Budget Committee - October 09, 2024   10/9/2024

Roll Call

• • 00:00:00
    St Paul, City Council, Budget Committee
  • 00:00:40
    St Paul, City Council, Budget Committee
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:01:15
    Yeah, okay.
  • 00:01:46
    St Paul, City Council, Budget Committee
• • 00:03:00
    St Paul, City Council
  • 00:03:23
    St Paul, City Council,
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:03:57
    Good morning.
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    I call this meeting of the Budget Committee to order.
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    Welcome back, everybody.
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    We are continuing on through our 2025 proposed budget presentations.
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    This morning, we're going to hear from our partners at the Department of Safety and Inspections on their proposed budget.
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    So I want to welcome up Director Angie Weese to take us through her department's proposal.
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    Welcome, and take it away.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:04:22
    Thank you, Council President, Council members.
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    Thank you for having me today.
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    Jumping right in.
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    So I always like to start with the foundation so that we don't forget our mission and what we're really trying to accomplish.
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    So promoting safety and wellness where we live and work, prevent life and property loss, support neighborhood vitality and promote equitable, innovative and sustainable solutions that work for all.
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    so our priorities and really this comes out of our continuity of operations plan so if we were to do nothing else these are the two things that we find that are critical and obviously these take on different meetings during non-emergency times but our two main priorities are to maintain the safety and habitability of as many structures and businesses as possible including the safekeeping of animals
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    of the city of St. Paul.
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    You can see the different divisions of dsi that fall into that priority.
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    The second is to support the financial and economic systems of the city.
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    This became
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    of the city of St. Paul.
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    We are the folks that license tree trimmers.
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    Getting folks who are looking to do business in St. Paul, connecting those with folks who need the help to clean up, it is part of the economic engine of the city.
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    Being able to have sidewalk
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    of the City of St. Paul.
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    We strive to do that with great customer service, underscoring every interaction.
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    On that top one there, we hit over a billion dollars of total valuation.
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    So that's investment, construction investment in our city and that's up 22%, which is just phenomenal.
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    We issued over 3,600 business licenses and conducted over 10,000 fire certificate of occupancy inspections.
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    Code compliance inspections was up as well as our vacant building inspections.
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    The processing of rent stabilization requests went down.
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    You'll see kind of the footnote below there.
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    It's really because last year was the first year of Just Cause Vacancy requests.
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    Those requests are the bulk of what we process now that that is an option.
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    So over 800 Just Cause vacancy requests.
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    So a self-certified or even a staff determination request.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:07:34
    Just as a clarifying question on that, Director, is that renters who are seeking remedy for violation of not having notice, or is that the opposite?
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    It's that a landlord wants to vacate the unit for Just Cause, and they want to process that exception.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 00:07:50
    The latter.
• • SPEAKER_02
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    The latter.
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    OK. Just wanted to understand what that meant.
• • SPEAKER_10
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    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_02
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    and then I have a follow up from Ms. Jost, go ahead.
• • Saura Jost
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    Thank you, Council President.
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    Director Weese for the, and I know you have some information on the next slide too around revenues, for the building permits, do you have a sense of how many of those are commercial versus residential?
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    And then you said that these are changes, relative changes from 2023, so this is a 10% increase from 2022 to 2023 and I guess my other question would be do you have
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:08:22
    I don't have numbers of building permits for 2024 at hand but it is something that we can get.
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    I do in a later slide have an actual GIS to answer your question related to residential and commercial and
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    I'd like to get into some of the greater detail on that breakdown.
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    Actually, pretty granular with the help of our friends at OTC.
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    Animal Services responded to over 3300 animal related complaints which is up by 2%.
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    and we achieved an 89% live release rate for shelter animals, just missing the mark for no-kill shelter, which is the first time in seven years.
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    It was largely driven by the canine influenza that went through Animal Humane Society and closed their operation down for essentially six weeks and they're a huge partner of ours for rehoming animals from our shelter.
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    managed an estimated 83,000 calls from our information and complaint line which was up significantly and continues to climb and facilitated 75 move-ins from homelessness into stable housing for our unsheltered and that's even more phenomenal knowing that that's not one of their primary missions is to actually connect people with housing.
• • SPEAKER_02
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    Thanks, Director.
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    I see a question from Ms. Naker.
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    Go ahead.
• • Rebecca Noecker
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    Thanks, Council President.
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    Director, I really appreciate these specific performance indicators.
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    It paints a great picture of the work the department is doing and it's a lot of work.
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    I'm curious, do you have a performance indicator related to compliance?
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    Because often what I hear from constituents is there's trash all over, there's badly maintained buildings, there's graffiti, there's pigeon poop, there's sidewalk, whatever.
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    is the city enforcing and why are these things allowed to persist?
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    And my response is usually something to the effect of we are enforcing, but sometimes gaining compliance is difficult given the tools that we have or don't have.
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    But I'm just curious if there's, you know, you list inspections, but I guess I'm not sure about compliance.
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    Is there a way that you measure that?
• • SPEAKER_04
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    Mr. President, Councilmember, what you're talking about is more the, I think, turnaround times on
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    between when a complaint was
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    to do the performance metrics is extremely challenging because we're trying to connect two disparate things together.
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    I think there's a way that we can give more of like turnaround time to first inspection.
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    You know, it was reported how long, you know, our expectation is for fire safety inspection, same day, next day.
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    some of our code related things they have to prioritize because of the volume but we can do some metrics around date it was reported to date of first inspection.
• • Rebecca Noecker
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    That would be great and I mean even a lower bar than that I think is just a number of abatements or orders cleared I guess even just to regardless of how much time it takes just knowing how many of these orders and inspections actually result in compliance and change.
• • SPEAKER_04
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    Thank you for that Council President, Council Member I was planning on mentioning this later but we last year as part of our 2020 floor budget implemented a process to use a contractor a private contractor now through RFP for garbage and rubbish and tall grass and weeds we also have one for snow and ice but since we didn't have much of a winter last year then our metrics are not exactly relevant in that regard but
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    To give you an idea on garbage and rubbish in 2022 there were 688 abatements that were performed over a 12-month period by the Parks Department and in 2024 so far in nine months we've done 933 and the tall grass and weeds side
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    in 2023 in an eight month period, so more apples to apples eight month period, 123 tall grass and weeds abatements by parks, and in 2024, so far in eight months, we've done 421.
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    So by all accounts, the new process is working well.
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    People should be seeing quicker turnaround times on the time that the inspector closed it and referred it over to abatement and when it actually gets resolved.
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    That's great.
• • SPEAKER_02
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    I know we're early in the presentation, Director, but I think that I'll add myself to Councilman Akers' eager-on-the-frontline-issues questions because that's just so much of what we hear about.
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    It's the visible trash, graffiti, et cetera, and constituents reporting it in and just wanting to know where does it go?
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    Why does it go there?
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    How does it work?
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    So I'm excited to unpack that throughout the rest of this and appreciate your work on those process improvements.
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    I remember those conversations in previous budget cycles and happy to hear it feels like it's making
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:14:04
    So further just on the investment in St Paul's built environment just looking at the last 10 years or so what our budget was and then the actual in millions and these are for permit fees so this isn't investment these are the the budget that we
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    we're expected or forecasted to achieve and then what we actually achieved and as of July 31st we're at 7.3 million so we shouldn't cross your fingers have any trouble hitting the 9.8 million that's forecasted for this year.
• • Saura Jost
  • 00:14:53
    I see a follow-up from Ms. Jost.
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    Go ahead.
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    Thank you, Council President.
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    Director Weezy, so these are basically revenues from construction permits and are they adjusted for current dollars for inflation?
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:15:10
    they are not adjusted for current dollars so those were the actual budget so let's say in 2013 OFS predicted our revenue for the Department of Safety and Inspections for permits of five million dollars and in that same year the actual permit revenue was six point six million dollars so it's so I guess it's just really to show that like these are exceeding the budget for that year
• • Saura Jost
  • 00:15:39
    Okay, but the real dollar increase in revenue is slightly less than what we're seeing potentially for inflation.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:15:52
    I think the question Ms. Jost is asking is from this chart it looks like we are getting more revenue than even forecasted in permits but when you adjust for inflation that might necessarily be offset and
• • Saura Jost
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    Committee.
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    over the last 10 years, like the actual increase in revenue, like it's just slightly less, potentially.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:16:30
    Council President, Council Member, I think I understand what you're getting at now.
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    Yes, and this is really more to demonstrate in one year, you know, the comparison, and you're correct in assuming that a lot of that increase, you know, from 5 million in 2013 to 9.8 in 2024,
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    is some of it is the amount of of construction that we can expect but The majority of it is just the cost of doing business, right?
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    Okay.
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    Thank you All right, so I'm hoping that this works I haven't yet at the podium switched over from a
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    PowerPoint to a website, but it is dynamic so I'm hoping... You know what?
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    It's because it's tied to my account.
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    So this data comes out of our permitting system
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    and really what I asked Office of Technology and Communications to help me with is to say in all the permits that were issued in 2023 can we put some kind of like heat maps together on where the construction activity really occurred and when we looked at this
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    We decided that it tells a different story depending on what you're interested in knowing.
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    So valuation is a big thing.
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    How many dollars were put in in a certain area?
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    But there's a different way to look at it of just how many buildings were impacted or were sought of doing some sort of investment.
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    In other words, we could have 10 permits that had a valuation of $500,000 or we could have 10 permits of $60 million.
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    So it really just depends on how the work was parsed out.
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    So if I take, let's say, this one here in downtown for $34 million
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    We had 61 commercial building permits for 2023, valuing almost $34 million.
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    And these were mostly remodel permits, which makes sense.
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    Most of downtown is built up.
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    If you're doing work in downtown, it's likely remodels.
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    If we look over here for this $5.2 million, there are nine commercial building permits here for a total of $5.2 million.
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    and for accessory structures that were new building permits.
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    This is on, right now we're looking at commercials, so if I turn that off and instead look at residential.
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    Looking here at 59 million eight residential building permits for 59 million dollars.
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    Over here for 48,
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    again this is valuation not permit revenue 20 building permits for evaluation of just over forty seven and a half million dollars and most were issued for
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:20:49
    I have two questions here.
• • Rebecca Noecker
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    One of them is a lot of this data, I really appreciate seeing it.
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    It seems very much tied into as much DSI, also PED, and economic development.
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    And I'm just wondering, can you speak a little bit to the extent to which you share this data and use it to inform the strategies of economic development?
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    A and B, it also seems like really good news and a little bit different sometimes from the news that we hear, like there's no investment in St Paul.
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    Is this public data?
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    Is this data that you have developed talking points for that you share with groups like the Chamber, the Downtown Alliance, just others who visit St Paul?
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    It just seems, again, like a very different story from the one that sometimes is in the media.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:21:34
    Council President, Council Member, thank you for that and really I thought of this more in the context of this budget presentation so haven't had a chance to widely share it although PED certainly has the same access to the data that I do and works with that data to help inform their strategy.
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    I really wanted to show more from a heat map perspective because there tends to be a like well where is this happening if we just talk about you know a billion dollars
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    yes but where and so that's why I really wanted to show this because there certainly are areas that see far less development and for a variety of reasons so commercial corridors tend to have a higher dollar value and that's why looking at the number of permits also contrasts with the valuation so the valuation isn't always everything because one permit could be a valuation of 20 million dollars
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    and that is a very isolated investment.
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    Certainly it has other reaches, but that's a different story than saying like this whole neighborhood is seeing investment.
• • Saura Jost
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    Thank you.
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    Ms. Jost has a question.
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    Go ahead.
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    Thank you, Council President.
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    Director Rizzi, just kind of a follow up from Council Member Naker's question.
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    Is this a map that we have access to?
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    I tried to click it and log in and it wouldn't let me.
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    And maybe I just don't know how is my first question.
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    and then I know that you kind of presented this mostly as a heat map and related to the budget but I think as we're thinking about development across the city it would be helpful if if you like kind of just wrote up something that was just like you know a few big takeaways from what we're seeing on this map because you mentioned a few of them you can also see that like there is you know
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    variations and investment throughout the city there are some areas that like I'm just you know was looking at Ward 3 there's in the millions of dollars in a lot of areas but if you go over into you know Ward some of the other wards it's more of the hundreds of thousands of dollars and I think just some of those big takeaways would be would be helpful for like you know another conversation about about development.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:23:49
    Council President, Council Member, absolutely and and I agree this
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    Council, and
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    of the City of St. Paul, City of St. Paul.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:24:35
    Thanks, I saw a question from Ms. Johnson.
• • Cheniqua Johnson
  • 00:24:39
    Yes, thank you.
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    And I'm just wondering, are we collecting data across a period of time?
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    I noticed that this is just from the investment in 2023, and I'm wondering if you have readily available the same type of template, but for 2021, 2022, 2023, if you wanted to go back in time versus just see it at a glance for the last year.
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    And if there's live data for this year that's currently being tracked.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:25:04
    Council President Council Member yes and no so our current permitting system goes back to 2001 so theoretically this could be pulled back as as far as that easily and readily no and the our system is very archaic and so even to pull this data was challenging and had to be
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    Okay, thank you And are we currently tracking for 2024?
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    Council President, Council Member, not in this way but yes we all of our permit data is in the same system at which this was extracted from just not as a heat map as this is showing.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:26:17
    Yeah and just to kind of like round out this section because I know we want to move on to the rest of the departmental work but this is obviously just a burning focus area for all of us it affects
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    it relates to the policy that we set as a city that you work to implement every day it relates to our ability to have these budgetary conversations from a robust tax base like the connections are very existential so I've been able to dig into the data sets we have as a city I think that because they're publicly available reporters will pull from those same sets but then the conclusions that are drawn are sometimes maybe incomplete or not necessarily
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    of the data set isn't necessarily being applied in the way that you intended with those distinctions, right?
  • 00:27:02
    There's a lot to parse in this so I just want to name that and that our council is very eager and interested to have a cohesive and evidence-based approach to housing policy that draws on where we're getting investments and also
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    Council.
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    I want to acknowledge that is widely felt here and I know you work with that every single day.
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    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:27:24
    Thank you, Council President.
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    Related to that, in public works' budget there is a proposal for a construction and development coordinator and that would certainly assist DSI as well because
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    All of these projects happen with an enterprise lens.
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    We are connecting to St. Paul regional water, the sanitary and storm sewers.
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    There are connections with, we want to make sure that emergency services can still access the area even during construction as people are taking up pieces of the roadway.
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    And so that development coordination is super helpful.
  • 00:28:08
    Thank you.
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    All right so moving on some other 2023 accomplishments we got grants and I put this here because grants are not something that that DSI is known for.
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    I know some departments essentially live off of grants and that's just not something that DSI has a strong history in and one of those grants is related to workforce development so we've
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    We've gone for a grant the last two years with the Department of Labor and Industry and we're successful in that and so we're training future plan reviewers, building inspectors to get into this field and we're super proud of that work and was able to hire our last one on full time who does phenomenal work.
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    Another grant was the FEMA brick grant and FEMA has finally and adequately recognized that
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    the enforcement and administration of building and life safety codes impacts the amount of dollars that they put out on the back end after a disaster and so they're really putting their money where their mouth is and following their own framework with providing dollars for mitigation which is the proper administration or in bolstered administration of building codes
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:29:41
    So is that FEMA doing emergency management by managing emergencies before they happen?
  • 00:29:46
    Is that what that is?
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:29:49
    Council President, the BRIC grant is building resiliency in community and it's focused entirely on building code administration so our BRIC grant is to implement the remote virtual inspection project and so we have FEMA dollars
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    that we received for that, and then we're utilizing the match through ARP dollars.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:30:12
    Very helpful to understand.
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    Thank you.
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    I see Ms. Bui with a question.
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    Go ahead.
• • Anika Bowie
  • 00:30:16
    Thank you, Council President.
  • 00:30:17
    I just have a brief question.
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    Can you explain a little bit more what is the gambling enforcement fund?
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:30:24
    Council President, Council Member
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    of the city of
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    I stated that correct, right?
  • 00:31:14
    Thank you
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 00:31:30
    I just had a question.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:31:34
    Is that the reason why you like basically for a fiscal year 2024 We don't have any revenue coming in for charitable gambling trying to make the connection council president council member Yes, when we get to that charge that is correct the we the what you're seeing there is the revenue the
  • 00:32:00
    of the city.
  • 00:32:15
    We are working on relocating animal services to the building just to the north.
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    Right now our building is from the 1970s when animal services meant that you housed animals until you could legally euthanize them which is not what animal services is today and so really capital improvement dollars for the current facility
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    have just not really gone to meet the needs and it was determined last year that the amount of money that would need to be put into that building is not, does not meet the return on investment needed.
  • 00:32:56
    So we're moving to the building to the north and we're going out for bid right now on those which are super excited for.
  • 00:33:04
    We hired 20 people, we promoted four people and that's over 12% of our workforce so it was a ton of work.
  • 00:33:13
    And we secured the contract for Polly which we are also really excited for and in the basement of City Hall all week this week We've been doing training for wave two of the Polly work Is that the Amanda replacement it is the Amanda and recluse?
  • 00:33:30
    Replacement project we've named it Polly.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:33:33
    Thank you Amanda for the good times excited for Polly and all they bring and
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:33:42
    this is our team I'm so I love this picture this is from our all staff meeting but kind of our 2025 budget in focus we're trying to alleviate the reactive effort placed on these things you know enforcement mistakes wait times missed opportunities and employee turnover and just move towards prevention in key areas so our kind of our operational org chart
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    and the five added FTEs in the 2025 proposed budget are in the construction services area.
  • 00:34:22
    We'll get into this stuff a little bit more in a minute.
  • 00:34:27
    So our historical FTE summary is on the chart here.
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    the breakdown of those five FTEs are below and that's really related to the 2025 adoption of the Minnesota Energy Code which is just far more robust than previous energy codes and it's part of
  • 00:34:50
    the state's climate goals and obviously in alignment with the city's climate goals it just does require a lot more involvement from the department to make sure that the buildings are operating as a system and not isolated for you know one specific area compliance with the energy code really hits a bunch of different areas it is the building envelope it's the energy usage it's
  • 00:35:19
    the use of the building itself and what we can do to save energy and meet the compliance for that code in the future.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:35:31
    Thanks.
  • 00:35:31
    Director, I see some questions from members and I have just one to start understanding this slide.
  • 00:35:36
    Are you just previewing on this slide that you're proposing five FTE in 2025 for state energy code adoption or is this being added through another mean or yeah what does this mean the second half of the slide added five FTE in 2025?
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:35:52
    Council President, so the new FTEs are five FTEs that are proposed
  • 00:35:58
    these are the actual positions so they're not all one position these are the actual positions with the estimated salary and benefits of those positions later on the slides I have more of a description of the work that's actually done by by these FTEs we're just looking at these are the proposed five FTE for these purposes which you'll talk about in a sec okay I see Ms. Nicker and then I thought I saw Ms. Yang go ahead yeah thanks council president the department director has grown
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 00:36:24
    pretty significantly since 2020, and we're talking about five new FTEs for an updated energy code.
  • 00:36:30
    I'm just curious, you said that this new energy code is much more robust than the previous energy code, but it seems to me that we had an energy code, now we have a new energy code.
  • 00:36:38
    I'm curious why adopting new standards and having to enforce new standards requires five new FTEs.
  • 00:36:44
    Can you speak a little bit more to that?
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:36:46
    Yes, President Councilmember.
  • 00:36:48
    I can get into it on the actual slide that talks about the work, but
  • 00:36:54
    Energy Code has, and rightfully so, taken on just a lot more than previous energy codes.
  • 00:37:06
    There used to be what was called the Green Code, which was more of this altruistic shoot for the moon type of energy code, and then there was the commercial and residential energy codes.
  • 00:37:21
    and as time has gone on, the, what I would call the baseline or the minimum standard has really grown and grown and grown, I'm gonna hit the microphone, to be a lot closer to that green code and that comes with it a lot more requirements to do things like balancing the building for,
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    for the City of St. Paul.
  • 00:38:16
    what we're finding is that these aren't individual systems they all have to work together and when we don't have a coordinated effort it ends up that we have delays in the projects we have systems that are you know have to be redone and if we can get ahead of it on the front end and ensure compliance and that all of those systems are talking to each other then it means that we'll have a good product on the back end and
  • 00:38:45
    the other thing that we're trying to avoid are things that are you've heard of sick buildings, things that happen on the back end from poor installations or from poor maintenance strategies of these systems.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:39:00
    Thanks and I know that we have a slide forthcoming on just this but thank you for helping us begin that convo.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 00:39:06
    I think Ms. Yang was in line.
  • 00:39:07
    Go ahead Ms. Yang.
  • 00:39:08
    Thanks Council President.
  • 00:39:09
    Director Weese I appreciate you giving us the
  • 00:39:11
    Council President and Council Member Jay Williams put that together and so that's kind of from the state level and how it is a statewide energy code
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:39:41
    we're not unique in this area we're not you know blazing a trail we are administering what the the state has put forward with that said it does align with the city's climate goals.
  • 00:39:53
    I think what's one of the things that's missing on there and I talked to Jay about that briefly right before this was that
  • 00:40:01
    when a new energy code is published the state has a short turnaround time in which they are required to evaluate it and then and then implement it and so that is why it's on a little bit different track than some of our other codes which are going through right now so right now the state is on the 2020
  • 00:40:24
    building code, residential code, plumbing code, mechanical, fire code, and is working to update those.
  • 00:40:30
    The energy code is on a different track, largely because of these different provisions in state law.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 00:40:39
    The question I have is I'm wondering if the state has, as a result of the new energy code standard, are they giving dollars to, for example, cities for doing the implementation as well?
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:40:53
    Council President, Council Member, wouldn't that be lovely?
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:40:56
    I think that really highlights my reaction to this, which is I'm glad that our state is overhauling energy code for sustainability.
  • 00:41:06
    I'm glad that they are raising the bar for safety and just for quality of products.
  • 00:41:11
    I think that's a good thing.
  • 00:41:13
    the piece that feels missing to me in that process is what consideration goes toward involving municipalities whose departments and staff fundamentally make those laws a reality and what that means for our city budgets, the impacts to our teams, the work we're trying to do.
  • 00:41:30
    So we'll keep unpacking this, but I think we're trying to hold the complexity of that of just a good thing to have a new statewide bar frustrating that outside of what you're responsible for, right,
  • 00:41:43
    this new state standard has will incur financial challenges as much as we want to meet the purpose of that and that we need to work through that.
  • 00:41:53
    So I'm still very much at the outset of understanding what these roles do and looking at this code.
  • 00:41:59
    This handout is helpful.
  • 00:42:00
    Thank you, Mr. Wilms.
  • 00:42:02
    we've had this situation happen to us many a time in your time as director and I know that you work to find solutions so thank you.
  • 00:42:09
    Any other, oh go ahead, our engineer has a question.
• • Saura Jost
  • 00:42:12
    Go ahead Ms. Joseph.
  • 00:42:15
    Thank you Council President.
  • 00:42:18
    And you might have answered this question.
  • 00:42:21
    So the energy building code, this is a code question, is that adapted at the same time as the Minnesota building code?
  • 00:42:28
    It looks like they're sort of on the same cycle but I know it can take a while for
  • 00:42:33
    for those formal adoptions to occur.
  • 00:42:35
    So are those on the same cycle?
  • 00:42:37
    And then is the 2024 energy code actually adopted currently or is it being adopted at a future date?
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:42:44
    President, Council Member, they are not on the same cycle.
  • 00:42:50
    The national publication is on the same cycle.
  • 00:42:54
    The state publication or adoption is not on the same cycle.
  • 00:42:58
    It's actually the 2024 energy code so it was adopted earlier this year.
  • 00:43:05
    Again, we're doing the best we can with the resources we have now.
  • 00:43:13
    I'm sure many of you have heard of a delay in getting building permits issued and this is part of the reason why because we don't have these resources currently.
  • 00:43:24
    So it is currently adopted, the energy code.
  • 00:43:30
    The state building code is in the process of the Department of Labor and Industry is hosting their TAG meetings, their technical advisory group meetings.
  • 00:43:41
    Once they get a recommendation from those groups, they move towards public comment and drafting, which then will go to all the steps that the state has for rulemaking.
• • Saura Jost
  • 00:43:52
    So then sorry just to follow up so so the 2024 energy code is not adopted by the 2020 Minnesota building code because we're not on the 2024 Building code so it's adopted separately.
  • 00:44:03
    Is that correct?
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:44:06
    council president council member it's Yes, and no so when people say the the adoption of the 2020 let's say that's what we're on now Minnesota State Building Code
  • 00:44:20
    Sometimes they're referring, you know, using that statement and referring to all of the suite of codes, elevator, electrical, plumbing, mechanical, et cetera.
  • 00:44:29
    And sometimes they're just referring to the blue book, the building code.
  • 00:44:34
    And the suite of codes is generally all adopted together.
  • 00:44:41
    So building, fire, plumbing, mechanical.
  • 00:44:47
    electrical tends to be on a separate cycle as does energy.
  • 00:44:59
    I'm realizing that I put this focus in action and then I put a lot of stuff out of focus.
  • 00:45:04
    That was not intentional.
  • 00:45:07
    But our 2025 budget focus in action, you see here the things that I'm going to highlight mostly in this
  • 00:45:21
    I put the other things in here grayed out because when we adopt a 2025 budget we aren't just talking about new stuff we're also talking about funding other things and other priorities some of which we're currently doing and some of which we are doing maybe that we haven't focused on previously but are still with those
  • 00:45:40
    Committee.
  • 00:45:42
    I put those in the gray because I don' t want to lose them I don' t want to acknowledge the things we' re also doing as part
  • 00:45:58
    and the Department of Energy.
  • 00:46:00
    We have the energy code adoption and administration closing the gap on cost recovery for the vacant building program and I' m more accurately reflecting the revenue and
  • 00:46:15
    We'll get into those.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 00:46:16
    We see a question from Ms. Naker.
  • 00:46:18
    Go ahead.
  • 00:46:18
    Thanks, Council President.
  • 00:46:19
    Just a comment.
  • 00:46:20
    I really appreciate the fact that you included the not focused items because I think not only to show that there's a whole lot of budget that we don't talk about usually when we talk about the budget, we usually just focus on the changes, but also to demonstrate that there are things that can be done without requiring new money.
  • 00:46:36
    I think that's a really important point.
  • 00:46:39
    I got a question from a constituent recently to that effect.
  • 00:46:41
    Why is it that whenever you
  • 00:46:42
    are doing something or prioritizing something, it also has to mean more money as opposed to just doing it or prioritizing it.
  • 00:46:48
    And I think that that's also what I see reflected here, so thank you.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:46:53
    Appreciate that.
  • 00:46:54
    Thank you.
  • 00:46:55
    Thanks.
  • 00:46:56
    I also appreciate that as we work to balance our governing work, right, which is we want to fund innovation and improve services, but then we also, we can't do that for free and we want to support our constituents in having
  • 00:47:12
    and I know that you're going to go through the next few slides here.
  • 00:47:24
    I want to preview that an area or topic I'm very interested in and I've been in conversations with Councilwoman Bui on this is kind of the state as it is of the vacant building program fees and the schedule they're on and then
  • 00:47:40
    to get more revenue or at least like offset better the impacts and cost to us for doing that work when frankly negligent property owners don't, right, to actually be recouping more revenue and disincentivizing that.
  • 00:47:56
    So that's just a policy topic I'm going to preview because it does connect to the budget but wanted to re-up that issue and maybe bring it back in a few slides here as we talk through it.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:48:12
    so our revenue overview for just government funds these are our big buckets service charges licensing permits fines miscellaneous and other and so you have the 2023 there which is our historical 2025 which is our
  • 00:48:30
    and then our year-to-date in 2024.
  • 00:48:34
    Again, everything you see as far as metrics go today for year-to-date is July 31st.
  • 00:48:42
    That's just so that we can achieve consistency in all of that and not mixed messages.
  • 00:48:53
    Pretty status quo.
  • 00:48:55
    I see here that I forgot some commas.
  • 00:48:58
    If you count back your zeroes, you can insert commas.
  • 00:49:01
    I don't know what happened there.
  • 00:49:02
    Apparently, I got sidetracked when I got to fines.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:49:07
    Forgetting commas versus maybe adding or subtracting zeroes is like, you know, it's in the realm of typos that we prefer.
  • 00:49:13
    So, thanks.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:49:16
    Challenges, opportunities, staffing, staffing, staffing, and it's
  • 00:49:21
    we have some large teams like our construction services team is pretty large but in that we have some really small teams our elevator team is three people so if somebody is you know experiencing some something good or bad it's really hard to achieve the work when you are down a third right when you lose one person for for some reason but you know our folks are
  • 00:49:47
    We are really, really fortunate that they are truly able to see the fruits of their labor.
  • 00:49:51
    They can see it in the community.
  • 00:49:54
    They can see the results of their actions and they really pull together when there are staffing shortages.
  • 00:50:03
    They can see the benefit
  • 00:50:05
    of the City of St. Paul.
  • 00:50:24
    This middle one here is more felt than seen, but there's just this demand for service at, and I call it the Amazon speed, because when somebody submits their permit on Wednesday and they contact us on Tuesday and say, why isn't it
  • 00:50:47
    Why isn't it issued yet?
  • 00:50:50
    People are just used to that level of turnaround times, and that's not what we're staffed for.
  • 00:50:56
    Creating expectations on what we're actually staffed for, what we actually can achieve, versus what the expectation is.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:51:06
    Is there, Director Weese, to that point, because I know this is a huge topic and there's so many settings that it happens in, but what communication do we make with people who submit permits just to help manage expectations?
  • 00:51:19
    Instead of adding staffing or whatever, what's the communication when they're applying that we do to help them understand
  • 00:51:28
    what amount of time it takes and why.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:51:32
    Council President, you can submit a permit using permits as an example right now you can submit a permit mail, email, fax or walk-in so depending on the avenue that is that that permit comes in in email if it's emailed to us then a response email goes out saying that we
  • 00:51:57
    received it and the expectation for the turnaround time.
  • 00:52:02
    The walk-in, obviously direct communication, but fax in mail is more challenging since there really isn't a reverse communication.
  • 00:52:15
    What I think is missing from that is the person has submitted their documents already, but they've been working on this for who knows how long.
  • 00:52:26
    and so really when we receive a permit in June and it's our highest volume time and they're surprised about the wait time it's our highest volume time of the year so really it's I think we need to be better at kind of giving projected wait times based on the time of year and the volume of activity so that people can plan ahead rather than
  • 00:52:55
    hearing that once they've submitted their application.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:52:59
    That makes sense to me.
  • 00:53:00
    And also, the logistics, even down to the minutia of how it's coming in, makes sense.
  • 00:53:04
    Because for some of these one-way drop-offs, it's not necessarily easy to get right back to the person.
  • 00:53:11
    But I think that there could be value in just, we've received this, this is what you can expect, and communication, so that once they've dropped it off, they're not wondering what happened.
  • 00:53:22
    And then I saw Ms. Johnson with a question.
• • Cheniqua Johnson
  • 00:53:25
    Yes, thank you council president and thank you director.
  • 00:53:28
    We see I guess My question I have like to kind of questions for you and then it's one is related to what we were talking about here So I just wanted to ask that and then the other one is a switch of topic But for the first one, what is the projected timeline?
  • 00:53:43
    Like what is the response time right now for the city and how does that?
  • 00:53:46
    fair in relation to how it's been and
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:53:51
    Council President, Council Member, when I want to back up, I did miss one avenue for submitting which is through our online portal and if you have a plan, a plan review that needs to happen, you can't submit through online portal but a lot of what we call our express permits can be done that way and they're issued virtually automatically or like in real time.
  • 00:54:16
    In future state, poly state will be able to submit online
  • 00:54:20
    plans and have electronic plan review that way.
  • 00:54:25
    As far as turnaround times right now, every Monday our front counter team literally does a manual count of what is on, what we say, on the cart.
  • 00:54:35
    And so they're manually counting how many permits are on the cart and what date they are at to be most caught up.
  • 00:54:47
    Right now at this, you know,
  • 00:54:49
    a few days ago on Monday.
  • 00:54:52
    We are at our longest wait time and our highest permit count that we've been at all year.
  • 00:54:57
    So earlier this year we were in the like 120s for number of permits and I think four days out right now we are at over 200 permits on the cart and I believe two weeks out.
  • 00:55:15
    So it's, we're at, and that's just to enter your permit.
  • 00:55:20
    into our computer system.
  • 00:55:22
    So it understandably is and can be frustrating.
  • 00:55:28
    We have the ability to authorize overtime to get caught up, but I'm very cognizant of burnout from our team and I need to balance the ability to stay caught up and the ability to keep them safe and sane and happy in our work at the city.
• • Cheniqua Johnson
  • 00:55:50
    And as a follow-up then, you know, I'm just kind of wondering like where some of the response as far as like some of that, you know, knowledge and I think just even that information is really important and for me to, for you know, council members and stuff to hear.
  • 00:56:05
    So I really do appreciate kind of the added context.
  • 00:56:07
    I'm wondering from the budget lens and just kind of if you could point out some of the things that are in response to that and to the increase in numbers to some of the part like some of the brink of the work like I understand the FTE requests for you know for the energy code piece but I was interestingly surprised to see that that's the like that was the projected
  • 00:56:30
    and I'm just kind of wondering if there's other places in the department that could benefit from seeing some investment too and I'm just kind of wondering from like a lens like what is the response to that so for permitting you know the ink like is there an increase in vacant building registration like is there an increase in need for enforcement and just overall like
  • 00:56:52
    with the city of St Paul.
  • 00:57:14
    changes and basically negative changes from this year to the next are some of the places where I would actually probably have seen or have seen some of the more of my requests go to and I'm just kind of wondering like what is the response to the increase and permitting was the response to kind of like the demand on staff and just curious as to how often that happens where there's just like a lot of things going on within the department that is huge to respond to and
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:57:44
    I don't think that there is a director in my shoes anywhere in the nation who would say that they are adequately staffed and really what it comes down to is the expectation and if the expectation really determines
  • 00:58:10
    the staff.
  • 00:58:28
    where we need to expend our resources.
  • 00:58:32
    And I mean very tough decisions.
  • 00:58:36
    The front counter team right now is down one person and that largely impacts the numbers that we're seeing there.
  • 00:58:45
    Fortunately for us that being down one person is actually a good thing.
  • 00:58:49
    We promoted
  • 00:58:51
    to be our office administrator.
  • 00:58:56
    So that's amazing news for us, but it also means that we're down a person and that we need to backfill.
  • 00:59:05
    And because of financial separation of duties, she actually can't cover the work that she was previously doing, which often unfortunately happens with some of our managers who are promoted.
  • 00:59:16
    They ended up doing double duty for a while.
  • 00:59:20
    So, and we have examples like that across DSI.
  • 00:59:25
    Again, our team is really good at adapting, but we could always use more people in every single area, but it really comes down to what the expectations are of those folks.
  • 00:59:41
    We do a lot of things, we do a lot of things well, but 24 hour turnaround time
  • 00:59:49
    consistently for the breadth of what DSI does is not a realistic expectation.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:59:57
    I see Ms. Jost and I would just as a comment on that too just say I'm eager and interested in just kind of understanding better the process flow just for sake of our shared work to help our constituents.
  • 01:00:11
    I think that a 24-hour turnaround time is not reasonable for the vast majority of things
  • 01:00:17
    I would like to better understand where we're communicating with folks once they've submitted something to help them understand like you can expect to hear from us within 10 business days this is the volume we're experiencing like just proactive front-facing communication looping in the council office if it's relevant or feels relevant just things that help people feel just just like customer service things right that keep temperatures down and help people understand because on the other end of that what we get is like
  • 01:00:46
    the blow up emails that never feel good to send for anyone that our neighborhood business wants to open and they've been waiting for eight weeks and they're not getting any response back or they're not getting the response back they want and just that type of thing.
  • 01:01:01
    and I think that on the one hand I don't love being AppleCare for constituents and their businesses going to the Apple desk to fix their problem.
  • 01:01:11
    On the other, that is just them needing help from us and so I'd like to partner with you on just are there just basic communication practices too that will help people go through the process together as we have it and then also I would be interested in understanding the process flow
  • 01:01:26
    to get you more funds to help make it better.
  • 01:01:29
    So I'll speak for myself on that, but we're on the receiving end of it with our constituents and folks trying to do good stuff in our wards and bring investment to the city.
  • 01:01:38
    And I know you're balancing all that with just the realities of the demands on the department.
  • 01:01:43
    So more to come on that, the conversation is resonating with me and I appreciate you being willing to be a part of that.
• • Saura Jost
  • 01:01:50
    So now, with that, after I've used my point of privilege to take the mic, I will give it to Ms. Jost.
  • 01:01:55
    Go ahead.
  • 01:01:55
    Thank you, Council President.
  • 01:01:57
    Director Weezy and Council Member Johnson, I just had a comment on, I hear the concern around, you know, where FTEs are being added and that is a very difficult decision and we, you know, our office as well, experiences concerns from the community around, you know,
  • 01:02:12
    process time and needing more staff but my just my general understanding of the added five FTEs for the energy code adoption my understanding is the energy code change is very significant and that you know having to design to new things like totally new changes in the building code is something that we have to comply to and so that would be like my interpretation of why that decision
  • 01:02:35
    was made because this is something that we have to do.
  • 01:02:37
    And not that we don't have to do the other things, those are important too, but I could see how that decision was made.
  • 01:02:43
    But also, I think we're all wanting to support DSI with some of the other challenges that you're facing.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:02:51
    I appreciate that, Council President, Council Member.
  • 01:02:54
    I think, too, that having those coordinators, energy code administration is something that we've done ever since Minnesota adopted an energy code.
  • 01:03:05
    And having these coordinators really will help not only for the new parts of the Adoption, but all the existing parts that we've been administering to date but desegregated and so to to really put it together and to make sure that it's acting as one as one building and to some of the the parts about messaging
  • 01:03:33
    Part of that is really will be addressed with the poly Project one of the things that I cannot highlight enough is the the transparency of the work I've said it before but most of what DSI does is public.
  • 01:03:48
    It's just might not be easily accessible and You know business licensing being an example You cannot apply for a business license online today
  • 01:03:59
    You cannot renew your business license online today.
  • 01:04:04
    It is a mail-in operation.
  • 01:04:07
    That means that a staff member is keying in your information into our 30-plus-year-old system and taking your either credit card, check, or cash payment and keying in that information when this could largely be done far easier by the applicant.
  • 01:04:28
    Online.
  • 01:04:28
    So transparency, speed to market, if you will, will be huge parts of the Poly project.
  • 01:04:37
    And that's why I say transformation of epic proportions.
  • 01:04:42
    And I can't say that enough.
  • 01:04:44
    It does have a huge team investment, time, energy, skill, knowledge.
  • 01:04:53
    Thank you, Mr.
  • 01:04:58
    Chair.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:05:21
    Thanks, Director.
  • 01:05:22
    I saw a question or comment from Ms. Naker.
  • 01:05:24
    Go ahead.
  • 01:05:24
    Thanks, Council President.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 01:05:25
    Director, I'm so excited to see that Poly is finally moving forward.
  • 01:05:29
    We've been talking about this ever since I started on the Council eight years ago.
  • 01:05:32
    I'm glad it also has a cute name because why not?
  • 01:05:36
    I just want to say that, you know, to some of the comments of my colleagues a few minutes ago, I think that the frustration that we feel comes out of, I think we should own as a city, the fact that we have not kept pace with the times.
  • 01:05:47
    I think an Amazon speed culture is one level, but
  • 01:05:51
    being able to do things online is something, you know, several generations before Amazon in terms of technology.
  • 01:05:58
    And so I just think the more that we can roll out these initiatives, the more that we can show that we are keeping pace at least with somewhat with the times.
  • 01:06:08
    I think that helps people understand and helps manage their expectations a little bit.
  • 01:06:13
    But some of that frustration comes from the fact that we're not even at the online part yet.
  • 01:06:17
    So I'm really glad that it's moving forward.
  • 01:06:19
    I hope you'll let us know how we can support you
  • 01:06:21
    I also just want to thank you for mentioning staffing and I want to just flag that this has come up in every single department's presentation and it's also something that we're hearing from frontline staff that their concerns about their pay and their work conditions and some of that leading into staffing issues and so I'm mostly saying this to Mr. Wilms because when HR comes to present to us I really hope that we can be bringing up and tying together all of these different departments concerns that we're hearing and just wanted you to know director that this is something that seems to be a citywide theme
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:06:52
    thank you for that council president council member one thing I really didn't mention in that piece is you know the last bullet there which is the job market other governmental hiring and a skilled labor force again our folks can really see the work that they do there's a lot of job satisfaction in the work that they do they're just straight-up aren't enough people to do it the the state
  • 01:07:18
    made proposals and passed proposals that increase their hiring significantly and they're pulling directly from our team.
  • 01:07:27
    We're strong believers in training and education in St Paul and we want our folks to do their job well, which means that they're also highly marketable.
  • 01:07:40
    But they
  • 01:07:42
    It's always a little bittersweet because I love that they're able to put the St. Paul way into wherever they're going next.
  • 01:07:51
    If it's the state, if it's another city that they're doing things with the lens and the attitude and the skill that we taught them here and that they're able to bring that there.
  • 01:08:02
    Because selfishly, I think the St. Paul way is the best way.
  • 01:08:05
    But we lose that expertise and it's really, really tough.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:08:14
    Just a time check for everyone.
  • 01:08:15
    It's 11.07.
  • 01:08:16
    I'm going to at least take us to 11.45, but let's keep moving through this and if we need to add more on top of that we will.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:08:23
    I can largely skip past this because I've covered a lot of it.
  • 01:08:28
    These are recently established programs and initiatives and updates, but the recent meaning, like the last three years, so some of these things I've
  • 01:08:39
    Chair and members of the committee.
  • 01:09:03
    We continue to have really strong partnerships with both internal and external to the city to really I think move mountains in this area in a way that a lot of other communities still struggle with.
  • 01:09:22
    An update on the hiring that was authorized for this past year We added an abatement coordinator.
  • 01:09:30
    So I mentioned the the uptick in the amount of abatements performed so really like that FTE has Knocked it out of the park as far as getting the turnaround time on the abatements That we had talked about earlier the half FTE and for a sheet metal inspector that was taking a 2023
  • 01:09:52
    and then we have hired two Office Animal Service officers, but we still have two vacancies so we we've
  • 01:10:20
    We are continuing to hire in that area, but our two new FTEs are in the field and just really, really excited to have them on board.
  • 01:10:30
    They're engaged.
  • 01:10:33
    They are learning something new every day and they're bringing their skills and experience from their previous jobs to our work, which I also love.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 01:10:42
    Thank you.
  • 01:10:42
    I saw a question from Ms. Naker.
  • 01:10:44
    Go ahead.
  • 01:10:44
    Thanks, Council President.
  • 01:10:45
    This actually is not a question for you, Director Weese, but your slide reminded me of it with a mention of vacancies.
  • 01:10:50
    I think, Ms. Mitchell, this is probably more a question for you, but we had requested a report on vacancies across the city and also fees and charges, I believe by October 1st, and I don't think we have that yet.
  • 01:10:59
    Do you know when you expect to send that to us?
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 01:11:04
    Council President, Council Member, we are working on preparing those materials.
  • 01:11:08
    Given the tools that we have, the system and the way that we have to pull the data, it's pretty time consuming.
  • 01:11:13
    So we're working now on collecting those from departments.
  • 01:11:17
    I think we've received most of them.
  • 01:11:18
    So now we're going through and vetting and making sure that those are accurate and consistent and then adding the necessary context as oftentimes just a list of vacancies doesn't tell the whole story.
  • 01:11:29
    So we, I think, are hoping to have them in the next few days.
  • 01:11:34
    Okay, thank you.
  • 01:11:35
    Thanks.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:11:39
    Uh, council president, council member and on that DSI has, I believe about 500 to separate fees that are in St Paul legislative code.
  • 01:11:48
    So, um, yes, it was a very time consuming effort to pull all those together.
  • 01:11:56
    updates on some ARP projects both on what we have and then I also you know I didn't want to go without mentioning other departments ARP projects that the department benefited from because we have you know the remote virtual inspection project was I also just I've touched on that's poly and the brick match which also is ARP the customer service continuity and
  • 01:12:24
    we're finalizing the closeout on that but that was you know one of the first ARP projects to to go through our SAC financial assistance pilot for expanded outdoor seating we're finalizing the closeout on that project and then the three projects that are completely you know complete complete the downtown alliance ambassador program which I'm hoping that you all like experienced the benefit of that
  • 01:12:52
    the Unshelter Response Team that was really the beginning days of HART were funded by ARP and then licensing services again with COVID and having some of the executive orders reducing the amount of revenue that the department was
  • 01:13:14
    is bringing in to help continue the services of our business licensing.
  • 01:13:22
    Other projects that DSIs work benefited from that were funded by ARP, Right Track, Public Works as Painter.
  • 01:13:31
    They do a lot of the graffiti abatement that gets called in for the things on light poles and other infrastructure.
  • 01:13:41
    of the
  • 01:13:58
    and to be able to fund those to make that a safe environment, the public safety radio replacement, another very large ARP project that now ensures that we can all communicate effectively with each other, the recognition pay framework that was funded and now implemented in two unions, or at least two unions, the budget stabilization obviously,
  • 01:14:24
    snow removal optimization.
  • 01:14:26
    Our folks are very much involved in the benefits of having optimal snow removal in many different ways.
  • 01:14:34
    One that we have over 100 people just out on the streets every day needing to traverse the city.
  • 01:14:39
    The 30% AMI affordable housing, a lot of work that was needed that helps very many areas of DSI, same with healthy homes and many more that I've just ran out of room on the slide.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:14:53
    Thank you.
  • 01:14:54
    I love seeing the connections between all the different initiatives and priorities, and then the through line to your work makes a very clear picture of what the connections are.
  • 01:15:05
    I see a question from Ms. Johnson.
  • 01:15:07
    Go ahead.
• • Cheniqua Johnson
  • 01:15:08
    Yes.
  • 01:15:08
    Again, sorry.
  • 01:15:09
    I have two questions, but the first one is related to HEART because you mentioned it briefly.
  • 01:15:13
    But is it possible to see just actually what resources HEART is receiving financially?
  • 01:15:20
    I don't know where they're captured in the budget.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:15:24
    I believe too, and correct me if I'm wrong Director, but the Heading Home Ramsey presentation that we're getting on October 23rd is entirely focused on our homelessness response and so I do think that we could either get that here as a follow-up or into the presentation we're getting in the next couple weeks.
• • Cheniqua Johnson
  • 01:15:53
    I have no preference how it's given I'd really love to see like how see those numbers penciled out separately could you talk a little bit about the office to housing conversion fee waivers I believe that that also use ARPA resources is that within yours or is there a slide about that here
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:16:15
    Council President, Council Member, it's not ARP but it is Housing Trust Fund and I do cover it later in the presentation.
  • 01:16:21
    As for the heart breakdown certainly can get you that data in general it covers
  • 01:16:29
    of the City of St Paul, City of St Paul, City of St Paul,
  • 01:16:58
    I mentioned the BOT grant for the building official in training and they are one-time grants but we received it in 2023 and again in 2024 and we did have an opening at the end of 2023 that we were able to hire on our building official in training as a full-time employee.
  • 01:17:18
    They did have to go through the normal hiring process to do that but it was a great hire and I get a lot of positive feedback from their work
  • 01:17:28
    which is always good to hear.
  • 01:17:31
    And then the other is that BRIC grant that I mentioned earlier.
  • 01:17:34
    Our historical budget to actual for expenses.
  • 01:17:43
    Again, that year to date is July 31st.
  • 01:17:46
    And that budget variance that you see in 2022,
  • 01:17:54
    I think largely relates to vacancies that we had a fair amount of turnover and it was my first year in this position and just the time it takes to hire somebody new so we had a lot of attrition and we've gotten a lot of better at utilizing our attrition dollars in a variety of ways to able to keep up with the work while we are you know down folks or if we've promoted
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:18:24
    I see a question, follow up from Ms. Naker and from Ms. Jost.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 01:18:27
    Go ahead.
  • 01:18:28
    Thanks, Council President.
  • 01:18:30
    Director Weese, this is just, is this just general fund budget actuals?
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:18:35
    Council President, Council Member, it is just general fund with that said, that's all DSI has is general fund.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 01:18:44
    I was just, well, I guess I was curious because on your earlier slide you had shown revenue from permits and the permit revenue being much higher than budget.
  • 01:18:53
    is that does that go into general fund?
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:18:56
    Council President, Council Member, yes it does.
  • 01:18:58
    All of our revenue sources go through the general fund.
  • 01:19:02
    The only thing that didn't was the gambling enforcement dollars were in a special fund and we offloaded that in 2023.
• • Saura Jost
  • 01:19:14
    Okay, thank you.
  • 01:19:15
    And then Ms. Jost was next in line.
  • 01:19:17
    Go ahead.
  • 01:19:18
    Thank you, Council President.
  • 01:19:19
    Director Roussey, for 2024, I see this only goes through half of the year.
  • 01:19:25
    Do you anticipate, or I guess what do you anticipate the percentage variance will be by the end of the year?
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:19:35
    Council President, Council Member, I anticipate, I mean, by all accounts, everything's on track.
  • 01:19:42
    So I don't anticipate a large variance.
  • 01:19:46
    We like to come in under budget when we're talking about expenses.
  • 01:19:51
    We like to come in over budget when we talk about revenue, just as a general rule.
  • 01:19:57
    But we watch our dollars very, very carefully.
  • 01:20:01
    And I expect to come in right around that 3%, 4% range.
• • Saura Jost
  • 01:20:05
    Thanks.
  • 01:20:06
    I just have one quick comment.
  • 01:20:07
    This is more so for Jay's request.
  • 01:20:11
    I think this slide for me, we've gotten it from all of our departments and I would just request maybe like the percent variance or the dollar variance be clear if it's plus or minus, like a jump out at you if it's plus or minus because I think that that's just important because there have been times where I've looked at this and in my head I'm like wait, it's underspending versus overspending and I think that would just be helpful moving forward.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 01:20:34
    We can do that going forward.
• • Saura Jost
  • 01:20:36
    Okay, thanks.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:20:47
    This is looking at, you know, largely similar information, just a little bit different way.
  • 01:20:53
    What you'll see in here that's different is the assessments and the assessment financing and the assessment spending.
  • 01:21:02
    So it's
  • 01:21:04
    you see that they're the exact same dollars so it's a it's largely you know what we put in is what we get out.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:21:14
    Just to follow up on that from Ms. Naker go ahead.
  • 01:21:16
    Thanks council president.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 01:21:17
    Director Weezy what contributed to the significant the really significant jump between 2022 actuals and 2023 budget?
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:21:33
    Council President, Council Member, are you talking about in the spending category?
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 01:21:44
    It's okay if it's a follow-up.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:21:45
    I'm larger than any other year.
  • 01:21:50
    Council President, Council Member, I will have to do it as a follow-up.
  • 01:21:56
    My suspicion is that this is
  • 01:21:59
    does not include ARP dollars and that the spending again because of the reduced revenue in 2022 some of the spending was covered by ARP dollars so the licensing inspector and our customer service counter had ARP funding in that year those two well
  • 01:22:26
    I think the customer service is getting closed out now with the final dollars and I don't know if we have a breakdown on year by year of each of those ARPs, but that's what I suspect.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 01:22:40
    I see Ms. Mitchell, go ahead.
  • 01:22:42
    Council President, Council Member, one other note on the difference between 2022 actuals and 2023 is there were, in addition to the items that Director Weese mentioned, we moved five FTEs from ARP to the general fund.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 01:22:58
    but that wouldn't account for that whole difference, I hope.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:23:04
    Go ahead Mr. Wilms.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 01:23:06
    Sorry, Council President and Council Member Naker.
  • 01:23:09
    I think part of it too is comparing actuals to budget so the budget was approximately 20 million point two and so I think that it would be less stark if because there was underspending in that year.
  • 01:23:23
    Got it, okay, thank you.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:23:31
    One of the things we asked to prepare was what's the breakdown on the 2025 budget and the activities that occur for those.
  • 01:23:41
    The best way I had to showing that is really just by division because of how our financial system spits out the data for us and so really the next few slides are
  • 01:23:55
    in that functional org chart what activities happen in that space and what are the dollar values for spending for each of those so for the activities shown here around 2.3 million on our housing and building side inspections
  • 01:24:16
    For Code Enforcement, about $2.7 million, and that's with including the Vacant Building Program and our Truth and Sale of Housing Program.
  • 01:24:26
    HART has about $690,000.
  • 01:24:35
    Our Construction Services, about $11.2 million.
  • 01:24:41
    And then our Fire Safety Inspections Program, about $3.2 million.
  • 01:24:49
    on our Licensing, Permits, and Customer Services side.
  • 01:24:52
    Our business licensing activity, about 1.5 million.
  • 01:24:56
    Communications, which includes our call center and our administration for zoning hearings, is about 900,000.
  • 01:25:05
    Zoning administration in general, including our water resources coordinator, 1.2-ish million.
  • 01:25:13
    for the sheltering program and for our field services and then our front counter services about 1.5 million
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:25:28
    I would like to just ask going back a slide the construction services category just feels like such a significant amount of spending on these activities and so I understand the activities here like elevator mechanical warm air is this literally spending in terms of we just have this many staff that spend this much time on all those aspects of a project moving its way through the city process like what's
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:25:57
    what is this hot this is the most spending area and like what does that mean in terms of our staff and what they're doing just help me understand it a little more I guess that's my question certainly council president it is the largest amount of spending it's also our largest revenue as far as fee collection and it is our largest division as far as number of FTEs so I think there's about 50
  • 01:26:26
    of the City Council.
  • 01:26:50
    of the first shovel into the ground to the certificate of occupancy and we will have on a large project, each one of those, so building, electrical, elevator, mechanical, warm air and plumbing will all have an inspector on site at some time.
  • 01:27:08
    So it's very, very labor intensive to get those buildings to fruition.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:27:14
    Thank you.
  • 01:27:14
    That is helpful for me to get my head around and appreciate the point too that it's the highest spending but it's also the highest revenue and that there's the context of the size of it within the department.
  • 01:27:24
    All that is helpful for me.
  • 01:27:26
    So I thought I saw Ms. Jost and Ms. Bui.
• • Saura Jost
  • 01:27:29
    Let's go to Ms. Jost and then Ms. Bui.
  • 01:27:30
    Thanks.
  • 01:27:30
    Super duper quick, Council President.
  • 01:27:32
    I was just going to say that $11 million divided by $200,000, if that were one, maybe that's high for FTE, but it's like $55,000.
  • 01:27:40
    So it would make sense that that's all
  • 01:27:43
    staff basically for that size of that department.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:27:48
    Thank you.
  • 01:27:49
    Ms. Jost, Ms. Bowie, sorry.
• • Anika Bowie
  • 01:27:52
    It's similar to like the math that Council Member Jost did.
  • 01:27:58
    So there's 105 FTEs and then like the overall budget being a little over 11 million dollars would set an average of a salary at 106
  • 01:28:08
    $1,000.
  • 01:28:09
    So these are kind of, you know, these aren't like entry-level salaries.
  • 01:28:14
    Can you speak a little bit of just like the makeup of the salaries and like the positions?
  • 01:28:18
    You know, how many of these positions are like part-time or full-time and just the trajectory particularly around, you know, for those entry-level positions, like what is that makeup?
  • 01:28:32
    I think that would be helpful if we see like just a variety of different levels of salaries.
  • 01:28:38
    versus just kind of like one balloon payment not payment but one balloon like cost.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:28:45
    Council President, Council Member, one of the things that was not asked for this year in the presentation was a breakdown of the average and median salary and benefits and I did include that in in the packet that you should have received so it's not going to be covered here but you should
  • 01:29:03
    have that as a hidden slide in the deck, so it should have printed.
  • 01:29:08
    And that's for the department overall.
  • 01:29:14
    One of the unique things about everything, I wouldn't say all of them, all of what we call the trade inspectors, so building electrical, mechanical, warm air, plumbing, elevator,
  • 01:29:27
    is two things.
  • 01:29:28
    One, they're all under those trades unions, so local unions contract.
  • 01:29:34
    We negotiate with them separately.
  • 01:29:37
    But because of that, their benefits are administered by their unions, which generally means that the city is part of the wage of that person.
  • 01:29:53
    Chair and members of the committee.
  • 01:29:54
    I think that incorporates their benefits as part of that.
  • 01:29:56
    Their hourly wage might look quite a bit higher than a similar title but it' s in part because their benefits are administered by the union and that is taken
  • 01:30:15
    and because they have a pension program through the union and so the wage is higher as the retirement program goes through the union instead of through para.
  • 01:30:30
    Those are really finite details.
  • 01:30:33
    DSI covers about ten
  • 01:30:35
    of the City of St Paul.
  • 01:31:00
    I just want to say that I found this picture of a Lego tree house and I just
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 01:31:16
    really wanted to find a location for
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:31:43
    Council President, Council Member, maybe we could do a Lego set swap at some point.
  • 01:31:50
    So just the treehouse and talking about energy code and green building, it seemed to kind of tangentially tie.
  • 01:31:57
    And like I said, I saw it and really wanted to use it.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:31:59
    The treehouse has undergone extensive site plan review.
  • 01:32:02
    It has.
  • 01:32:03
    It has.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:32:04
    You'd be surprised that we actually did have somebody who wanted to build a treehouse as an Airbnb.
  • 01:32:09
    And those get to be complex conversations.
  • 01:32:12
    So we've talked about the positions, and again the next slide will have more detail on that one in particular, but talking about the vacant building program, active monitoring of the vacant building, including after hours, which again is one, over time, but two, for safety purposes, we send people out in pairs, which is not something we do during daytime hours generally.
  • 01:32:40
    and then the vacant buildings also includes the sale review process to facilitate the active use again of these buildings which is super important and so for that we're proposing a fee increase of 10%.
  • 01:32:53
    Previously we implemented a different structure for the vacant building monitoring fee of that the first year is
  • 01:33:11
    in that $2,000 range and then the subsequent year it goes up into that nearly $5,000 range and that's just because of the intensity of the work that's needed when something is vacant for more than a year.
  • 01:33:25
    Even with that change we're still seeing that we're not achieving cost recovery on some of this work so that's the reason for the
  • 01:33:33
    the proposed change of increasing the fee by 10%.
  • 01:33:37
    I will say some of the activity that comes out of the vacant building program, so let's say that they're doing their monitoring and there's tall grass and weeds that haven't been kept up with.
  • 01:33:48
    The cost recovery and the work that goes with abating that is not in the vacant building program, but the actual finding it, processing it, that part is part of the vacant building program.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:34:03
    Within this topic, I just wanted to understand the proposal and then to maybe raise an additional food for thought.
  • 01:34:10
    But is the idea to increase the fee by 10% that we would then essentially actually get compensated for what we're doing, or is that going to increase but not necessarily make up the gap?
  • 01:34:23
    Maybe you said that, but I just missed it, as I was trying to understand.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:34:27
    Council President,
  • 01:34:30
    and the City Council.
  • 01:34:41
    what we are
  • 01:35:02
    to achieve cost recovery.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:35:24
    So for this type of fee, I'm just going to play back this to you to make sure I'm understanding correctly.
  • 01:35:28
    So feel free to correct or if I misstate this, but for this type of fee, we cannot make money off of it.
  • 01:35:33
    So we can only go up to the line of what we incurred to actually do that work.
  • 01:35:37
    And so
  • 01:35:38
    we're proposing increasing it to not run afoul of that but to actually like also not functionally put that cost onto our residents instead of like negligent property owner so that's part one and then part two is it sounds like you're saying if we wanted to actually impose stiffer fees that go beyond as an incentive to like frankly as a disincentive to like speculative lazy real estate presences in our community
  • 01:36:03
    would that have to fundamentally go through an admin sites route?
  • 01:36:06
    Would that be an advantage that we get from having that tool in our toolkit?
  • 01:36:20
    go after the bad actors here and I'm personally and I know that you're heavily involved in these conversations but you know I'm I'm tired of the corporate do-nothings that own major sites in our communities and it is nothing to them to just like camp out and do nothing and let there be disrepair
  • 01:36:43
    and the City Council.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 01:37:10
    I think I've asked every single year whether or not we're recovering our costs for vacant buildings, so I'm really glad to see this increase.
  • 01:37:17
    I also share your concerns, Council President, with land speculation, but these fees also apply, as we've seen at legislative hearings, to regular property owners who are not just speculative, who have had horrible tragedies occur, fires in some cases, et cetera, and we know with the amount of backlog in terms of construction that sometimes it's taking a while to get this work done.
  • 01:37:36
    So I'm interested in a fee structure that disincentivizes speculation,
  • 01:37:40
    but doesn't penalize people who've had something bad occur to them and are trying desperately sometimes with the money that we're charging them to get their property back together because ultimately that's what we all want.
  • 01:37:49
    So I'm curious if you've considered rather than a 10% increase across the board, more of an increase, a sharper increase in the second year or potentially third year so that the fee really disincentivizes properties remaining vacant for a long time to your point which also they become more expensive and more of a blight and doesn't necessarily come down
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:38:08
    Council President
  • 01:38:23
    you know less than 500 vacant buildings in the city isn't a large dollar value you know in in general on the whole of for the city budget it is more individualized and what we're what we're seeing so I think that is something we could potentially model and see what it would impact to what is being shown here the other thing I would say is
  • 01:38:48
    we are very interested in pursuing an ordinance change that would allow us to work with people who are actively working with on their building to get it reoccupied because in our estimation having that money spent to reoccupy the building is a much better city outcome than spending it to have us monitor it as a vacant building.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:39:13
    We would love to collaborate with you on that and we get these appeals and cases that appear before us almost every single week and we see the gamut and we just had a case the other week where there was a woman in tears about having to recover from a fire and feeling stressed out about the fees that are being put upon her and then there are
  • 01:39:36
    of the city of St. Paul.
  • 01:39:59
    what we're talking about here with making distinctions between these types of properties and what's a better use of everyone's time including and especially the person whose home is on the line and who's just trying to live.
  • 01:40:09
    So that is exciting to hear and just will avidly follow up on those discussions from a policy standpoint and helpful to understand how they connect to the budget.
  • 01:40:20
    I see VP Kim, go ahead.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 01:40:22
    And just to add on to that there's also sort of like a consumer protection component to it because when they're on the vacant building list they get solicitations like I think if I recall correctly within the first week this constituent was saying people were calling and saying are you interested in selling your house are you interested in selling your house and they're experiencing the sort of like really
  • 01:40:41
    and Tenz Trauma.
  • 01:40:42
    So it's just to say that I think us considering another option for a vacant building category could be useful in that way, where then it's not public information because they're just, I think there's a predatory sense to that.
  • 01:40:55
    There's always good faith folks, but I think in this particular case it feels not just like not good, but also kind of leaning on the predatory side.
  • 01:41:06
    So I would love your partnership in that as well.
  • 01:41:12
    making notes.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:41:16
    Thank you for that council member and that is one of the downsides of virtually everything you do being public.
  • 01:41:25
    The last one on here is just more accurately reflecting the revenue and the attrition projections so on revenue doing a three-year look back and making some conservative adjustments to make sure that we are adequately reflecting the revenue that
  • 01:41:43
    is expected to decide and really that just helps close the overall budget gap that we would see from you know normal if we were to do the same exact thing this year to next year making sure that we're able to achieve cost recovery on that.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:42:00
    Can I just understand from I just don't know what it means in this case three-year look back on revenue what does that mean?
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:42:07
    So looking back three years on
  • 01:42:12
    of what
  • 01:42:34
    but that's the anticipated revenue.
  • 01:42:39
    So going back three years to see how close were they to what actually happened in DSI's budget, what we actually brought in and doing that three year look back, taking like I said a conservative estimate because
  • 01:42:55
    We don't want to over-promise either what we are expected to achieve and so there were some adjustments made and I think the summary of those adjustments are in one of the latter pages of your packet.
  • 01:43:12
    I think I get it, but just so...
  • 01:43:14
    I can talk about it more when we get to those.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:43:16
    Yeah, let's do that.
  • 01:43:17
    Okay, let's keep going.
  • 01:43:17
    Thanks.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:43:20
    Here's the big explanation you've been waiting for.
  • 01:43:22
    Maybe I should have put this higher up in the presentation.
  • 01:43:28
    But in that yellow box, there just are some kind of metrics and things about energy usage and energy code overall, some things that I think you likely know but might not be top of mind.
  • 01:43:44
    One of the things is just Minnesota's goal of reducing net energy consumption in commercial buildings by at least 80% by 2036, which seems like it's around the corner.
  • 01:43:58
    And part of that is just the city's efficiency numbers.
  • 01:44:08
    You've seen here, so since 2015, the city's efficiency measures have decreased electricity consumption by 47%, but only reduced natural gas consumption by 5%.
  • 01:44:20
    and part of that is usage but also part of that is what I would call waste.
  • 01:44:25
    So what kind of evaporates through the building because of inefficient buildings in and of themselves.
  • 01:44:34
    And then more just about how we projected kind of the number of folks that we would need and the proposed fee that goes along with this which is not something we've talked about yet which is the
  • 01:44:45
    this is meant to be cost recovery and that there is a fee associated with these five FTEs but we estimate that there's about 1500 plan reviews that are needed as associated with this what I'll call more intense review under the energy code and with that we are proposing a fee of 0.2% of the project valuation
  • 01:45:17
    and really that's again for us to really look at these as systems in this building and not independent functions and getting into more of what each of those five FTEs the mechanical engineer just there's a lot of complex mechanical systems with these and and they're not getting any simpler so the the technology in this space has really
  • 01:45:48
    of the City of St. Paul, City Council,
  • 01:46:10
    and then an additional building inspector again it just means that there's more time per inspection on these and then really the meat and potatoes are those coordinators just to make sure that the all of the work with all the different disciplines is coordinated and working together because we're working as a system
  • 01:46:31
    It's not uncommon to have one contractor say, I can use this equipment, but it means that this other discipline needs to pick up the load, if you will.
  • 01:46:44
    And everyone's trying to do value engineering.
  • 01:46:46
    Well, if they all value engineer, well, now we don't have a system that works.
  • 01:46:50
    So we just need to make sure that all of those systems are talking to each other and collectively that they're meeting the energy code.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:47:02
    And so is the idea here that we would propose our energy compliance fee, the developer or I don't know who the right person to assign to this is.
  • 01:47:13
    They would be paying that essentially to offset the cost of the city needing extra staff to take on this work.
  • 01:47:19
    So would that mean that this doesn't have to come out of the levy but it's basically like we are charging the folks who want to do that business in our city now and just saying you know we want to comply with these new standards well and make sure your product is in compliance and good so this is part of it's similar to like a developer fee or other things like what's the idea tell us more about the idea here and how it would work and whether and how it would impact cost to our constituents that would be useful for me to understand
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:47:50
    Council President, yes you accurately reflected that so it is a fee for service and when it's not applied to every single building plan because we're talking about the larger projects that need this more complex review and so it's only and that's why you know again we can only do cost recovery we cannot make money on this work and so we look at historic data that we have to do our best projections and that's where we come up with this number
  • 01:48:17
    and that's where looking at both the 2022 and the 2023 data coming up with about 1,500 plans that would need this type of review and then kind of working backwards based on the salary of those folks and valuation to come up with the 0.2% valuation.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:48:35
    Got it.
  • 01:48:36
    And going into 2025, could you just help me understand the working system in motion?
  • 01:48:46
    So would it be that we, I guess, what can we predict about projects that are going to come in in 2025 that we know are on the way, and then how this new system is going to work?
  • 01:49:02
    If we're not approving this through a levy increase and functionally it's just as they come and we're getting paid for it as we go, do you have a sense of what the roadmap looks like through 2025 based on known projects now?
  • 01:49:17
    Or is it mainly anticipating previous years of data and then just making our best educated guess that we think that this will continue and so this is how we expect to move?
  • 01:49:27
    do you see what I'm asking?
  • 01:49:29
    I like the idea in theory.
  • 01:49:32
    How would it work in practice?
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:49:35
    Really what we have to work on is past data.
  • 01:49:40
    We don't anticipate a slowdown in the future.
  • 01:49:42
    Obviously that would change our tact on this.
  • 01:49:46
    and we do this type of review continually as you see what's like the the 10% on the vacant building so we will reevaluate it and see whether or not it's achieving its goals both on the amount of staff and and our cost recovery elements of it.
  • 01:50:04
    On this particular program we're also required by the state to report annually on the expenses that we incur related to development and
  • 01:50:16
    and the City Council.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:50:28
    I imagine that we would go through next year if we approve this proposal we'd go through next year you'd start to put the plan into motion and then we'd evaluate based on that whether it worked the way we hoped for and potentially need to make staffing asks in 26 or not if it's actually working like I'm just trying to look a couple years out is that correct to your expectation what what should we thinking about now as we enter this new normal that is just something helpful for situational awareness
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:50:55
    Council President, yes, I expect that exact thing to happen.
  • 01:50:59
    I will note that, um, a mechanical engineer title doesn't currently exist in the city.
  • 01:51:05
    So we do need to create that title and its duties.
  • 01:51:10
    Um, and then the, uh, energy compliance coordinator, I'm using this as a functional title.
  • 01:51:16
    We'll look at the current energy titles within the city and if they don't fit this, then we'll also need to create,
  • 01:51:23
    that was duties related to this work.
  • 01:51:26
    So we can't just add FTEs and expect the same outcome.
  • 01:51:33
    The expectation is that it will actually benefit the whole ecosystem of energy code adoption and that things see a faster timeline from application to permit issuance.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:51:51
    and then my last question on this and then I think I saw Ms. Bui with her hand up but has it been explored thinking about like rather than all of these being full FTEs is there a way to start some of this work and just feel it out in the new phase with like contract positions that maybe we could still get paid for them through the energy compliance fee but or is that not possible because of the like certification requirements that are inherent to this work that's just an area where I just don't understand it well enough and
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:52:16
    Council President, I appreciate the question because when we see a high volume of work and long turnaround times, we try to turn over every rock and every option to help our team out and to help our customers out.
  • 01:52:42
    The challenge we have with doing contract is
  • 01:52:46
    they don't know our systems and so trying to get them up to speed on how to operate our systems ends up you know taking a lot of work.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:52:56
    It contributes to the problem we're trying to solve.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:52:57
    It contributes to the problem where we do tend to have some successes bringing on folks who have retired because they know our systems and you know even if they work 20 hours a week it's 20 hours we didn't have before so we like I said we try all different avenues the other piece about contract is
  • 01:53:15
    I just want to say thank you to all of you for being here today.
  • 01:53:21
    It's a great honor to be here today.
  • 01:53:23
    It's just that they're here and have as much of investment as we put in the contract whereas folks who we've hired full time really have a different lens and investment in our customer.
• • Anika Bowie
  • 01:53:37
    Good to know.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:53:37
    Thanks.
• • Anika Bowie
  • 01:53:39
    I see Ms.
  • 01:53:39
    Council President because I'm also thinking about just what are the other partners that DSI works with in terms of particular I'm sure with PED in terms of the trajectory of like development in the city and if you work with
  • 01:53:57
    you know what level do you work with like Minnesota housing that pretty much like finances like large development and even I mean Met Council that you know puts out tons of dollars when it comes to development around affordable housing which would I would think kind of trigger you know more building permits and these licensing so I'm just wondering like what are what is the ecosystem in terms of like
  • 01:54:22
    budget committee.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:54:29
    Council President, Council Member, we kind of all of the above and what we don't really know is their their timeline so we hear about a lot of projects these are projects that tend to be years in the making so determining what site they're looking at getting their capital stack together working with you know unlike like a home mortgage these projects larger projects tend to have multiple funding sources that kind of all have to align and
  • 01:54:57
    I'm sure the work of the HRA, you've seen this time and again and so we know about them but we might not know if they're 2024 projects, if they're 2025 projects and that's why we look at really a very long historic lens on building construction activity because something that's permitted this year has work not only this year but next year and likely the year after and the only reason why DSIs
  • 01:55:28
    financing stream is able to work the way as well as it does is that that just continues.
  • 01:55:36
    So projects that are permitted, we are one year budgeting.
  • 01:55:42
    So we are spending our money this year that we achieved the financing in two years ago.
  • 01:55:52
    But overall, when you look at it in a large cycle,
  • 01:55:57
    we just we still achieve cost recovery because of that large historic lens.
  • 01:56:02
    Thank you for that.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:56:04
    Just want to flag we have about five minutes and maybe a couple more slides but things that are significant so let's go to Ms. Johnson and then let's just keep moving and see where we get but go ahead Ms. Johnson.
• • Cheniqua Johnson
  • 01:56:15
    Yeah mine's more of just like so for the proposal the energy code proposal would you say that like most of the background work on these positions has been done
  • 01:56:26
    Council President, Council Member
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:56:52
    These are just proposals until they're ratified by the Council.
  • 01:56:57
    So if Council ratifies the budget in December, then that's when we are green lighted to start looking at and
  • 01:57:08
    last year we even you know asked for a special dispensation to post before January with the promise not to hire until January until after January because they aren't approved you know for spending until January 1st so the timing does get to be tricky the like I said two of the titles already exist the other
  • 01:57:35
    The other two do not, but we have good frameworks to start from and we will work closely with HR on those.
  • 01:57:44
    The question really is a bandwidth issue and if we're not certain if we're going to get them approved how much time they really dedicate to that versus other work that they know is already approved and needs their support.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:58:00
    budget committee.
  • 01:58:19
    I think that approving the new fee, regardless of where it breaks out to, is a smart move.
  • 01:58:25
    It strikes me that we are going to have to take on extra work to uphold something that we support, which is state building code and state energy code being more appropriate for our community's needs.
  • 01:58:36
    But is there an option or a route to say, let's make sure that we advance this fee, but then
  • 01:58:44
    Council President, maybe
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:59:14
    deserves a more in-depth conversation, but essentially, we cannot charge fees that we aren't achieving cost recovery on and performing the work for.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:59:25
    So you have to actually articulate what the cost recovery is for, and that's fundamental to incurring the fee.
  • 01:59:30
    That is a good dot connect that makes sense.
  • 01:59:32
    OK, checking to see if anyone's in line and not seeing anyone, so let's keep it moving and try to finish up here.
  • 01:59:38
    Thank you, Director.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:59:42
    I think I've talked about mostly everything on that top portion but there was a question earlier about the housing office to conversion sorry office to housing conversion fees and I've included it here but I believe that you've heard about it through the HRA budget or and PEDs budget but those dollars are coming from the housing trust fund and it's a one-time
  • 02:00:11
    of the housing trust fund option for a million dollars which is what we believe would cover two projects in 2025 and then a separate permitting process just for housing projects and that is also proposed to be one-time funding three have to ease again this these dollars come out of the housing trust fund and so I
  • 02:00:39
    PED manages those dollars.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 02:00:42
    Thanks.
  • 02:00:42
    I see Ms. Naker and Ms. Bui.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 02:00:45
    Director, I'm going to have to ask and run to another call, but I'm just curious if we're talking about basically two more projects happening as a result of the Office to Housing Conversion Program, why does that require three new FTEs to handle the permits for two projects?
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 02:01:00
    Council president council member we're talking about completely separate things okay, so the the office to housing conversion fees are for two Projects downtown that would hopefully offset the cost and really the other slide shows the same million dollars So it's a net zero for for the department because the work still exists, but the It's to pay for the permit fees and
  • 02:01:29
    the right-of-way obstruction permit fees and the parkland dedication fees for two projects in downtown.
  • 02:01:36
    The permitting process for housing projects is for any housing related project in the city and having like a dedicated pipeline for those housing projects from site plan through permit issuance and building inspection.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 02:01:54
    So the second line item is for three FTEs to do that citywide
  • 02:01:59
    I think that's the first that I've heard about the proposal for the three new FTEs.
• • Rebecca Noecker
  • 02:02:12
    I think when we heard about it presented to HRA, it was more tied to the office housing conversion, unless that was just my misunderstanding.
  • 02:02:18
    So it would be helpful to understand more about the need for those additional three for the city-wide program than, I guess, as follows.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 02:02:28
    I think if that comes back to us through HRA 2 later today, we might even be able to unpack that from multiple angles.
  • 02:02:37
    I'll let you keep going, Director.
  • 02:02:39
    I do want to help us get to the end here.
  • 02:02:41
    I would flag that question as a follow-up, Jay, just to kind of figure out where we get that, but thanks.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 02:02:47
    And then the revenue projection.
  • 02:02:50
    I promised to get back to that, and here it is.
  • 02:02:53
    So that look back.
  • 02:02:57
    and I confess that when I saw these numbers I was like what you're asking us to increase our fees by this much and that's not what this is and that's why I'm really being careful on how this is stated because it's adjusting their projected revenue for these different items so building permits increasing the projected revenue by 12.8% business licenses by
  • 02:03:22
    8% plan review by 13.7% and fire certificate of occupancy by 10% and then conversely decreasing the assessment revenue projection by 11% and that's again based on historic actuals.
• • Anika Bowie
  • 02:03:48
    I see a question from Ms. Bui.
  • 02:03:49
    Go ahead.
  • 02:03:50
    Thank you.
  • 02:03:50
    I have a question related to Councilmember Naker's question.
  • 02:03:55
    Not about the FTEs, but I know I've asked this question HRA around just with the waivers of the fees, why that is put in our spending.
  • 02:04:05
    I remember Director Goodman talking about the work and you mentioned also the work.
  • 02:04:10
    Can you explain a little bit about
  • 02:04:13
    Even the waiver of the fee, we pretty much are eating that cost, but you're mentioning there's still work.
  • 02:04:21
    Can you speak to the work that relates to the million dollar waiver that we are offering for conversion?
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 02:04:31
    Council President and Council Member, yes so we to get to this number what we took was what I consider a typical conversion and one that happened previously so an actual an actual building conversion of a high-rise that went from commercial to residential and I had our team recreate every single fee that we charged for that conversion
  • 02:04:55
    in today's dollars.
  • 02:04:56
    So it was an older project.
  • 02:05:00
    In today's dollars to get kind of that estimate and again we incur those fees.
  • 02:05:08
    It's showing on both the spending and the financing because it's spent out of the housing trust fund.
  • 02:05:14
    It comes into DSI
  • 02:05:17
    as a recouping of those dollars because we do charge those dollars and it is a fee for service and the service does occur.
  • 02:05:28
    So those fees cover the building plan review, building inspections, elevator inspections, mechanical, electrical, plumbing and warm air and fire suppression, fire alarm.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 02:05:47
    and that's to essentially incentivize development by saying we'll subsidize these fees so that there's less cost to you and make it more business friendly to be able to convert into housing.
• • Anika Bowie
  • 02:05:57
    So the fees are connected basically to the positions of the people who are doing the work in terms of the inspections of the site review.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 02:06:05
    Yep, Council President, Council Member, the budget amount here is a million dollars.
  • 02:06:11
    What DSI will actually receive is actual cost.
  • 02:06:14
    So the permits will be applied for, fees will be applied to those, and the actual dollars of those permits will be what DSI receives from the Housing Trust Fund dollars.
• • Anika Bowie
  • 02:06:31
    And the million dollars is the goals for two projects to be converted, right?
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 02:06:35
    Council President, Council Member, yes that's our estimate is that based on our homework that we think a million dollars will cover two projects in 2025
  • 02:06:51
    So it seemed a little odd to end on that note.
  • 02:06:54
    So I put this kind of summary together that we're very fortunate to have what I would call relatively stable spending in financing over the last several years.
  • 02:07:03
    It does certainly help us to project what we're going to spend and what we're going to bring in.
  • 02:07:09
    We have seen a steady increase in volume over across all of our business lines.
  • 02:07:14
    And sometimes that you get something that slowly increases
  • 02:07:20
    it hits you later whereas when you have something wildly catastrophic happen which I don't want to happen it's much more apparent where the funding is needed.
  • 02:07:33
    but I would say our proposal reflects an all-in approach on being stewards of the hard-earned dollars of our customers and the taxpayers built environment sustainability housing production innovation and processes and customer experience and then a universal design in our online customer access and you know didn't get much time to talk about some of our
  • 02:08:03
    of the City of St. Paul.
  • 02:08:04
    I don't have any other partners in this work but police, ons, parks, public works all have projects in their budgets that support the work that dsi does, some of the downtown revitalization work, some of the added effort in
  • 02:08:28
    of the city of St. Paul.
  • 02:08:29
    I think our proactive and reactive efforts certainly help the work of dsi to keep many of our reactive activities down like handling complaints it also helps in bolstering new activity within the space.
  • 02:08:45
    Parks also has some dollars for vegetation management which certainly helps the
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 02:08:58
    Excellent.
  • 02:08:59
    So we are past our time and need to get to pre-council, but before we wrap, are there any other questions for now that people want to make sure they get in front of our director?
  • 02:09:08
    I want to thank you for being in for the long haul in a two hour budget discussion, but I found it incredibly fruitful.
  • 02:09:15
    I really appreciate this initial conversation and want to thank and appreciate you in advance.
  • 02:09:21
    You'll be coming back before us for a couple other city-wide initiatives that we work on, especially the Heading Home Ramsey work and all the homelessness and unsheltered things that we're doing.
  • 02:09:30
    Obviously, the connection to administrative citations and how that's going to hopefully improve the work that
  • 02:09:36
    If there's nothing else, looking for last chance to get in line, then we'll adjourn, take a couple minutes break, and do pre-council.
  • 02:10:01
    Thanks.