legally around this, and then it might be a longer study session that the student, I mean the council leadership can organize to talk about what is the legislative impacts of this too for us to do
  • 01:33:25
    more work around it while we're figuring out the legislative pieces to challenge and reinforce this policy.
  • 01:33:32
    But overall, I'm super excited to hear that there's receptivity from our city attorney's office and council leadership to at least do that first step of getting a briefing so that we can be able to share accurate information around at least the legal process.
• • Kristyn AndersonCity Attorney
  • 01:33:45
    Chair Koski, Councilmember Wonsley, absolutely happy to answer questions in closed session and to the extent you have questions that you want to send to me in advance so that we can be prepared, that would be great.
• • Emily Koski
  • 01:33:59
    All right.
  • 01:34:00
    Well, thank you, City Attorney Anderson, for being here.
  • 01:34:03
    I appreciate the presentation.
  • 01:34:06
    I'm not seeing any further discussion, and so I'll direct the Clerk to file these presentations.
  • 01:34:12
    Our next Budget Committee meeting is scheduled for this coming Thursday, the 14th, at 10 a.m. That day, we are set to hear from the Office of Public Service and the Intergovernmental Relations Department.
  • 01:34:23
    With that, we've concluded all business to come before this Committee today.
  • 01:34:27
    Without objection, we stand adjourned.