Budget Committee October 23, 2023   10/23/2023

Good afternoon.

My name is Emily Koski.

I'm the chair of the Budget Committee.

I'm going to call to order our regular committee meeting for the afternoon of Monday, October 23rd.

Wonsley.

Present.

Present.

Present.

Ellison is absent.

Osman is absent.

Jenkins is absent.

Chavez.

Present.

Chair Koski.

Let the record reflect that we have a quorum this afternoon.

We will hear budget presentations from the fire and police departments.

We will begin with a presentation from the fire department.

Here to present is Chief Brian Tyner.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair Koski and members of the committee.

It is my pleasure today to present to you the Minneapolis Fire Department Budget Overview for 2024.

So, I'll start.

I won't spend a lot of time on this but this is our org chart as we are currently organized under the fire chief is the assistant chief of operations, the assistant chief of administration, and the finance director and then as you can see, everything is kinda

split out from there.

Our top three priority objectives for 2024 are one, to continue to increase the diversity of the MFD to better reflect the community that we serve.

The MFD will ensure it has the resources required to keep up with the increasing demands for service for the people who live, work and play in the city of Minneapolis and placing a focus and a priority on the continued physical and mental health and wellness of the members of this department.

I'd like to talk about some of our achievements in the last few years beginning with 2022.

In 2022, we were able to complete our recovery of the Minneapolis Fire Department from the losses that we suffered from COVID and the civil unrest.

We were able to hire three fire cadet classes to recover from the personnel losses that we suffered in 2020 and 2021.

and we were even able to expand upon our authorized strength from 419 to 434 through an award of the Federal Safer Grant.

We reimagined and upgraded our employee assistance program to include a peer recovery team.

If you don't know what that is, a peer recovery team is a team of people who are trained to provide peer recovery and counseling services, but it's comprised of people from both inside our department and outside of our department.

So if you feel more comfortable talking to someone you know or somebody you're familiar with inside of our department, you can call that person.

or if you feel more comfortable talking to a firefighter that has experienced the things that you have experienced but don't know you are outside of that department that is an option also.

They are trained under the MenFire program.

We were also introduced leadership development curriculum at both the fire captain and chief officer levels.

We did that to create a strong line of succession and leadership within the Minneapolis Fire Department and make sure that people who are interested in taking on leadership positions are prepared to do so.

We relaunched the EMS Pathways Academy after a hiatus due to COVID-19.

As you know, that program is a paid internship whereby

students are able to get their emergency medical technicians certification and then be connected with careers in the fire service and in other places in the EMS fields.

That has been a very successful and award-winning program.

We hired and promoted the most diverse administration and fire cadet classes in the history of the Minneapolis Fire Department and we continue the work from 2021 to upgrade our operational procedures and capabilities

as recommended in the Hillard-Heintz report.

Moving on to 2023.

We were able to launch our SafeStations Opioid Peer Recovery Project.

That is a program that's designed to treat substance use disorders and also other problems that people may be having such as housing and other things.

It is currently located at Fire Station 14.

It's been in service for less than a year now but it has proven to be very successful and it's done in partnerships with Twin Cities Recovery Project and a number of other organizations.

We continue the improvement of our Employee Assistance Program through the addition of PAR 360.

PAR 360 is a resilience training and mental health services program designed specifically for first responders.

Although other programs of that type can help first responders, this was designed specifically

with first responders in mind and designed by a psychologist who herself was a first responder.

So that is getting off the ground and our resilience training is actually set to kick off next week.

We were able to secure a state contract to serve as a Minnesota State Hazardous Materials Chemical Assessment Team, which is no small feat and it's a good thing because it brings money in from the state to help offset some of our hazardous materials costs, but it also expands our response area.

Excuse me, to cover other parts of the state.

Thanks to money that was added into our budget last year, we were able to update our incident reporting software and that kickoff is actually next week.

We were able to put in service an additional fire engine company in the downtown corridor, Fire Engine 10, to help offset some of the increases of demand for services that we've been experiencing in the downtown corridor.

We introduced mentoring and job shadow career development program to go along with our leadership training so that people who are looking to move up and rank or looking at other jobs possibly in the future have a chance to really be mentored by someone in that position and job shadow that position to see if that is something that's really going to be of interest to them.

Finally, we continued our training and exercise activities in response to the recommendations of the Hillard Heights report.

Now I'd like to talk about some of the risks that we're looking at for the Minneapolis Fire Department and really the fire service at large.

The first, which we, as you can see, are looking to address here in the last couple of years, is mental health and PTSD.

It's a relatively new, it's not a new thing in the fire department, it's something that's recently being recognized in the fire service.

When we kind of looked at the signs and symptoms, we were able to discover that it's been here all along, but you know now it's kind of really come to the surface.

So we're really trying to focus on that

to prevent our members from getting to

Maybe a few months before we would open up for applications, but now we're going to recruitment all year round in all neighborhoods and all populations.

and retention.

Retention is something that had never been a problem for the Minneapolis Fire Department, but in recent years, a lot of suburban departments and other departments have gone to full time firefighting models and they do lateral hiring and so retention is something that we're keeping our eye on.

We've lost a couple of members to that not a lot yet, but it is definitely something that we're

paying attention to.

Also getting back to recruitment, our recruitment numbers have gone down over the last 15 years.

It used to be when I applied for this job, which is a lot longer than 15 years ago, but even up to 15 years ago when we'd open up this for applications every two years, we would get about 2,000 to 2,500 applications

and so on and so on.

in a number of areas.

Facilities, we need a new fire station to house a new fire engine 10.

Facility maintenance and upkeep, a lot of our buildings are old and require a lot of maintenance and upkeep to keep them up to par.

And then our fleet, we're suffering delays in receiving new apparatus and in receiving replacement parts.

Now these are all due to supply chain issues.

It's nothing that any of us can do about it, but still it is a

an area of concern and a risk that we have been looking at.

Right now, when we order a fire engine or a fire truck, our expected delivery time is at least a year or more, so you have to plan way ahead.

We even have trouble getting the SUVs, you know, oftentimes take up to a year or so.

we're having to plan ahead on a lot of that and also when it comes to receiving replacement parts we used to kind of be able to do a just-in-time kind of replacement model where if we needed a part you know you called a part place they bring it right on over and the mechanics can put it on but now we're having to order and stock parts ahead of time some of them because they may not be immediately available

and finally software and hardware replacement.

We just talked about image trend our reporting software that we are replacing hardware replacement to be something that I'll put in front of you today.

And so we will have we do have some other needs after that that I plan to get to in the coming years.

A program of staffing summary.

Our staffing or all of our programs are kind of spread out amongst all of our FTEs, but I am happy to say that we're not requesting any FTEs next year.

Our 442 is what we have this year, is what we intend to have next year.

That includes the 434 of sworn personnel, 15 of which are paid for by the SAFER grant for the next three years, and eight civilian positions.

Alright, let's talk about our program updates.

So our biggest program, we have three business lines.

Our biggest business line is the fire suppression EMS and technical rescue model is the one that most people think of when they think of the fire department.

It is the actual response side of the business.

The goals of this program are to respond effectively to all emergencies and hazards, to meet the national response standards contained in NFPA 1710, and to ensure that the most appropriate and efficient response of rigs

equipment and personnel are responding to each incident type.

The race equity impacts for this program are neutral.

We respond to everyone when they call.

If you call us, we're coming.

We don't care who you are, how you identify, where you live, any of that.

We're coming and we're coming as fast as we can with everything we need.

The NFPA standard requires the first rig on scene to arrive in five minutes or less 90% of the time.

The MFD has, I don't think ever made that standard, but over the last few years we've actually gone farther and farther away from meeting the standard.

We were only able to meet this standard 65% of the time in 2022, which represents a significant decline in response time.

Our overall average, however, is only 526, so we're not that far off, but we're not there either.

Some of our accomplishments in this area is that we were awarded a three-year, $4.5 million FEMA SAFER grant, which I've mentioned several times already, which will allow the department to add 15 firefighters at no cost to the city.

And we were also awarded a $149,250 assistance to firefighters grant from FEMA to be used towards firefighter mental health and to launch the peer fitness training program that we talked about.

So it's being used to pay for the PAR 360 service.

This really talks about our call volume from 2008 to 2022.

The blue line represents our EMS and rescue calls which by and large is EMS and then the green represents our total calls for those years.

As you can see the EMS calls are at least 70% if not 75% each year of the total calls and they continue to rise.

There was a dip in 2020

The COVID year, I think because people were at home, we got caught a little bit less.

But as you can see, they jumped right back up in 2021 and they continue to rise.

The fire calls seem to stay fairly constant, but the medical calls seem to rise at least 3% every year.

This is our response time of five minutes or less, 90% of the time metric.

As you can see in 17 we were doing it 76% of the time.

I can't even remember back at a time where we were probably around 80 in the 2008-2009 maybe area.

but sixty five percent here this last year and you can see where it is kind of slowly declined.

I think there's a lot of reasons for that however I think adding Engine 10 to the downtown corridor is one thing that will help with that especially in that area.

I also think the new station alerting system that we are pursuing will help because it actually streamlines the process and cuts about eighteen to twenty seconds out of that dispatch time which doesn't sound like a lot

But if I go back and tell you that, you know, our total overall average time is 529, you cut 18 to 20 seconds off of that.

Uh I think that can actually pretty much get us there so that would mean everything and I probably don't have to tell you if you're the person at the other end of the line and you're having a heart attack or some emergency, 20 seconds, you know, means a lot to you too.

So, something that we can pretty easily do.

So our change request for this

area are overtime.

We're asking for $800,000 to be added to our overtime budget one time for 2024.

It would bring our overtime budget to 1.2 million in 2024, which right-sizes our overtime budget and corrects the COVID-era budget reductions.

Our budget was reduced from 800 to 400 in 2020, even though when we

kind of looked at the numbers.

We were probably closer to a million, million two.

So, the 800 wasn't even accurate or the right size at the time.

An increase to that overtime budget, it allows the department to spend in for the other areas of our expense budget rather than under spending in those areas to try to make up for the overage and overtime.

In the past, that's what we've done to try to balance our budget but once 2020 came and everything got blew out the water, even that,

was insufficient anymore.

This supports the fire department's goal of meeting our budget on an annual basis while at the same time gives us the ability to fully spend in the other areas of our operating budget so that those areas don't suffer in order to keep people on the rigs.

Our second ask is for mobile data computers.

Those are the kind of Toughbook laptops that are contained in each rig and those are, that's how we communicate with dispatch and each other is how our runs get transmitted to us.

We're asking for $150,000 one time to replace all of the mobile data computers that are in each of the fire apparatus.

The devices are six years old and past their expected life.

The way that we were able to finance them the last time, they weren't included in the refresh schedule for IT.

So by going this route this time, they will be scheduled in the refresh.

They will be automatically refreshed every four to five years when they come do it.

We won't ever have to come to you again, so happy to say that.

This supports the fire department's goal of having up-to-date technology to enable the department to be more productive and efficient.

And right now we are working with IT to purchase these devices and get them added to the refresh list for future replacement.

Alright, our next program area is training and recruitment.

Again, we have three.

The function of the training and recruitment

program is to ensure that firefighters are thoroughly trained, that they're capable leaders and supervisors through the pursuit of excellence and high professional standards.

We accomplish this by providing skills training, by instilling a value of lifelong learning and the development of leadership traits, ensuring a focus on wellness, health and safety.

Some of our accomplishments in this area are that we completed the process of redeveloping and expanding the MFD Employee Assistance Program, which I talked about, so I won't take you through all of that again.

We completed the process of staffing recovery.

Where we would normally hire one class a year, we hired like five classes back to back over the last two years.

So as soon as we graduated class, we're almost putting in another class.

Training and Recruitment has been extremely busy here over the last two years.

Of course, we talked about the MFD Leadership Development Curriculum, which I think is going to be a big boon to our development and our future as a department.

We have not goals, but actually requirements that each of us have to meet to remain a firefighter to maintain our Minnesota Firefighters License and to maintain our Minnesota Emergency Medical Technician Certifications.

I'm happy to report that 100% of our firefighters have completed the 72 hours over 3 years of mandatory fire training necessary to maintain their licenses.

We're actually way over there.

We probably used to do about 100 hours a year as opposed to the 24 hours a year that's required.

So, that one we've made pretty easily over the years and 100% of our firefighters have the 80 hours of mandatory emergency medical training over 2 years necessary to maintain their EMT

Technician Certification.

And we didn't have any asked in this area.

So I'll move on to community risk reduction and outreach.

The Community Risk Reduction and Outreach program's function is to reduce preventable fire related injuries and deaths.

The program is tasked with reaching out to Minneapolis residents and businesses with fire safety and prevention information, but it also expands out to things that aren't necessarily fire related, slips, trips, and falls.

that are offered are some of them, actually, because there's quite a few offered by the Community Risk Reduction and Outreach Program include the Youth Fire Center Intervention Program.

It's a program where, you know, if a kid's kind of starting fires or has gotten in trouble, we are able to provide intervention in a safe space to kind of, you know, teach them the error of their ways without

getting involved necessarily in the legal process.

School age outreach and education, adult and aging adult outreach, differently abled outreach, immigrant and non-English speaking outreach, and smoke and carbon monoxide alarm distribution, which is of course one of our most popular programs.

We're actually getting ready to receive a new shipment of smoke and carbon monoxide alarms and we distribute those free to citizens across Minneapolis who

who may need a smoke alarm or carbon monoxide alarm detector in their home, I should say.

Some of our accomplishments is we've been able to expand the program and added an additional FTE.

It sounds like a lot.

We actually only had one person, now we have two.

We instituted year-round sustained recruitment efforts and we provided fire safety and community risk reduction information and materials

to residents across the city along with those smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.

Thank you, Chief.

Appreciate it.

I'll see if we have any questions.

Thank you Madam Chair.

I have a few but I'll be quick.

Chief Tyner, you mentioned in the previous LAG community outreach and one of those points was about differently abled outreach.

I'm curious because I have heard that this has been something that our local firefighters have done.

Does that mean helping someone to set up a home

when they perhaps come home from the hospital a little bit differently abled than before?

Like does it mean that you will advise or assist with helping installation of railings and that sort of thing?

Yep, so mostly our work is mostly in an advisory capacity.

We install fire alarms and smoke alarms.

We haven't traditionally installed like the railings and things like that.

People perhaps get discharged too early.

I've also, I mean, it is amazing the work our firefighters do.

I even heard that they fixed an older woman's toilet in my work.

Yes.

I will say the crews, oftentimes when they go out to those runs, they will stay after and help.

I'm curious, in your slide that shows that our response times are slipping.

I've come to appreciate that this calculation is complex.

For example, I think that if there were to be four to a rig,

that might increase the response time because of the amount of is it the amount of fire suppression or the amount of people able to immediately be on scene or I guess

You mentioned things that seem geographical to some extent, like being able to put station 10, fire engine 10 back in a station.

But what are some of the other things that impact response times?

Because I've heard a lot from the community about how important that is to them, including road width.

There is a lot.

So first of all, let me separate those two.

So four on a rig really allows us to be more

of the City Council.

Now, with that being said, all of our SLPs are really designed for four people on a rig.

So when we arrive with three people on a rig, the fire doesn't really care, right?

We still have the same amount of work to do with three people as we normally deal with four.

So when we try to do that with three, it either causes delays, sometimes it causes injuries because we're, you know, over exerting ourselves.

or it just makes the operations a little bit more complex.

So, really, it works better with four people on a rig.

I do have a staffing plan in place.

It's a ten-year staffing plan to get us to four people on every rig.

I don't know that I'm going to be here ten years to see it through, but

I certainly want to put us on the track and our first step on that was getting these first 15 and then we'll try to get another 15 here in the next

year or so and kind of work that schedule to get to the other end of the 10 years.

But yes, that is important.

To get to the other part of your question, there are a lot of other things that factor into it.

Certainly street widths, the addition of bike lanes, you know, have kind of narrowed the travel distance that we have to work with.

You know, weather, you know, this is a standard that's

nationwide, right?

So it's the same standard in Texas as it is in Minnesota.

So they don't take into account winter or things like that.

Additionally, it seems like the city has constantly been under construction since just before the Super Bowl, I would say.

And so I think that has factored into it.

But I think the other thing that factors into it is the addition of runs.

So when Engine 6 per se goes out on a run, that means when there's another run in Engine 6's box, somebody else has to take it.

But they're coming from probably a longer distance away.

So that adds to the response time.

Now it's kind of a domino effect.

Now if that person gets to run in their district then somebody else has to take that from a long distance away.

So that's why we're trying to attack it from a number of different ways.

One by adding more people and more rigs into the response model and two by streamlining our dispatch process to cut out the unnecessary time.

I won't call it unnecessary, that's probably a bad way to put it but

to make more efficiencies in that process.

Thank you.

Just to add on to that, I generally, when I speak about our fire department, say that we have the same number of staff that we always have, but versus I think 20 years ago, we have about twice the number of runs.

And that's a lot.

That helps to explain why when Station 6 is out, which is almost always, that then these other dispatched rigs, I'm probably using the wrong terms, would, there'd be a longer response time.

More FTEs would help with that.

That's why we applied for the Safer Grant and got the 15 additional FTEs.

The 15 doesn't get us to four on every rig, but it does help cut down on the overtime costs and on the wear and tear on the other firefighters.

So until we get to, I'm gonna say 60 additional people, that's probably where we'll get to four on every rig.

The 15 allows us to get four on the most busier rigs, the most busiest rigs.

on many days.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yeah, my questions are kind of similar.

I'm always confused.

So authorized is budgeted.

So it's really the same word.

What we're budgeted for is what we're authorized.

And right now that is actually 419 in the budget and 15 with the grant, which brings us to 434.

If you're saying that it would take roughly 60 FDEs to get to that target of four per rig,

Is the barrier us finding the money or are there like operational barriers in terms of not having enough space in each station to actually house that many FDEs?

It is the money.

The space is there.

It is the money.

Of course, it would take us some time to hire up that many people.

Thanks, Chair Koski.

Well, we really haven't, other than presenting the idea, we really haven't even started on that.

Right now, it's still the first precinct.

So, you know, there's really not a whole lot we can do with that until they're ready to to vacate it.

But I do know that it will require some extensive renovation.

When we left it, somebody when they designed that fire station in there

And then next question is around just fleets.

I know you mentioned delays because of some of the conditions of the fleet.

and also there is a backlog in getting it seems like new engines.

Can you share?

Yeah, not a lot.

So we we we order him on a schedule and we've been aware of this backlog for some time.

So we're doing OK and we order him early.

So we ordered him before the ones we have are getting ready to, you know, fall apart.

I think we only have maybe two engines and one truck that we're waiting on now.

So it's not a whole lot, but we're still waiting.

But we're aware of that and the engines that we have have the capacity to last another year until they get here.

As long as it doesn't get any worse, I think we'll be okay.

We've been able to plan for that.

One thing that has also been a challenge is it's hard to go out and competitively bid when you know you gotta wait a year for a fire engine and doing that's gonna start the process all over again.

So we're kind of, I won't say stuck with, but you know, stuck with the people who we have right now and we're happy with them.

They build great fire engines.

but it just causes a lot of problems but we plan for it along with Fleet and so we're doing okay but it's a risk it's a concern so if it gets to be starts to get longer than that if it gets to be a year and a half two years and they say they can't even get the the chassis to even build the fire engines on as part of the problem it might start to be a problem for us but right now I think we're okay and that we built in a long time ago a replacement schedule

The dream is that we will have these two engines and one truck delivered for next year in 2020.

Thank you Madam Chair.

Chiefs, thanks for coming down today and presenting your budget.

It's always a good day in these chambers when we see a firefighter in here.

Thank you.

A couple questions.

Yeah so it's something that we have actually been training on for some time now and kind of keeping a close eye on.

I think it's a bigger problem in New York because they're so dense and they live in more apartment buildings and people are bringing these motorized bikes and things into their apartment building and charging them there and so when they do catch on fire you know now you have an

building in your apartment.

But it's something that we're very much aware of.

It's something that we're keeping a close eye on.

Actually, we just received a information request on how many electric bike fires we've had so far.

And thankfully, you know, they really haven't found many records of any.

I can recall a fire that we had where a person was taking these batteries off of the, you know, scooters and things and collecting them all and

his apartment in house and that created a big fire.

The challenge with the with those batteries is that first of all it takes a lot of water to put them out because of the way that they burn and once you get them out they can reignite you know they can still store energy they can still you know have emissions and things that can catch back on fire so

My first advice would be is don't bring them in your house.

You don't keep them in the garage.

Charge them outside.

A lot of times the problem we have is not necessarily with the batteries that come with the machinery, you know, from the manufacturer, but a lot of times he's secondhand.

So what I'm hearing you say is it's more the bikes and the scooters are a challenge as opposed to cars.

Yeah, we haven't seen it so much with the cars.

The cars are a challenge in that there's a lot more batteries and a lot more, I'll say, possibility of a disaster, but they're also much more quality in build.

Those batteries are higher quality batteries, so we haven't seen it much with the cars, but I would say it's still a risk, but we haven't seen much with

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good afternoon, Chief.

I'm glad to hear that the Pathways Program is back up and running.

It has been a, as you said, an award-winning program and a really

I think a great way to recruit.

We were.

We're slowing down now.

We're slowing down now.

Yeah.

No, I'm curious.

Now he's getting ready to retire, so we might have burned him out.

No, we've been able to manage it, I think, pretty well.

It's been taxing on certainly our HR department on having to do all the interview processes and get all the classes hired and certainly on the training staff.

But, you know, I think everybody knew that it was necessary and so we've just kind of tried to plan it and plan to work and then work the plan.

as best we can.

One thing with that SAFER grant that I was talking about is part of the performance requirements is that if we get below 434, we're put on a clock where we have six months to hire another class to get back above 434.

So we've been able to plan it out with Minnesota.

It requires a little more planning because it's hard to train firefighters in the dead of winter.

So, you know, we have to plan it out so that we're going to be able to make the best use of our weather and facilities

to be able to get them the training that they need.

We have a lot because of the EMS Pathways Program.

I think we can do better.

I think there's room for improvement.

I think in the last year in 2022, we hired the second amount of most women firefighters we have in any other year prior.

I think 1999 was the

the record.

I think we hired nine that year.

We hired eight last year, but I had a lot that turned down the job too or took positions in other places.

You know, I talked about some of these other departments.

A lot of these suburbs now are becoming full-time career fire departments and they pay more than Minneapolis, but you do a lot less so you know that appeals to some people.

So it's competitive out there.

It's a lot more competitive than it was in the past.

But we keep pushing ahead.

We have a women's association now that recently

recommitted his ranks.

They had kind of shut down for some years, but now they're back now.

And so they've committed to helping us with our recruitment efforts and preparing some of our female candidates for the physical tests and some of the rigors of the job.

So I think we're on the upswing.

My last question, Madam Chair, is around chemicals and I know there's been a lot of concern around some of the chemical

suppression stuff that firefighters use.

Yes, so I think I know what you're talking about and that's the PFAS chemicals, P-A-F-A, P-F-A-S.

So those we found in two different places.

One, we have this chemical called AFFF which we have used historically for

like oil fires or gas fire gasoline fires or flammable liquids and that used to contain PA PFAS PFAS chemicals we stopped buying the PFAS version of that quite a while ago when the research started coming out I want to say six seven years ago plus I think the state actually passed the law against it the second place was it was being found in our turnout gear right you know because it's flame resistant and so I think the

The industry had to, again because of laws, stop making those with PFAS chemicals in there.

But just in case we're very careful that we're going through the material data sheets to make sure that they don't contain PFAS in those garments as we buy our new turnouts, which we also buy turnouts every year.

Thank you Madam Chair.

Yeah, I just got back in the queue because Councilmember Rainville brought up e-bikes and I've been following along with New York a little bit and I think you mentioned this Chief that it's less the batteries that came with the bike and it's more the aftermarket batteries.

Yes.

And one of the things that New York's, I think they either pass legislation or they're working on it is to require that all batteries are at least under underwriter lab certified so that

you're not getting these aftermarket batteries that are actually running into those issues.

Thank you.

I put myself in queue.

I just had a couple questions as well, Chief.

I can't remember what side it was, but I believe it's under the training program under that budget.

The original 2024 budget was 11.8 and it moved to 11.2.

Let me look back.

So I do know that budget actually made a lot of adjustments in the way that they're actually calculating things.

So I don't believe we asked for any changes in that part of it.

So I'm thinking it was probably one of those.

Yeah, it was a decrease.

You know, the original 2024.

We'll have to look into it.

Okay, great.

Chair Koski, Council members, yes, the IT model changes the way we calculated that.

Got it.

Yeah, because it's almost $600,000 difference.

I just was curious what that shift was.

Perfect.

That's helpful to understand.

And then my other question, kind of just piggybacking a little bit on what Council Vice President was asking about, you know, overtime and FTEs.

probably well in 20 and 21 we didn't have the ability to hire because not only because of the hiring freeze because we did but we also didn't have the ability to to even train firefighters through the COVID pandemic so overtime was really our only way to keep the rigs open it was either that or having to close down rigs and reduce service to the community so that was the biggest reason for those couple of years but

But I guess it all comes down to cost.

Okay, well I'm not seeing any further questions.

Thank you so much for this presentation.

Excuse me, this presentation, Chief Chiner.

All right, next we have a presentation from the Police Department.

I will invite, I see Chief Brian O'Hara out here in the hallway and his team.

Welcome, Chief O'Hara.

Yep, we are ready for you.

Go ahead.

You're on.

Thank you, members of the Council.

So just to start off, okay.

This first slide reflects the reorganization of the MPD.

As many of you know, during the course of the year, we came before you to ask for certain new positions.

to have a state law enacted to change the structure of the department.

And this is now what the structure of the department looks like after all of those changes.

So after we began to make appointments to the command staff, we made 18 new appointments to members of the command staff.

Some of those members are joining me here today.

And since then we've actually transferred close to 90 sworn members, transferred and reassigned them.

So combined, this is clearly the largest shakeup of the police department in modern history and this is now what the organization of the department looks like.

Coming down on the second level from the chief, there's an operations branch

which is commanded by Assistant Chief Katie Blackwell and then the Community Trust and Engagement Branch that's commanded by Assistant Chief Chris Gaiters.

And underneath each of those you see where the Deputy Chiefs report.

Under Operations it's Investigations and Patrol, under Community Trust it's everything else, Constitutional Policing, Internal Affairs and the Professional Standards Bureau.

full-time equivalents so the difficulty with this presentation for the police department because we changed the structure mid-year we're currently operating under the old structure and that will be corrected with with the new budget

and the Finance Director is here and she could speak to that a little bit more.

But as you see the Constitutional Policing Bureau is something that's new and there's a request for 28 FTEs in next year's budget.

Currently there are four sworn FTEs in that position.

In the operations branch, which includes patrol and investigations, there's a total currently of 512 and the request is for 734.

Community trust and engagement, which is the other half of the department, currently 58 sworn and the request being for 177.

So how it plays out both for sworn and civilian, currently budgeted under this year is 900 and for next year the request is 939.

And again that reflects the minimum sworn number of 731.

Current sworn FTEs, again, there's four in the Constitutional Policing Bureau.

In Patrol, there's 389.

Special Operations is 25.

Investigations and Forensics, 99.

Community Engagement, eight.

Professional Standards, which includes the Administrative Division, and also the Internal Affairs Bureau has 50, with a total active sworn of 574.

The priority objectives.

So obviously, you know,

is recalibrating the vision and mission of the agency.

The mission of every sworn member of this department when it comes down to is to protect vulnerable people from harm.

It's to protect life, then to protect peace, and then to protect property in that order.

and sort of you know our objectives as we go about that what we should be focusing on every day are these three points if we're not doing things that advance these three points we're wasting our time and number one is to reduce serious crime while number two earning people's trust and then number three is obviously to rebuild the department

and that is both to rebuild internally after our officers that remain have been here through so much but also to better replenish the ranks.

Many of our officers obviously have left, close to 40% of the department has left over the last three years and our force continues to get older as we are not bringing on enough new members to keep pace with normal attrition.

achievements this year.

Obviously, everyone knows the settlement agreement was signed.

Commander Yolanda Wilkes is here with me.

She is the commanding officer for the implementation division.

She's done a fantastic job at leading that unit, at standing it up from scratch, essentially with no how-to manual.

And if any of you all have been at some of the recent community engagement sessions, I think it's clear that the unit has been very successful so far.

in advancing not only the terms of the settlement agreement but also ensuring that we're able to connect with community and make sure that voices are heard as we go through this process.

You all know that the CCPO ordinance was implemented and now internal affairs split from OPCR.

All citizen complaints going to OPCR.

We created the Pathways Partnerships, encouraging the Peace Program, which is under Assistant Chief Gators.

The Police Activities League was recreated this year.

During the last budget, a memorandum of understanding was signed with Unity Community.

and that partnership continues.

The Step Up program was added to the peace recruitment plan and we also initiated this year for the first time an internship program through PERF with HBCU universities around the country.

Obviously there's no HBCUs in this part of the country but many of our residents do go.

and it's our hope to expand that program next year.

Some of our members just returned from Alabama A&M where the intern that was here was helping as a recruiter to spread the message to other students in that school.

So that was successful.

We're also engaging with Alexandria to try and provide transportation for city residents

who would be interested in going to that program to become a police officer through the CSO program.

Our crime lab received accreditation and also we've really had tremendous success with the temporary case investigators.

The case investigators that we have are very experienced, they're very good at what they do but the problem is they're temporary employees so they have no benefits, they have no sick time, they have no paid time off

and they're absolutely essential not only because of the volume of investigations but particularly for what is required to present a case to the prosecutor's office for charges.

There's just so much

There's so much administrative work that needs to be done, reviewing video, preparing PowerPoints, those types of things that we don't need a sworn member to be doing that.

But these folks are very experienced and very helpful with moving those cases along that would otherwise be sitting longer before we could have some sense of justice for our victims.

firearms unit and forensics surpassed 6,000 total confirmed NIBIN hits.

That's the National Integrated Ballistics Network, the firearms tracing that we do whenever there's shell casings that are recovered, whenever an illegal handgun is recovered.

everyone is entered through NIBIN which is a program with the ATF and that's been tremendously successful at linking crime guns not just to one particular incident but to multiple incidents and then branching off from there.

So it's an impressive investigative tool and it's been very helpful for some very serious crimes.

Challenges obviously are the settlement agreement and an impending federal consent decree, which is obviously very resource intensive.

Funding will be needed for various requirements, upgrades to technology.

Training is a big part of that.

It's about 60 hours already in addition to everything that we do.

And there is an expense associated with that, particularly when it's difficult to maintain minimum staffing as it is.

Anytime you remove an officer for training, there is a need to backfill.

So clearly training and being able to pay for trainers and to have our own instructors there is certainly a challenge.

reform itself.

I think that's something already we're doing well with in terms of trying to turn a corner and advance change.

We're doing more than what's required under the agreement and we're not waiting to being forced to do that.

And then also community support.

I think

I think we've made some progress, but we're going to continue to do community engagement sessions beyond the minimum that is required and try and find new ways to target certain communities and certain residents that may not feel like they've been able to have their voice heard.

Staffing is right up there, both with, as I mentioned before, reducing serious crime, earning trust, and really rebuilding the department is mainly staffing.

the pace of attrition has slowed however we're still in the red we continue to get smaller and that's that's definitely a concern so that affects our capacity to do certain things to do everything to

whether it's patrol or whether it's to have personnel available to conduct investigations but I mean I think the biggest thing that really suffers under this particularly when patrol is just kind of going from call to call to call is a lack of ability just a lack of time to engage with members of the community to engage with young people and that's probably one of the most important things that we need to be ensuring that our officers are doing

In the third precinct, we recently implemented two beat officers to try and target, to go around and target certain neighborhoods and we've seen some success with that.

But that is the type of thing that's needed to rebuild sort of faith in the department and it's a challenge with the level of staffing that we have.

Recruiting and retention obviously are important with that.

They're intertwined.

and it's just, it's no secret.

Aside from the trauma that our officers have been through, there's definitely a sense, it's very difficult for them.

They've watched 40% of their colleagues walk out of the door over the last three years.

They have felt like they have been painted with a broad brush by folks who do not know them personally and they oftentimes

feel like they are doing everything they possibly can and do not feel supported.

That is their sentiment, that's their feeling.

And that's difficult because I think we continue to have officers who question whether or not they made the right career choice in the first place.

They continue to question themselves whether they should stick around.

and that's something that I try and address head on with our command staff and I try to remind them that

You know, we need to remember what our purpose is for being here in the first place and we need to remember that not only it's about all of our residents who are depending on us to be there, it's about your fellow officers who are depending on you to be there as well.

So that's something we're trying to address internally and I think as we do a better job internally at sort of remembering, you know, enforcing our values and remembering what our purpose is, hopefully we can try and push that in the right direction as well.

and obviously officer wellness is critically important, especially now.

There's a contract that we've had that's been underway for a few months with a mental health provider that is specific to first responders, Ellie, and there's a health and wellness unit as well.

And they have had a lot of interaction with our officers, but there's still, I think, a perception

kind of a negative perception around asking for help, which is something that we need to be mindful of as supervisors and try and encourage that as much as possible.

So program staffing and summary, this is essentially showing as you see on the right, the different bureaus and how both the total amount of finances for each bureau and how that has changed over time from 2021 to 2024.

Program updates, goals, data, race, equity, impacts, and budget proposals First Bureau of Constitutional Policing which is obviously created to house generally the implementation division but also other things specifically related to consent decree implementation and compliance were added to that as well

So obviously they have to satisfy the tenants of the settlement agreement and satisfaction will occur through training, policy creation, community and employee engagement, data collection and analysis, improved supervisor oversight and direction, and compliance review.

So that's what's listed.

Obviously those are the terms that the implementation unit is responsible for implementing throughout the department.

But just to speak to that generally, obviously

Before we even revise policy, we have gone out to conduct the engagement.

Then we received all that engagement.

That's all being analyzed now.

Policies are being drafted in concert with the City Attorney's Office.

Eventually there will be revised policies that will then be presented to Community for Review, ultimately being approved and implemented.

Once we have the policies, then we have to have the new training ready to go.

because you cannot actually hold officers responsible for this stuff unless they've been adequately trained.

And that will require, in addition to the 60 hours, it will require training that will be approved by MDHR which must include adult-based learning methods and also various forms of scenario-based learning.

we can be confident that our officers can actually understand the policies other than them simply coming out via email but also have sort of the skills necessary to actually implement it on the street.

Then for compliance, obviously the data collection is necessary and improved supervisor oversight.

A lot of what was in the DOJ report and also in the settlement agreement with the state

revolves around supervisor oversight.

Supervisors being present, supervisors holding officers accountable, which doesn't mean necessarily discipline, it just means when they see something that's wrong, they speak to it and correct it.

As an agency going forward, we will only be as good as our worst supervisor.

and that's what I tell our cops.

So definitely in addition to the things that are being required, we are looking at trying to have additional training or sort of a retreat for our frontline supervisors so that they understand the seriousness of their role in affecting both the culture and the morale of the department.

I am not present at roll call at 10 o'clock at night in the third precinct.

The sergeants are, the lieutenants are that are working those nights.

So we need those folks in those positions to know that they are the ones that have the ability to actually affect the morale and to make these reforms real for people.

they are the ones who could correct a negative mindset before it spreads to other persons and that's part of kind of how we're thinking about you know kind of recalibrating the way we look at the way we look at our roles.

So the Constitutional Policing Bureau is new and everything that falls under it is 6.3 million of the recommended budget.

In addition to the implementation division, the research and policy unit will fall under community policing as well as the community outreach services division.

So policy is just what that is.

It's what previously existed to update the manual.

And in addition to implementation, what we discussed, there's an RFP currently out to implement an early intervention system.

There's currently an early intervention unit in the police department.

It is a manual process.

It is not nearly what it should be.

The RFP that is out will help integrate things through data and make the process a lot more effective and ultimately have a lot more accountability over how that process works.

and other community outreach.

You know, we have the crime prevention specialist in each of the precincts.

They also coordinate with the BCR teams, the embedded social workers in the precincts that are actually employees of the county, our chaplain program and the Cope mobile response.

Expected outcomes.

These are the things that we need to accomplish in 2024 under the settlement agreement.

16 hours of use of force training.

and again that's after the policy is revised and approved.

That'll include an emphasis on de-escalation, eight hours for supervisors training them how to review use of force incidents, 16 hours on stop, search and arrest and these are for all sworn members of the department.

Everyone has to go through this.

16 hours on non-discriminatory policing, obstruction of legal process and disorderly conduct training.

This is something I have in addition to what's in the settlement agreement.

I had the implementation unit draft something up relative to this.

I want to try and go a little bit further than what's in the settlement agreement.

Obstruction and disorderly conduct, those are arrests that can occur when there's no underlying offense.

And that's something that I want to have a particular emphasis on.

When there is no underlying offense, I want to make sure that we're doing everything possible to make sure that our officers are trying to de-escalate instead of arresting for those offenses.

Crisis intervention requires eight hours of training.

There will be an additional reprogramming of the FTO program.

We'll be training for the FTOs as well as training for the supervisors who supervise the FTOs.

We'll be doing training for internal affairs investigators.

That will be 16 hours.

ABLE training will be continuing, that's eight hours and all MPD instructors will need to have a training on sort of like how to teach, how to instruct using adult based methods and that's 40 hours.

complete assessments and create

Department or any other police department has various siloed data systems in order to implement and to track and conduct the analyses that are required under these types of agreements.

We need to be able to link those systems together.

So that's something that there's an RFP out there for that.

policy development will be ongoing.

So it's not just for the terms that are in the settlement agreement.

Even if it was just for those topics it's not like we do it once and it's over.

It's an annual review process that has to be completed.

internal review panels.

So there will be a designated team by policy of MPD command staff that will meet quarterly to discuss metrics, training policies and other considerations discussed in the agreement.

An early intervention system database will be implemented and EIS will start operations.

Again, that will be something

The current process is manual.

That will be something that will be based on data with systems linked up so that we can see certain things.

We can see the system, the workforce system that lists officer hours will be connected with the system that has use of force information that will be connected with the system that tracks stops and those types of things.

So that's what I'm talking about to actually have something more robust

then the current process which is when somebody in internal affairs notices something or a supervisor notices something they make a phone call and a referral.

Quarterly roll call visits by health and wellness and contracted mental health services which is the group I mentioned earlier, the LA group.

Equity MDHR Findings Report has noticed several racial disparities and disparate impacts.

A budget proposal is responsive to the agreement that is intended to address those disparities and impacts through improved policing and related services.

The investments made in this proposal will help better ensure more equitable and high quality service for those historically impacted communities.

Obviously there is a disparate impact based on race in police enforcement data.

It's obviously here as well as virtually any other city that you have.

How I try and explain this to folks is

Our obligation is to ensure that we don't have some individual officers that are doing things to exacerbate those disparities that are already existing and also as an agency that we look at different commands, we look at different shifts to ensure that there isn't some practice that is being endorsed in some way by the department that makes disparities even worse.

that's the bottom line, that's our obligation to have stuff in place, to have processes in place, systems in place so that we can make sure we're intervening if there's an individual officer that is inappropriately, unlawfully exacerbating these disparities or that we have some practice that is making disparities worse.

MP requests $6.4 million, that's the Constitutional Policing Bureau.

We mentioned 28 FTE's ongoing funding of $4.5 million specifically related to the settlement agreement.

20 positions within the MPD, which is $3.7 million, and non-personnel expenses, which is half a million.

One-time funding of $2.1 million covers the overtime needed to complete required trainings within deadlines.

That is obviously an estimate.

That's our best estimate at this time, because obviously schedules change.

and things like that staffing changed and as I mentioned every time we take someone off the street there's an expense with that.

So that's particularly difficult to plan out in advance but that is our best estimate of what it will be.

The value of this budget proposal lies in two key areas, quality of public services and decreased liability for the City of Minneapolis.

but the bottom line is what we're really trying to get here is we're trying to change people's experiences on the street, we're trying to ensure that more people will trust us, we're trying to ensure that less people will feel like they can't, they have nothing good to say about us and at the end of this we'll have fewer cops that get hurt in interactions with the public and we'll have fewer members of the public get injured.

That's really what's most important.

City Council, Budget Committee, Budget Committee

which is the vast majority of what people's complaints are about is stuff that's related more towards officer demeanor than it is towards some of the larger, more serious issues that are addressed by the consent decree.

Equity impacts obviously reduce racial disparities and that's just repeating again the disparities that we know exist.

Okay, so these are all the positions that were outlined that are either in the implementation division or they're somewhere else in the police department that support the requirements of the settlement agreement.

IT obviously is a big part of it as I mentioned for a variety of reasons.

There's a compliance SME manager.

That is a position in the implementation division.

responsible for our compliance with the settlement agreement and supervising a team of compliance specialists.

Two compliance specialists being assigned to the implementation division and those will be folks that look at the various parts of the agreement as we implement them and do our own compliance checks just to ensure that we are actually implementing things according to plan.

Wellness SME being assigned for administrating and directing wellness program.

Training SME responsible for coordinating and directing all the training requirements and as you saw before that in of itself is a very heavy lift.

Community Engagement SME that's someone who works with our community engagement and data required by the settlement agreement and is directly involved in all aspects helping to plan and execute the various community engagement sessions that we have.

Senior Project Manager responsible for overall tracking of deadlines and keeping the staff on track according to plan.

All of the settlement agreement as you know has specific due dates and that's all a big push to make sure that we get all of these many things implemented in a short period of time.

We do have bilingual community specialists in the unit responsible for assisting with community engagement

Community Specialist Project Lead also involved in community engagement Senior Project Manager for Support Services supervising the policy development and data work needed to lead and execute on policy change process in conjunction with the requirements of the settlement agreement.

Three administrative animalists necessary for administrative tasks to support the collaborative intellectual work required by the agreement.

Project Coordinator, Supervisor, responsible for supervising research, development and drafting of policy Policy Technician, responsible for researching and drafting policies Manager, Business Analyst, responsible for overall data analysis and database requirements of the settlement agreement which again is very, very significant I mean close to half of what we have to do is being able to ensure that we have the IT and the data to prove and to measure the things that we're doing

a data scientist and then two data analysts responsible for the deep analysis of data revealing trends, problems and opportunities to evaluate performance in key metric areas and there's just tons and tons of data to be looked at already.

Two data analysts responsible for the analysis of data and data needs with the settlement agreement.

An EIS manager will be responsible, a civilian position for managing the success of the EIS program once we have it.

EIS data analyst to evaluate the data that comes through from the various systems.

To analysts, administrative analyst two for internal affairs, this is needed to meet MDRHR deadlines for unique identifier or seven-day requirement for case review.

to body-worn camera analysts for internal affairs.

That's necessary for the additional video analysis that's required under the consent decree settlement agreement.

Internal affairs case intake investigator.

This is needed to meet deadlines again for the seven-day requirement case review.

We're looking to hire a civilian training director, someone with experience with adult learning, with forming curricula, to create and direct the training programming in consultation with the police department command staff as well as the city attorney's office.

Use of force training civilian supervisor responsible for developing comprehensive defensive tactics programming that aligns with the requirements of the settlement agreement.

Safety Services

okay so this is patrol public safety services responding to criminal activity responding to all 911 calls and other calls for service responding in a timely manner the last three years year-to-date as you can see priority one which is the highest priority MPD is responding to 75% of the time is meeting its response goal of getting there within 11 minutes of the call this is something that's very important I mean we're not

We're not pre-pandemic yet, but we have had a dramatic decrease in the number of shooting victims this year, thank God.

As of today, I think there's 170 fewer people shot this year than there was at this time last year, so prayerfully that trend will continue.

We are still above 2019's number, but it's progress, absolutely.

Percentage of encounters that do not involve the use of force, that data is being rebuilt and reformulated due to new requirements on the MDHR.

Number of robberies is down this year, you to date, by about 23% citywide.

A number of carjackings, which is a subset of robberies, is down by almost one half compared to this point of last year.

Data and Strategies Patrol is comprised of 415 employees serving our entire city, obviously providing 24-7 response.

MPD proactively engages in strategies, enforcements, and partnerships to address and reduce the impact of violent crime.

Officers have responded to 168,000 of call for service year to date and have contributed to the recovery of 836 illegal firearms.

Gunshot wound victims are down 36% year to date.

So obviously there's been some strategic and expanded use of overtime, particularly with the late night safety plan for late night activity in the downtown, as well as with our focused enforcement details and multi-agency details to target the very small number of folks that are out here pulling triggers and causing a lot of harm.

We try and leverage staffing and tools to provide exceptional and effective ways to reduce violent crime and property crime.

Again, that involves targeting the worst of the worst, identifying those folks who are most at risk for reoffending, going after that less than 1%, but also focusing on sort of the geographic concentrations and places and times where we're most at risk of having a serious crime.

directed patrols, there's been 865 guns recovered year-to-date, carjacking is down again 45%, shots fired, coils down 30%, and fully automatic gunfire is down 15%.

It was down more than that.

for at least the first half of the year.

So it is concerning that we are again seeing an increase in automatic gunfire being detected through the ShotSpotter system.

And obviously we have had a problem with the availability of switches, which are devices that can make a pistol or a firearm, be able to pull the trigger once and fire basically all the rounds that are in the weapon.

So that continues to be a challenge.

Crime analysts here are fantastic.

They do a great job at recognizing and addressing and pointing out patterns in the data every day and use of cameras and lighting to sort of decrease the environmental factors that create the opportunity for crime.

External partnerships have been unbelievable.

We've had tremendous support from all of the federal, state, and county partners here and continue to rely on them.

the language line and there's a different company that the officers actually use when they're on the street to provide translation services are used to communicate with basically anyone who speaks any language that there is out there.

Victim advocates and other social service providers are used for additional resources and support and our community navigators really have been fantastic with that.

Equity being responsive to community needs and ensuring equitable service.

Violent crime adversely impacts geographic areas that are predominantly populated by people of color.

Crime victimization statistics show that people of color are disproportionately represented as victims of crime.

And gun violence victims demographic data shows that 80% of gun violence victims are African American.

Budget proposal for overtime.

Good afternoon.

The second budget request that we have going into 2024 is for an additional $5 million for overtime costs anticipated for 2024.

It also includes another $1 million for law enforcement support for 2024 as well.

These numbers are based roughly on what is happening in 2023.

We anticipate our 2023 overtime to be approximately $24 million as well.

The projected cost is offset or the expense for overtime

is offset by a payroll savings of $13 million due to staffing below the budgeted sworn FTEs of 721, or 731, I'm sorry, and also is offset by the 2024 general fund-based budget of approximately $7.3 million.

The net of these combined is equal to the $5 million.

So, in other words, the $5 million pays for $4 million of additional overtime and $1 million of law enforcement support.

We anticipate, just for your information, there are law enforcement support expense for 2023 to be approximately 1.1 to 1.3 million dollars this year.

They have also provided help during some of our larger activities such as Aquitennial and other normal weekly activities.

The decrease in sworn FTEs from 2019 to 2023 resulted in a projected loss capacity of 425,000 regular hours.

Our use of overtime is to try to mitigate or offset those costs.

or that lost capacity.

This funding, the $4 million out of the $5 million, will only pay for 10% of that lost capacity of regular hours, which is approximately 44,000 hours and the $1 million of law enforcement support.

The biggest impact in overtime really is to reach minimum staffing levels and due to staffing shortages.

It also helps us and has an impact on response time and community safety, better able to meet minimum staffing levels and allows more investigatory time in response to caseloads.

We also combine other strategies.

We're not just using overtime.

to compensate for our staffing.

And that includes strategic deployment of staff, leveraging the other law enforcement support, cameras and lighting, and we use a lot of the crime analyst work here in order to determine how to strategically deploy our people.

I wanted to show you the next slide.

It gives you an idea over time of what our overtime has looked like compared to our regular hours.

So if you look at this and you compare, for instance, 2019 to 2023, you'll see that we've had a pretty significant reduction in regular hour capacity to the tune of over 400,000, I think it's 425,000.

That's corresponding with an increase in projected overtime.

I think a lot of you are aware of the CSOT program that we have as well.

And the CSOT program is an approval process or approved over time for very specific items.

And so the next slide will actually show you the CSOT that's been working in 2023.

You'll notice the one item that's approximately 85% of all CSOT hours, and that is actually due to staffing levels.

So as you can see, the biggest impact both in regular overtime and CSOT overtime is due to staffing levels.

If you look at also the cost, the CSOT, the incremental increase in the rate to 2x versus 1.5x is approximately 2.7 million dollars of our entire cost of overtime.

So the biggest impact is actually just the sheer number of hours that people are working for overtime.

I think we're just going to have you keep going and then we'll ask questions at the end.

Thank you, Director.

So next Bureau, Special Operations and Intelligence Division, $9.2 million of the recommended budget.

This includes the Strategic Information Center and obviously being able to manage resources effectively and respond to major incidents and act of terror.

Metrics are a percentage of encounters that do not involve in the use of force, which again that particular dashboard is being rebuilt currently due to new requirements of the MBHR agreement.

and under warrants executed measuring those search and arrest warrants that occurred safely and without any damage to property whether it's a broken window or a door that had to be forced.

So this year 64% of the time there was no property damage at all.

Data and strategies gather intelligence to better focus on criminal investigations.

which again goes back to trying to be as precise as possible on targeting only those folks who are causing the greatest amount of harm in the community, continuing respect for privacy and civil rights of our people, gathered information that is free from bias, being a conduit for information

with our state, local, and federal partners.

Public safety and threat mitigation using specialized units, which is all that stuff that falls under Special Operations Division, BOM, K9, and all those various units.

Data strategies provide public safety support during large-scale events, including pre-planning for those events.

Proactive focus details to address gun violence and emergent patterns of violent crime.

Those are the focused enforcement details that we conduct, which include every federal agency, even at times HSI and some of the other federal agencies, as well as our state partners.

Metro Transit has assisted us, the county,

and it is focused, a number of warrants are served during those details and those details are particularly focused on you know wanted violent felons as well as current investigations that the various agencies have within Minneapolis.

49 warrants served in 2022, 75 warrants served so far year to date which is a very positive development because obviously that is the preferred method of conducting this enforcement.

and the City Council.

The First Lady visited a residence in the 5th Precinct, as well as Loring Park this year, the Pride Parade Aquitennial, MLS Concert at the Commons, the Vice Presidential visit and President of Somalia visit.

We've updated policies obviously to better serve citizen needs and also to ensure that we're

we're in line with community values.

Police reserves fall under this division and they are out there as volunteers to help us with perimeter control, traffic control at these events.

The Investigations Bureau, $30.9 million of the recommended budget.

These are all the folks that investigate all the various types of crime throughout the city.

Obviously to keep the community safe, provide the highest quality investigative and forensic support for effective prosecutions.

to hold offenders accountable and to hopefully give victims some sense of justice.

Provide sound investigatory and forensic support so offenders will be charged and thereby deter future offenses.

Process crime scenes and evidence using best practices.

Again, our crime scene lab was accredited this year, which is a significant accomplishment and just demonstrates their professionalism and commitment to their work.

collaborate with external and internal partners to leverage resources and information to address crime patterns, which is something that obviously needs to be done very urgently.

We do not wait.

I'm on the phone and communicating with my team through the weekend.

We do not wait until Monday morning to address crime patterns as they are emerging.

There's definitely a renewed sense of urgency over our obligation to do that.

and the City Council and the City Council.

victims and people in need with some very unique services.

And it is definitely not easy to connect people with the services that they need.

So the navigators, the social workers are definitely invaluable to helping our sworn members to do that.

Collaborate with stakeholders to ensure or receive the care and support that they deserve.

The metrics for the Investigations Bureau about 5,500 reported crimes being assigned for follow-up investigations, 1,900 cases have been submitted for criminal charging consideration, 458 of which involved an incident where a gun was used.

and the City Council.

Again, our partnership with all our law enforcement partners.

We expanded the presence with our federal partners.

I assigned two investigators permanently to work in the US Attorney's Office across the street where they work literally in a room side by side with federal prosecutors to help facilitate and to move these prosecutions much more quickly and provide some level of accountability over sort of some

some direction, street knowledge, real-time information over what's happening out there to get better help from the other federal agencies that are involved as well.

And there's ongoing work to address issues in domestic violence with the assistance of the Global Rights for Women advocacy group and that's ensuring part of that which

again is training so in addition to all of the other training that we're doing under MDHR we need to do some new training around domestic violence because I learned through this group that that's something that had not been done here for several years and that's also something that we need to be training on annually in the department.

So that and a number of other issues Deputy Chief Case has taken the lead on addressing in collaboration with that group.

The Forensics Division, so Field Operations, which is the folks who respond from our crime scene unit, they've responded to 748 incidents.

They've processed 272 vehicles for DNA and fingerprint evidence.

They've examined nearly 6,000 shell casings, ballistic evidence, and examined 727 firearms.

Thank you.

Good afternoon chair and council members.

What I'll do is continue on with the community engagement piece with respect to recruitment, some

I will hit on internal affairs and professional standards.

So with our community engagement piece keep in mind our intent

was to do just that engaging in the community and when we spoke with the community members themselves and people even within our own enterprise was that they were pretty much done with the fact that they're listening to talk from employees within the police department and they wanted to see action.

They wanted to see us put our words into action and that's what we have been doing and that's our intent to try to continue to do.

So we've been improving the public perception and accountability and transparency and trust by doing just that.

So we've been conducting outreach throughout the community.

We've also been and have an understanding now that the community not only have the police officers

experienced trauma, but we understand that the community as well has experienced trauma through the incidents since 2020.

And we need to rebuild that and rebuild and earn back that trust.

So we also understand that there are mistrusting relationships within the community with the Minneapolis Police Department.

and our intent is to go through with that and make certain that we are listening first and implementing action with the community's input.

In addition, we're also using innovative ideas when it comes to recruitment as we have kind of paired up with our outreach piece and we also pair that up with the recruitment as well.

So if we're out doing outreach, we also are giving opportunities for individuals to come on

on board and join in service in the Minneapolis Police Department.

So we have such sessions that take place that are culturally specific.

Many times with our recruitment, what we've done in the past is we've gone to the job fairs, we've gone to recruitment fairs, but we have not done what we call better.

We can do it a lot better and we've been going deeper into the community and giving opportunities

within the community for employment.

Creating hiring ads as well in social media to help build the trust and give opportunities for individuals to join the job.

Recruitment team has also, believe it or not, gone door to door.

We've tried to reach out to everyone we can and we're trying to think outside the box and be innovative with it.

So they've actually gone out door to door knocking on doors to see if anybody wanted to be

come Minneapolis Police Department employees.

We're also partnered with the Unity Community Mediation Team and that's an organization that offers a seat at the table for individuals throughout the community to listen to and somewhat talk about police structure and police service with respect to our policies and procedures and the way we serve people.

So we've partnered with them with recruitment efforts as well as outreach efforts in the community as well.

These efforts are action and community based and have also improved our inclusion piece with community members and when I say inclusion I'm talking about individuals who are living in areas that are somewhat challenged with opportunities of employment and opportunities for education being paid for to better themselves and better thrive.

so we'll continue to do that and we have been as well.

We're fostering partnerships with organizations as well to better community engagement and we intend to measure our progress with public perception

by conducting surveys publicly so we can find out and establish a baseline for how we're doing and how we're viewed by the community and also how we can move forward and actually measure our progress as we continue on with our efforts to build trust.

to continue on with community engagement as we continue our process of discussing crime reduction, building trust and the advancement of community partner initiatives.

We will continue to host programs such as our youth internship program that the chief had mentioned before.

We brought on in partnership with a step-up program, 31 interns and gave them opportunities to get paid and kind of

if they're not interested in being a sworn law enforcement personnel, there are opportunities for non sworn as well.

And to go over and further than that, I will say that they have opportunities if

they don't see as law enforcement as a fit.

We try to get them into the enterprise and make sure that they have an opportunity to seek gainful employment even if they're not interested in the policing portion.

Along with that we're trying to build the college and university internship program.

We are working with HR currently and as many of you may know as you go through your curriculum at a university sometimes you have to take on an internship.

That is definitely the case with many criminal justice programs and we are now trying to rebuild our program where we're giving opportunities for individuals to do their internships right here in the city of Minneapolis with the Minneapolis Police Department.

So as we continue forward, trying to build trust and offering educational opportunities and paid for education, we have somewhat tried to look at the metrics of it and how many people were going out and dealing with and interacting with

side of outreach.

So in 2022, and I'll compare that to 2023, we participated in 71 community outreach programs or events.

We ended up from those getting 562 contacts that were made for individuals who were interested in the job of law enforcement.

Out of those individuals, 861

applications were filled out in 2022 and you might say well how'd you get 800 and some applications out of 562 contacts.

Just keep in mind the fact that these are individuals we're meeting on the ground with the 562 but also we have other ad campaigns that are taking place and word of mouth helps us with that as well with the hiring efforts that we're initiating.

In comparison to 2023, the MPDA participated in 106 when you compare it to 71 in 2022 or 107 community outreach events in October of 2023.

1611 contacts were made and that's this year and that was looked at in October 3rd of 2023.

from that 632 applications were filled out in 2023 as of September the 13th.

So in our mind we are making progress without and getting out into the community and giving people opportunities to be employed by the Minneapolis Police Department.

This year, excuse me, we employed 31 interns as I mentioned from the Step Up program and we are continuing to develop that university

process as far as internships for opportunities.

As I go in through to the professional standards and internal affairs piece of it, just wanted to let you know that the goal is to continue to have the MPD be accountable to the community and build trust through professional service.

Also to bring the MPD in full compliance with the requirements of the settlement agreement.

and moving on with the professional standards as you look at the bullet points as far as metrics please keep in mind that many of the metrics are being rebuilt as far as the structure of tracking those due to the settlement agreement and those will be made available later but please know that we are

still strategizing to develop and mentor personnel and improve programs while conducting quality assurance and compliance to department policies.

Madam Chair, Council members, so the MPD is requesting $2 million for civilian hires.

There's a correction on there.

The full list is on slides 37 and 38.

And we want to hire 16 additional FTEs.

Comparatively to best practices in law enforcement agencies, we're at the low end for civilians.

And then our goal is to improve community safety and reduce crime.

A large part of improving community perception is having a combination of civilian staff and sworn personnel.

Really adding the civilians enables us, the MPD, to place sworn personnel in patrol and investigations to increase resources in the areas that are most needed.

This is a slide of the positions.

I'll just briefly touch on them.

The body-worn camera video analysts, force investigators, police support tech, and the chief of staff.

These are additional ones, the crime analysts, intelligence analysts, and forensic scientists.

And then I'll discuss administrative adjustments and transfers.

Basically the transfers that we make are there to make the system more efficient.

So we move personnel where needed in collaboration with the other departments in the budget.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Chief.

I have a few Councilmembers in queue.

Councilmember Wan.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I think you touched on this a little bit.

You restructured the department, so obviously some of the dollars that are allocated in this year's budget

are just tracking with it's going to be a little bit complicated because they're new departments now or at least new divisions within the department.

But I was hoping you could give me some clarity or a little more clarity around some of the higher.

So we set aside money for this year's budget for implementation of MDHR, but we didn't exactly know what the scope of that would be.

We obviously know that scope a lot more.

and so my question is around to what extent have some of the hires that you've done to date reflected the dollars we already set aside, but to what extent are some of those hires

shifting money around within the department that you have available and then to what extent are they new requests for 2024.

I'm just having a hard time keeping those three buckets in mind.

And then if you could go further into talking about some of the civilian and temp help and what the bargaining unit implications are for that both currently and into the future knowing that there's going to be some negotiations.

So I will do my best and I will start with that, Chair, Council Member.

I'm going to start with that first and I'm going to ask Director McPherson to help better with the in the weeds budgetary questions.

So my understanding is, well first off, we have an agreement with like an MOU between the City and the Federation to have temporary civilian investigators.

So my understanding is that we cannot supplant sworn positions by having permanent civilian case investigators.

So that's something that I'm relying on the City Attorney's Office to help navigate.

However, I do believe that there are other positions

that are not supplanting, that they are new.

There are new requirements, there are new things that we have to do.

We're not trying to eliminate a police officer's position.

This is just new work that has to be done and we do not need a sworn member to do it.

and I have very specific ideas about what I would like to see with that, particularly in internal affairs.

Some of that is on here, but not all of it.

My goal of restructuring internal affairs as a bureau is to have it in three different components.

to have the internal complaints section, which is what internal affairs is required to do under the CCPO audience, is what we think of as internal affairs.

So that will be one section.

There will be another section that focuses on use of force investigations.

And you don't need to have sworn members in there.

And they should be reviewing everything with use of force.

it can be a component

the candidate investigations which historically here had been something under community engagement and not a part of internal affairs.

The background investigations of people who become officers, I move that now under internal affairs.

Everyone who is investigated, the investigation itself is signed off on all the way up the chain of command right up to the deputy chief of internal affairs and that's something that had not been happening previously but that

that's my goals around case investigators and then the other I would say similar positions we may not call them case investigators but they're people who are doing new work that I don't believe would be affected by negotiations and before I give it to Director McPherson in regard to hiring for the implementation division

That's been an ongoing process.

We have not filled all the positions that are already budgeted, but that is an ongoing thing.

We're still onboarding the best candidates that we have to fill those positions.

Yes, I'll try to refocus my questions so that you don't get lost in some of the other tertiary things.

I'm trying to understand the bucket of new hires.

Are they funded through the

money we set aside for implementation for this year's budget, are they being hired via staff savings, although you did kind of account for that in our overtime budget, or are, you know, and then there's some that are being requested in 2024, so I'm just trying to square away what did we already budget for for implementation, what are we kind of like

Sure, and I'm going to tell you in advance that I may need Jane to come up here and help me out as well.

But earlier in the year with the original settlement agreement or implementation unit,

There were I believe it was 22 that were approved for hire at that point in time 22 civilians and that amount I believe is going to be right around 2.3 million dollars.

That money will be spent or will be used using the reserve that's right now in the general fund but under the auspices of finance the finance department for the city.

The 6.3 that's in the budget for next year is for next year and that includes those 22

plus the additional 6, so for a total of 28, all civilian hires.

And that 6.3 includes salaries, it includes the half a million dollars for other costs, mostly around some of the focus groups and a lot of translation costs of that.

For the temporary positions, it sounds like we needed an MOU with the Federation, but we have these net new FTEs that are not temporary.

Are they going to have the same benefits package and be a part of the Federation and bargaining unit?

All the positions that we're trying to hire for next year are civilian.

They're permanent positions.

They will get full benefits just as all of us are getting full benefits.

The temporary positions for the case investigators are actually a year to a two-year maximum.

That's all that we were able to agree upon and that's usually how it works with temporary

It depends on the position.

It would just be like any other position within the city.

I think

Thank you, Chair Koski.

And just a clarification, thank you Councilmember Payne.

I did have some questions around staffing and just clarification that 39 new FTEs are predominantly all civilian.

plus 16, okay.

And then for budget, I know that first slide, we had the opening of, what is it?

152 sworn vacancies and seven civilian vacancies.

Is there a kind of estimate you can give to how much that actually totals in doctors?

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember.

I won't be able to do it in my head.

A rough estimate would be good.

Okay, well, math is happening over there.

And those, again, are predominantly all patrol, I'm assuming, then, positions.

Okay.

Well, while McPherson is working on those numbers for the Community Outreach Service Division,

I did get a chance to look at the budget book where there is a more elaborate description there.

I was surprised to see that BCR, however, was included on your slide.

Can you share a little bit of why BCR is there?

Is there some sharing of resources through this division?

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember.

BCR obviously is contracted through Canopy.

It is just there, that Commander serves as a point of contact.

I have offered previously, previously they had, they did have issues with vehicles at the time.

I had offered previously if we could be helpful to, you know, lend vehicles, but that wasn't needed.

Good, just wanted to have some clarification on that.

And then for Public Safety Services, thank you for the thorough kind of listing of metrics and some of the accomplishments around the work.

Thank you, Chair.

Oh, yeah.

I would think, because we are not changing...

So Councilmember, there's an increase of $14 million basically between last year and this year.

That $14 million is made up of the overtime request of $5 million.

The gun investigations unit, which was put in there originally,

It's actually going to move next year.

That was $3.3 million.

Payroll and fringe base increase of approximately $4 million and the remaining is an allocation change.

There's a increase in staff and that's 3.3 million dollars.

Over time, $5 million and then I feel like I'm missing something else.

And then the remainder is allocation changes.

More went into the patrol, partly because of increased number of people, but also partly because of how workers comp is split up that we did internally.

And then going to slide 25, it was really good to see the breakdown of how overtime hours are intersecting with regular hours worked.

Thank you, Chair.

Councilmember, no.

So I recently just put out an order requiring personnel who are working off duty to log in their hours in the same system.

And I will be implementing, working through one of the Deputy Chiefs to implement a compliance team to do spot checks to ensure that that is happening.

because currently there is not a way to do that.

And information, just to check that officers are conducting off-duty work, that they are logging in onto the CAD and being logged into the CAD accurately.

There's been a number of problems with that.

Sometimes officers will leave part-time while a major incident is going on and not log off.

That's good to hear.

Hopefully, in the coming months, we can have a graph that has similar data metrics that is mapped out.

And then this is the last question before if you got to figure them out for that first question.

Chief, in regards to the investigative bureau, do we know kind of a figure of increasing FTEs for this specific division?

I ask this because I know feedback that I've often heard in terms of

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember.

As you see, it's actually a decrease from the current budget of $9 million.

We do have, Director, are the temporary caseworkers, they are not reflected in FTEs?

Okay.

So, as I mentioned, we are looking to make permanent civilian caseworkers and to get additional ones because they're just, they're,

We do not have as many investigators as we used to and we do have a higher volume of investigations than pre-pandemic.

and as time goes on, there's continuously more technology, there's more information that's needed for an investigation, whether it's reviewing cameras, surveillance cameras, body worn cameras, all those types of things, putting things together in a PowerPoint for presentation to prosecutors to ultimately charge.

Those are all things that civilians with experience can do that you don't need a sworn member to do.

and we just do not have enough sworn members to handle the volume that is coming through.

So the $19 million is encompassing the 152 sworn officers and seven that, okay.

Yeah, and that's what, that's an estimate.

Okay.

Thank you so much, Director.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

And a few of my questions have been responded to.

I did want to really just

I commend and say thank you, Chief, for the two beat cops in the Third Precinct.

I've been out with them and they are making a good impression with some of our neighbors and business owners, so I can only say we need more.

I'm just curious, can you say more about the MOU with the unity community mediation team and how that's progressing and how is that functioning alongside of our the MDHR enforced agreement as well as the

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council President.

So obviously it's an agreement that the city has had in some form for more than two decades.

It was resigned, updated last year and it addresses some of the same

topics that the settlement agreement touches upon, some of the same topics that the DOJ touched upon in their findings report.

However, it's just, it's different.

It's not a court enforced agreement.

There's no independent monitor.

We do have a committee, a compliance committee that was formed within the last four or five months, which is half members of

the Unity Community Mediation Team and half are members of the Police Department Command Staff and that tracks the various paragraphs and requirements.

Some of that are things the Police Department has to do, some of that are things that UCMT has to do and as each side agrees that we are in compliance, we track that and measure it and follow up.

So that's something that will continue sort of parallel to the various court mandated reforms that we have, but it's definitely something that is in the same vein and is trying to advance the same principles.

Additionally, you know, they're available, they're setting up places in the community for people to file complaints against police.

they're setting up on one hand, on the other hand they're also setting up you know different ways for they will be trying to help us to recruit more members from the community.

They're also I've asked them to be a part of training our new officers as well which will be sort of like a mentoring program but as our officers come out of the academy

I have asked for them to be a part of that field training process so that they can introduce our new officers to stakeholders and leaders from the community so that there is a greater sense of tie with the community right from the beginning.

So that's something I've asked them to do in addition to the things that they're working on.

I would be interested, thank you.

And I'm not sure if there's LGBTQIA plus representation at the Unity Mediation team but as they're doing training and mentoring I hope that

becomes a part.

I mean, those were some of the issues identified in the MDHR report, as well as the Department of Justice.

Those communities were being targeted, etc.

And then, I guess, is there

How are we dealing with off-duty?

Have we come up with a program yet to be able to track and understand where our offices are, how many hours that they are working beyond their scheduled time, etc.

Thank you Chair, thank you Council President.

So that's what I was mentioning with, alluding to with Council Member Wonsley.

The department has had these policies in place, just no ability to actually see what's going on.

So we implemented a policy requirement within the last month that requires the officers to actually log in and log the hours into the same workforce system that is tracking

on duty and overtime so that it's there in one place.

But in addition to that going forward, it's not good enough to have something written down on paper.

There needs to be follow up relentlessly and there needs to be people that go out and actually do spot checks for compliance and then there needs to be a consequence when we find someone that's not doing what they're supposed to do.

So that is the direction that we're moving in quite quickly.

We have put people on notice that this is a requirement now.

You have to log in your hours and we will have a team of people to go out and do spot checks to ensure that people are actually doing that when they're supposed to.

Because as you know, the setup is

The setup for, you know, off-duty work here is confined by a 1997 court injunction.

But there's certainly nothing that precludes us from having the officers report to us exactly the hours that they are working and if they do not do that to

I think the easiest thing that would solve the problem would be to take away the privilege to work off duty, the first person that we find that's not doing that.

And I think the compliance will go up like that.

Okay, thank you.

I am thrilled to hear the decrease in carjackings and gunshot wounds and people murdered.

You know, we can never fully understand where these are coming from.

I mean, some people attribute it to the violence interrupters, which I think is a big part of it.

The work that you guys do, Operation Endeavor.

I mean, good economy.

Thank you.

Council Vice President Tom Zana.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Just a quick question.

On the slide that has the Investigations Bureau kind of overview, I don't know what number it is, but ultimately it just shows that the Bureau, the investigations part of the budget looks like it's ultimately decreasing by almost $9 million, and I'm curious

Thank you for the question.

There's actually two, there's a couple things going on here and again I guess I just want to reiterate it is really difficult to follow this budget.

The budget was compiled prior to the structural changes and some of them got in because we knew about them, some of them came in after the fact so just bear with us a little bit.

Fortunately in going into the 2025 budget we'll have more programs so it'll be a lot easier to follow.

but it's a long process to be able to get the financial system, workforce director, and the budget modules all lined up and it will take us probably until the end of the year to do that.

But actually the decrease is for two things.

One is in the middle of last year, in 2022, the gun unit and the analysts actually were transferred into the patrol bureau.

and so now that we're moving that money into the Patrol Bureau but in actuality now they're going to actually come back into investigations so for this purpose of the budget approximately three and a half million dollars is because of people move

into patrol, but then we'll come back into investigations.

The second piece of that is actually a difference in the allocation, and that amount is actually $5.5 million.

So that includes the allocation for liability.

Our liability in 2024 is projected to be $6.4 million, I believe, six something.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yeah, I just threw myself back into you because I thought if I asked the Fire Chief this, I should ask you the same thing.

Is there a difference between

funded FTEs and what was the word?

Thank you, chair.

Thank you, council member.

No, authorized is what is authorized by the budget.

Separately there is, as we all know, a charter requirement based on population, but authorized is what is authorized by the council to be funded.

All right.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Councilmember Payne, I just want you to know I do pay attention when you speak, so I remember your comments with the fighter chief.

Chief, thank you for coming down.

I have two really short questions.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember.

I come from a smaller city than this with about 130,000 fewer people and the police department is twice as big.

I think generally if you're on the east coast particularly in the northeast the older northeast cities staffing tends to be you know much greater per capita than it does the further you go west which is why like Los Angeles the biggest city second biggest city in the country has

the third biggest police department because Chicago actually has more police officers so generally I think that's how it works but today our staffing level per capita is among the lower ones of all major U.S. cities.

Thank you.

And the second question I have is great progress we've been making on the gun crime issues, whether shooting or picking up guns.

And how does the federal government plan on that?

The Department of Justice has taken over prosecution of gun cases and I know that the county and the state are helping pick up offenders from guns.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember.

So this is a dangerous question now, because if I fail to, I don't want to fail to mention any of our partners that have been incredibly helpful.

But yes, we are fortunate to have a U.S. attorney that will prosecute any federal gun crime that we can provide them that has sufficient evidence to prosecute it.

So what I'm trying to do is to make sure that

and the

and there's certain times when there's different standards of evidence and what's required for prosecution so certain cases they can't take every single case like if the guns just kind of in the car and we don't necessarily have DNA whether you know it's the passengers or the drivers that kind of thing

but every chance that we get where we know there's a person with a history of violence that's a convicted offender, convicted violent felon, we do send that over and the U.S. Attorney's Office here actually has all of the assistant AUSAs working on Minneapolis gun cases so you might be a white-collar prosecutor but

When your time comes around, there's a case they are taking them on.

So they are a tremendous help as well as all the federal agencies.

The County Sheriff's Office has the Violent Offender Task Force that works with us every day.

The BCA has both sworn and civilian analysts that are very helpful in terms of dealing with the investigations of violent offenders after the fact.

It's really a number of partners, but we definitely can't say

to work directly with his prosecutors

I don't know if there's many U.S. attorneys that would do that, so there's definitely a huge commitment from all of our law enforcement partners, and I think that's playing a huge result, as well as all of the community-based organizations that are out there with us.

Thank you.

Thank you Chair Koski.

I just had a follow-up question to the Council President around the Unity Mediation Team.

Just want to know if they're factored into the community outreach services in terms of like resources knowing that it's just crazy that they would be doing a lot of this like out of the kindness of their heart.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember.

I do not know.

I believe they are funded by a foundation.

They're not funded by us.

And I believe they are one of the organizations that's actually applied for the...

The independent evaluator position for the settlement agreement.

but they're not funded by us and it's something, they have sort of their own rules for membership and it does represent, at least they try to represent all of the major communities within the city to ensure that they're represented in the, what's the other group they call it, police community, PCRC.

Police-Community Relations Council.

That's the civilian side of the Unity Community Mediation Team.

Right, so we would just do the staff side on our end and it sounds like they have their own independent funding.

Okay, sounds good.

Thank you.

Okay, I am not seeing any further questions or comments from colleagues.

Thank you so much, Chief, for being here.

Well, it was nice to have you both today at the same time.

Thank you so much for being here.

Seeing no further discussion, at this point I'll direct the Clerk to file these presentations.

Our next Budget Committee meeting is, don't hate me, scheduled for tomorrow, Tuesday, October 24th at 10 a.m. That day we are set to hear presentations on the Capital Budget, the Park and Recreation Board and the City Assessing Department.