Budget Committee - September 16, 2025 - Presentation and Public Hearing on the 2026 Budget   9/16/2025

My name is Rebecca Naker.

I'm the President of the St Paul City Council and I represent Ward 2 and I am so happy that all of you have made it out here tonight.

Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy evenings to join us.

I'm really honored to be working with such an incredibly talented group of Council colleagues and one of our top priorities as Council members is to hear directly from you and to have actual conversations with you about your priorities as we enter this budget season.

So we've really designed tonight to be a conversation, to be a chance for us to listen and to hopefully build some relationships directly with our constituents because later on we're actually going to be getting in small groups with our constituents and with your council member.

So I'm going to turn things over to Council Vice President Kim who is chairing our budget process along with Council Member Yang so she can tell you more about what we're going to do tonight.

We put a lot of thought into making good use of your time and

Thank you.

Hi everyone.

I'm Hua Zhengke.

My pronouns are she, her.

I'm really proud to be the Vice Chair of the Budget Committee.

Our Chair Yang is here as well.

We took a note from last year.

We had sort of groupings based on topic and we felt that was really successful.

Gave residents kind of a chance to dig into a few more issues, but also kind of looking at the priorities of the constituents that we serve.

So, I'm going to give a very brief run of show.

We're going to have a very brief presentation from our new budget officer, Kamud, who's going to make her way to the front.

Come on up.

And we'll review the currently proposed budget.

Then after the presentation, if you notice, we've got some big post-it notes on the walls, and that's how we'd like you to engage.

They will be staffed, so folks will be there to help kind of pull more information out of you.

and after that section of time so please make sure you try to answer every single question.

We'll break out into small groups.

Each ward will have a space and their aid will staff and we'll go through a few more questions that are a little more open-ended around this year's budget and then you can expect that each council member from each group will report out but then in addition to that during that time if there's an issue that came you came here to share that's really important to you that is also the time to share.

to share that feedback for us.

So it's sort of, air quotes, the public hearing portion of our time.

But all of you came here to engage in the budget, and so we're very, very grateful for all your time and attention today.

A little bit of housekeeping if you haven't, if you've not been here before, the restrooms are down the hall past the welcome section on the right-hand side.

Please do host yourself as you need it.

There's water and snacks behind you.

Good evening everyone.

Thank you for taking the time to come.

How do I take it out?

I think it is working now.

Good evening, everyone.

Thank you for taking the time to come here today.

I'm Kumud Verma, the new Chief Budget Officer for the City of St. Paul.

And tonight I do have a very short presentation for you, giving you an overview of the city budget process and what is out there in St. Paul 2026 budget.

My role at the City is to manage the annual budget review and adoption process for the City Council.

Starting with the budget, what is city budget?

It means there is more than one financial plan.

There is a budget for the city, library, HRA, regional water services, port authority and river center convention and visitor's authority.

And there is multiple allocation of funds for different purposes.

There are primarily two different kind of budgets.

Operating budget that covers day-to-day expenses and has a focus on really a short-term timing.

Then there is capital budget.

It is the blueprint for long-term and expensive projects.

The nature of the capital budget is non-recurring or infrequent.

It focuses on the major purchases, investments, and asset upgrades that supports the growth.

Budget is many things.

It is a financial plan that outlines expected revenue and expected expenditure over a specified period of time.

Budget dictates how to plan, control and evaluate financial resources.

They allocate resources to a community and its elected representatives to decide what is the most important criteria for them.

What are the most important budget items for them.

Why does the budget matter?

Budget matters since the budget decisions could impact the well-being of different groups within a society.

It impacts personal finances and can also have an influence on the local economy too.

There are other budgets too, such as debt service budget, enterprise budget, grant budgets, etc.

How is the budget created?

This would give you an overview of the annual budgeting process.

The process of developing city budget is very similar to federal government or state government budget process.

At the state, the governor recommends a budget to the legislator, which then makes desirable changes and adopts the budget.

Similarly, at St Paul, the Mayor is responsible for developing the budget and recommending it to the Legislative Branch for approval.

In this case, City Council is the Legislative Branch.

Mayor's role in developing and preparing the budget.

Mayor's role is defined in the city charter section 3.01.05 states that mayor shall prepare and recommend budget to the city council.

The mayor is also responsible for implementing the adopted budget and recommending any necessary budget amendments.

The City Charter also defines the role of City Council in the budget process.

The Council must hold a public hearing on mayor's proposed budget.

Council has the option to adjourn and continue the hearing as needed.

Council can make necessary revisions to the budget but cannot reduce funding for debt service on issued bonds or obligations for goods or services that are already received.

City Charter further states that after the public hearing and by the dates set in the budget calendar, the City Council must adopt the budgets and certify the maximum tax levies no later than 12 days before the statutory deadline for property tax certification.

Adoption of the budget constitutes formal appropriation of funds.

Council has the full authority over the financial affairs of the city.

Here is a timeline of annual budget calendar.

From January to July, base budget preparation is underway.

Mayor recommends budget to the council in August and the council evaluates the budget from September to November.

Departments are given an opportunity to present their budget to the council.

Then in December, the final tax levy is adopted and certified to the county.

Also reported on these slides are helpful reminders for important dates.

Council is set to adopt the next levy on September 24th.

The county shall be mailing the TNT notices mid-November.

The city will be hosting a special meeting called TNT, Truth and Taxation meeting on Tuesday, November 25th.

The final levy will be certified and budget will be adopted on December 3rd.

This graph shows a breakdown of proposed sources of revenue in city budget.

User fee, sales and services is the biggest pool with 32.6%, followed by taxes at 29.1%.

Inter-government revenue, the

grants that we received from federal government, state government and local authorities.

Those are at 15.7% followed by fund balance uses 8.4%, assessments, franchise, fee miscellaneous and other revenue licenses and permit debt financing.

All of them account for less than 5% of city's revenue sources.

This graph shows how the city funds are proposed to be spent and the breakdown reported is by department.

Public Works Department tops the list at 26.7% followed by Pub Police and Fire at 16.37% and 10.08% respectively.

Parks and Recreation are at 9.38%.

Emergency Management, General Government, Planning and Economic Development, Safety and Inspections, those are all smaller departments and each one of them accounts for less than 5%, less than 6% of the city's proposed budget expenditure.

Here's another chart that reports a breakdown of proposed spending by function.

Personal line at the top includes salary and benefits and accounts for half of the city budget.

This is followed by services at 23.5%, debt repayment at 10%, material and supplies at 5.6%, program expenses at 5.3%, capital outlay at 3.6% and other miscellaneous spending at 1.2%.

This is an overview of what the city is proposing for 2026.

City proposes $886.9 million budget in 2026.

The proposed general fund budget is $405 million, which is an increase of 3.9% or $15.1 million over the 2025 budget.

The proposed property tax levy is $232.5 million that is an increase of 5.3% or $11.7 million from 2025.

The proposed levy increase of $232.5 million will have an impact of approximately $9 per month on average St Paul household.

This chart is a representation of historical levy for last 15 years from 2010 to 2015.

This is how the city levy has progressed in the prior years.

The proposed budget reflects responsibilities in managing the resources wisely and advancing the city for a safe, connected and prepared future.

Highlights from the proposed budget included allocation of $13.1 million on housing and economic opportunities,

and a breakdown of that $13.1 million is that $6.6 million will be allocated to housing production, $4.9 million to housing affordability and $1.6 million to economic opportunity.

Likewise,

City is committing $3 million for modernizing city services.

That is investment into technology and innovations.

There is going to be a new permitting and licensing system, Poly.

About $600,000 will be spent there.

Over $1 million on enhancing the cyber security, grant management system, a new system out there, $115,000 for that.

Robo street marking vehicle, $450,000.

Facilities Management Study, $100,000 Mobile Device Management Audit, $60,000 Priority-Based Budget Consulting that would allow us to budget based on the activity.

We are inviting the consultants to do that analysis.

It's $100,000.

Canobies Registration Administration, $116,000 Data Practice Team Investment, $166,000 Council Office Access and Security at $200,000.

Continuing on additional investments proposed in next year's budget.

Proposed allocation for the community well-being team includes $1 million in opioid treatment, response and prevention.

There's a temporary library lease at Haley Q.

Brown while Rondo Community Library is closed for renovations.

about $100,000 investments there.

Library contracted security for $90,000.

There's $200,000 allocated to district council support.

$140,000 for vegetation management.

Funding for pedestrian safety and bike infrastructure has been allocated funds of $450,000.

Budget challenges that we are experiencing.

No financial plan is free of challenges and hurdles.

And on this particular slide, we are sharing a few of the identified challenges.

There's ongoing fiscal instability and uncertainty at federal level, and it is adding pressure to the city's budget outlook.

State investments are not adjusted for inflation and resulting into a heavier reliance on the property taxes to sustain the quality city services.

The acute impact of COVID has receded but the recovery is very uneven and it impacts the several revenue sources of the city.

In addition to that, one-time resources continue to phase out.

This includes the ARP funds and CARES funds received in COVID-related funding from the federal government.

Lastly, cities are still recovering from a significant cyber incident which temporarily affected access to city services.

That's all I had for tonight.

Thank you so much for the presentation.

All right, so this is the much more interactive portion of the budget engagement session today.

So there are pens available in the back, and we have questions up on the wall.

We will be staffing each question.

And the goal is that everyone works their way through.

We've got really important questions that we're asking.

There's finite resources on the table that we need to allocate to the best of our ability to serve residents to the best of our ability.

So we're going to take I think about 15 to 20 minutes to work through these questions.

You know, don't think too hard, but do think very thoughtfully in how you're responding to them.

And we'll do a time check about halfway through, but the goal is to have everyone work through all the questions as, yeah, you'll see how they're phrased.

We want to make sure that we're prioritizing the things that you all want.

So with that, please find a pen, find a partner if you want to, and work through the questions, and we'll start the timer now.

Thank you so much for engaging.

Feel free to write on them, yep.

Ward 1, we have our Mighty Ward 1 residents here.

Many of them are also city employees.

So we had a very, very enriching conversation, particularly around salaries.

Okay, whoa.

felt like it turned into a press conference real quick.

Particularly of salaries and just making sure that workers not only have a livable wage, but ensuring that workers aren't expected to work longer hours, more demanding job responsibilities without that pay or increase of staff.

So we have the president here from the Firefighters Association.

that was part of our conversation.

We also talked about safety, safety in our neighborhoods and our perception of safety, safety particularly, there was a story that was given about

a older gentleman that was in a wheelchair in the midst of a blizzard and he was stuck and how the firefighter was called to push them through that winter and that's one of those things where you don't really think about you know that being the usual role of a firefighter but how all of our safety professionals show up especially when people are in need.

Another thing that we highlighted was looking at efficiencies and quality improvement particularly around not only cost savings but at that upper management and mid management and how we can ensure the frontline workers, the people who are boots on the ground really addressing our day-to-day issues working with our residents.

They're paid equitably.

So, we just want to make sure that we are supporting our workers and making sure that this budget is reflective of the people who do the day-to-day work.

So, did I miss anything?

Alright, hi everyone.

Again, Rebecca Naker from the Mighty Ward 2.

We had a great conversation and just to share a couple of the things we talked about.

One of them was the importance of downtown vitality and investing in downtown for the good of the entire city.

I promise that came from the constituents.

I'm not just saying that because my colleagues hear me saying that a lot.

And also about how things that are acceptable in any neighborhood, downtown is a neighborhood, so things that are acceptable downtown should be acceptable in all of our neighborhoods and vice versa.

We talked about concern about the levy increase, not just from the city but from all jurisdictions.

The fact that Ramsey County, St Paul Public Schools, and the city all combine and are coming on the same people.

We talked about the need, therefore, for better coordination, often between the city and the county.

Are there things that we can be doing differently, that they can be doing differently, or that some of us don't have to be doing because the other body is doing that work?

We talked about the importance of not just looking at a list of expenses and swapping money around during our budget process, but really thinking deeper about where could we find real savings or real reorganizations, not just at the margins, but not just the frosting, but the cake of the budget.

and there was a specific ask to grill department heads those were my constituents words as they come to present to us to make sure that they're thinking through those operational efficiencies and you can tune in every Wednesday at 10 a.m. to watch us doing that

and then finally we talked about taking care of what we have versus adding things that are new and we had a really, I thought, informative conversation because I asked sort of what's the difference between maintaining and never growing and sort of stagnating versus expanding and where would it make sense to invest and when would it make sense to do that and one of the things that came up is that

We not only have a huge backlog of deferred maintenance, of physical maintenance that we need to do in our city, but we also have a low standard of care for our public spaces.

So, lawns that are not mowed, public lawns, trash, having sort of just feeling like things are not being well kept up and having a higher standard of how we want to maintain our public realm as a city is part of that question of taking care of what we have.

So, really great conversation.

We could have used

Okay.

Is this thing on?

Can you hear me?

Okay.

So a few of the things that we discussed were what are the investments and services in our neighborhood that we care about the most and how can they be improved.

And so we talked a little bit about our infrastructure.

One of our Ward 3 residents said that they had got a pothole fixed immediately, which is great to hear.

But I think that that's something that folks really care about is our street conditions,

We talked about plowing and then street lights as well.

You know, we had a lot of challenges with copper wire thefts.

Those are improving, but things that people rely on every day, just especially to keep them safe and so that they can move around the city.

And then ways to improve city resources.

Services, a few folks had questions about just understanding how do we prioritize these different services and what we're going to be investing in and then also

In our ward there have been some situations where residents have wanted to kind of pull together and put in their own money to improve things like we've had folks that have wanted to get geothermal installed on their block or also getting new trees potentially planted and so being able to collaborate with residents who want to do those types of things.

and then we also talked about city staffing and just being able to provide more flexible staffing in ways that can, you know, meet the needs of our residents to improve services.

Let's see here.

And what do you folks think about when they think about a city that's really thriving and things they care about the most?

A few of the things we talked about were parks and libraries especially and, you know, the Twin Cities, Minneapolis and St Paul continue to be top in the nation for parks.

And then we also discussed, and I also mentioned libraries, so libraries being a very key component to a thriving city.

And then we also talked a little bit about vacant buildings and finding ways to, you know, de-centivize vacant buildings by making modifications to what the vacant building fees are, or other ways that we can hold folks accountable, especially folks that own commercial properties, to be able to reduce blight across the city and invest in those spaces.

and we also talked about Airbnbs and other types of Airbnbs and ways we can hold them more accountable, especially around those potential fees.

And then as far as when the council is making decisions and what they really care about, a few folks brought up questions about the mayor's office and their staff and then also really focusing on the police budget.

It's a very large budget and just being really conscious of modifications that are in the police budget.

and then also we we talked just a little bit generally about the property tax levy and increasing costs and there were concerns you know about folks that live in the city having to face these increases not just from the city but also you know our our county our school board and that it's pricing folks out of their their living situations and really making them concerned about their you know being able to live in the city long term even though they want to live

Okay everybody, is this on?

Hello?

Hello?

We're good?

Okay, hey everybody, Molly Coleman, Ward 4, here with our crew in the back.

So a lot of similar themes to what our first three groups have discussed.

One thing that I don't know came up quite as much in the earlier groups but that we talked about quite a bit is creating cohesive communities, both what it is that we need to invest in in order to create cohesive communities, whether that's our built infrastructure, making our city more

Thank you for having me.

we talked a lot about how to work with other government entities to provide some of those basic services recognizing that Ramsey County, the state, some community-based organizations might be the more appropriate provider but that if we do our job well at the city we'll be able to really coordinate those resources

We talked about, you know, others have mentioned investments in our workers here in the City of St Paul and in our libraries, but I do want to just emphasize that because it's something that we spent a lot of time talking about, that the people who are providing the most important resources in our city, the people who are often the face of our city, are too often underpaid, overworked, under-resourced, don't have adequate safety at work, and are just continually being asked to do more and more and more.

as the patrons of our rec centers and libraries need more.

So that was a significant source of our conversation.

We talked about roads, we talked about plowing, and I think, again, without being too redundant to what others have mentioned, I think that was about it for us.

Anything folks want to add?

Perfect.

and the City Council.

at the resident level.

That means like potholes aren't filled, right?

Rec centers aren't being staffed and so sort of the quality of our services I feel like we really tied strongly together to the fact that we're just like very understaffed across the board and you know our fire our emergency services sort of across the board those services we want to make sure that everyone's feeling the high quality of and at the same time there's a ton of tension with that.

We need to have good people in seats and more than that we need to make sure that they're honored with like

Council, and

you know the word I'm hearing is sort of tax fatigue so even more than ever I think the the urgency of the council is to be even stronger stewards of the resources that we have and I think in my group that was pretty clear that the investment needs to be in our frontline workers and staff and sort of less on the management level positions.

The other thing I want to lift up with that one is there's a lot of folks within some of our larger departments that are part-time and they float between two part-time positions and you know I think it's a value statement of the city or at least mine if you're working a

of the City Council.

Is it on?

Yes, it's on.

Hi everybody, I'm Nelsie Yang, gender pronouns are she and her.

Welcome to Ward 6.

Thank you all for taking your time being over here on the east side.

I definitely heard a lot of overlaps in our conversations here.

For the first question, there was conversation about making sure we're not reducing library hours at Arlington Hills, safety in our neighborhoods.

There was a mix of support in having more police officers and also robust conversations around crime and violence prevention.

for important service, improving services, conversations were had around snow plowing, more efficient snow plowing and also parking enforcement.

And also for trash, there was conversation around recycling not getting picked up and how if we are, we should just have our city take care of it all basically.

And having those positions be unionized positions too.

Community and also for people to be able to navigate our city website easier.

and for amenities, there was input about our city already having very great amenities and I think that was a huge plus.

What else do you want council members to keep in mind when making budget decisions?

Their support around making sure that we are investing in our small businesses, being a city that is a business incubator, investing money into our frontline workers rather than putting money into hiring managerial positions and

support for funding for the opioid response.

And then I did have a few conversations with people who weren't a part of the activity here and left early.

And generally it was that the property taxes are causing a lot of huge financial constraints on households, especially for seniors on a fixed income.

And they wanted us to be very considerate of that.

I love that they are clapping.

It's really great.

It's supportive.

Hi, my name is Shaniqua.

I am Ward 7 City Council members.

I'm also on the east side.

A couple of things that came up, a lot of common themes that we've heard.

So in regards to the first question, we spent a lot of time on public safety.

Really the whole gambit, we talked a little bit about police, we talked about fire, we talked about also the importance of investing in our office's neighborhood safety.

our mental health investments, our opioid response, and just overall making sure that we're living in a safe city.

We also touched on that first one being the need to invest in maintaining our businesses and decreasing the amount of vacant buildings that we have in our community and all throughout the city.

We talked about the importance of more development and housing in our communities and how that directly leads to some of the things that we're seeing, especially on the pressure of the tax levy.

For question number two, we spent a little bit of time on it.

We basically just talked about how it's really important to understand just the process of our dispatch and our police communications.

There was interest in understanding just how when you contact someone at a department, whether you're talking to a live person or communicating via email, you want to get a response from a live person.

And so that piece of constituent

of the City of St. Paul.

and so just the importance of why we need to have that interdepartmental communication.

For the third question, I mean, we have a lot of the same interests, you know, basically a well-maintained and service city looks like having parks that, you know, are fully functional and libraries that are well maintained and kept, streets that are repaired and fixed.

and also that there's a certain freedom to not having to drive everywhere and on the east side we've talked a lot about bike infrastructure, public transportation and just overall being able to have the ability to get from east side to downtown to the east side from the west side all if you didn't have a car.

we talked about the importance of investing just actually not only in the plan itself but the maintenance of that as well and so just once again bringing up the importance of being able to have our street projects have a plan for what it looks like five years from now ten years from now and the investment that is needed into departments like the Department of Public Works and their communication needing to be a part of it as well

and then similarly to what other people have echoed when we got to question four we stuck a lot on the property tax levy and that has continued to be a constant conversation just really just honing in on getting a better understanding at the city level too of the burden the tax burden shift and encouraging Ramsey County to come in to share a little bit more about that as well and then overall just the need to build more housing to continue to shift our tax base

Yes, no one was for cutting EMS Ward 6 resident who has joined our group.

the one that was

so if folks can do a little musical chairs we're going to try to put the room back the best we can and if you would like to testify maybe if you can sit in this front two rows here all right we're gonna give about 40 seconds for us to put this room back very quickly and if we can get folks who want to testify to sit in this front row

If you'd like to testify, please sit in this front row.

And you will get two minutes to speak.

Council members, yeah.

Public hearing portion.

Can you sit up front then?

alright so if you'd like to testify please find a seat in the front row and we'll have two minutes of testimony per person we're gonna start in the next 30 seconds so if you've come to give a public testimony you will have two minutes to speak please come sit here in the front row if you would like to speak yeah

yeah well I think we let's say a hard stop at on 735 hard stop 735 okay okay so if you'd like to provide public testimony please be seated in the front and we'll give everyone about two minutes and then we'll have a really hard stop

We have one taker right now.

Two takers.

Great.

Okay, and then I think this one is on.

Okay, great.

Council members to the front.

Paul.

Paul, you should.

You should.

Yeah.

Paul, you should.

Come up.

Alright.

Going once, going twice.

Front.

Paul, you should.

You should.

You should.

you'll make me very proud not that it means anything but make me thank you okay so we've got one two three Laura are you speaking Tabitha are you in okay Tabitha's in are you in okay perfect so we're gonna start please come up to the podium you just need to say your name

you just need to say state your name for the record and then Abdi Hamid has got our time and we will be very strict to be as fair as possible everyone will get two minutes and so even if we make through this bunch and folks want to come up we'll still reserve two minutes for everyone so we'll make we've got a pretty hard stop for the room at 730 if more folks come up we can make some adjustments but we do have a hard stop for the room at 730 so looking at the number of speakers that should work out perfectly if the first speaker would like to join us up at the podium you'll get the one minute mark in a time

and unfortunately I have the role of being the rude person that's going to cut you off and talk over you if you continue past that two minute mark.

So first speaker come on up and all you need to do is state your name for the record and your two minutes will start.

So who would like to be our first speaker?

Come on up.

Good evening.

Greg Copeland.

I live here in the Sixth Ward, just down the street, where they're going to send me a bill that's $542 more than last year.

I think that's oppressive.

You know, we had an American Revolution to get rid of a king that was taxing us in oppressive ways, and it seems as though we're trying to reinvent the king, and that's not a good thing.

This tax increase, $542, is kind of like getting a car payment without the car.

You know, I've already got a car.

I don't need another one.

But I do need to take the car payment that I have and keep paying that in order to keep it.

I'm an old ex-rider of the bus here for a lot of time.

So please, $542.

I got a lot of other things I could say.

But seriously, that's the main point.

You're going to make the city unaffordable.

and you know I noticed that the mayor moved to the cheapest part of town oh excuse me the houses over there are much more than my neighborhood but the assessments for some reason were like one point whatever it was increase versus my six percent you know and of course the people in Thomas Dale and the people in Como and all the other places they're getting hit with these huge assessments I'm sure are not going to be happy with you and frankly the mayor's running for election this year

Why should this City Council want to take on his baggage?

All of this money that you're going to collect, he's going to be done with the accountability program before you even adopt the budget.

He's going to get to walk out, if he gets re-elected, and I hope he doesn't, candidly, because I can't afford him.

He's too damn expensive.

You know the guy in New York that said the rent's too damn high a few years ago?

Well, here we are.

And it's not New York.

Good evening Council members.

My name is Peter Hendricks.

I'm a resident of Ward 3 and I'd like to encourage the City Council to be more communicative.

I want to shout out to Ward 7, Council Member Johnson.

I subscribed to your newsletter and that's how I learned about this event.

Not every Council Member has a newsletter and there's no, there does not seem to me to be any consistent way to get

Good evening, everyone.

and that's disappointing to me and I hope that the council will uniformly communicate with residents of the entire city about important issues.

I'd also like the city to reflect upon whether or not this room is reflective of the entire city, demographically, based on age, socioeconomically.

I would submit it's not and I would encourage the city to think outside the box, have these events at a local high school or high schools, hear from

young folks because they really are the future rather than this event that really is frankly not representative.

So I hope you will take these comments at heart and try to do a better job because we can all do better.

And again, communication and consistent communication goes a long way.

It's pretty much a low hanging fruit in my opinion.

Thank you.

All right, next speaker.

My name is Isaac Mielke.

I live in Ward 2.

I'm a library associate at St. Paul Public Library.

I'm president of AFSCME Technical Local 1842.

I'm speaking on behalf of my neighbors on the east side who are losing hours at Arlington Hills Library due to staff cuts.

I urge the council to keep a 0.8 FTE library associate position.

This job is the starting wage of $24.64 an hour.

This is four fewer hours a week.

Residents on the east side will be able to use a computer, access the internet, use the bathroom, get out of the heat and cold, read the newspaper, print in fax.

I'm not surprised ours and staff are being cut at Arlington instead of Highland Park or Marion Park.

The 2025 budget cut one frontline worker from the library and this budget cuts another.

But that's not where the money is.

The library has 50 managers.

We only have 13 libraries.

We don't need 50 bosses.

We have supervisors who don't supervise anyone.

One of these jobs is vacant right now.

This position salary ranges $76,000 to $103,000.

My suggestion is to keep the 0.8 FTE library associate position in Arlington and cut the vacant job in management.

This will keep Arlington's hours open and save money.

It's the same story in parks where frontline staff and hours at rec centers are being cut.

These positions are vacant because the city cannot hire or retain people at $17 an hour.

You can make more money at Walmart.

No one is proposing to eliminate vacancies in management.

We don't need six-figure salaries for bosses who work from home.

Thank you.

Next testifier.

Come on up.

State your name.

We've got two minutes.

Policy Paul.

My name is Paul Tischler.

I live in the North End.

I work for the City of St. Paul and Parks.

I'm a member of Ask Me 2508.

Came here today to kind of talk mostly about investing in our employees.

Didn't have anything planned.

I talked in a small group about

I'm thankful for some of the benefits.

I'm thankful to have health care.

I won't lose my livelihood if I get sick since I have insurance.

But as I talked in the group, I still question if I should make that doctor's appointment.

Even though I have health care, can I afford that $200, $300 visit to the doctor?

And it's not just me.

I talked to some of my coworkers in parks today.

They're feeling the burnout of more and more getting put on them.

Wages are not keeping up.

Everyone is feeling it.

So yeah, I came here today to kind of talk about investing in the employees, what good are the services if you're not investing in the employees to deliver those.

Before our last contract negotiations, I remember Tony Newborn talking to Council, outlining that she had shared that benefits are great, wages are not keeping pace.

They weren't going to be able to do it in that contract negotiation time.

But next, in future budgets, they would address that.

This is the time.

President Naker had echoed that as well, acknowledged that.

that they weren't able to address compensation during contracts.

At that time, this is the time to invest in the employees.

Hey friends, using their time while next.

Speaker, great.

Come on up, state your name for the record and Abdi Hamid here will show you the time markers.

Hello everyone today.

Some people actually may know me.

My name is Mike Heng.

I work at Ramsey County as well, too.

Ask me local council five.

I also serve on the Mo Yinting Council and also the chair for the Minnesota Moan Chamber of Commerce as well, too.

I'm coming here today not to talk on that behalf, but also talk on my behalf as a resident of Ward 6.

I actually also heard some shout-outs too.

I want to say shout-out to Councilmember Elsie Yang as well.

She's actually on leave, but she's actually here today.

It just shows me the dedication she actually has to our residents here in the City of St Paul.

one thing I want to talk about here or several things here is that one with our budgets here at the City of St Paul it's actually very challenging I also want to give kudos to our council members because you guys have a hard job ahead of you

with the rising costs and inflation, the tax levies as well.

What I do also want is a diversification in regards to our income streams, looking into how we can actually start to creatively look into business and business investments, small incubator workshops as well, spend our dollars into investing, bringing tourism into our cities as well.

While also at the same time,

to address homeless prevention and economic and supportive outreach as well.

One thing I actually want to see here is less affordable housing but more better improved on economic living.

If we actually are all working together and have a better living and wage, then we wouldn't really need so many of these affordable housing units as well too.

So I want to say thank you once again to the council members and everyone who's actually here today to provide some input to the rest of us.

Thank you.

All right.

Next speaker, state your name for the record.

My name is Colleen Halpine and I'm retired.

Which is very nice, believe me.

I'm here today to request that the City Council find ways to eliminate lines in the 2026 budget that are unneeded and unwanted by the citizens.

If a St Paul citizens poll was taken to ask if they would approve spending six to eight million dollars in planning and design for five new parks, I believe the vast majority would favor eliminating the planning and design for these new parks at this time.

Citizens would be even more against these costs for new parks if they knew that on the existing parks the maintenance cost backlog is about $200 million.

Please eliminate unneeded expenses such as planning and design for new parks in the 2026 budget.

Yeah, we are at time, but I'm looking at you Tabatha.

Do you want to close us out with two minutes?

Yep, we are at time.

So two minutes, quite tight.

Abdi Hamid will show you.

one of these days I'm going to come to this meeting and I'm going to talk about all the amazing things we do without all of the terror that we face at our jobs and so when we're looking at clear tangibles we need to talk about the disparities of income and the disparities of cultural competency between the frontline worker and the administration

right we voted for taxes on sales I need people who work for the city to at least have to buy their coffee here why is anyone still working at home right I also talk a lot we talk a lot about equity equity equity well when we do things like

Every kid gets a free swimming lesson, right?

It is the rec department that figures out how to pick those kids up from rec check, take the Eastside swimming, and literally tell me what the cost of a life of a child is.

And if you want to talk about racial disparities around swimming and access and death and drowning around African American folks for the past

and the City Council.

panel a kayak and the work that David and the other folks do between the bond between rec and special is we are literally doing equity work and could you imagine a world where the staff the predominantly in poverty are black and brown staff and women because what is women's work is taking care of children for how many centuries if we paid people what they deserved could you imagine how much more quality they do

but we are continuing to literally have AFSCME members.

I am the union rep of poor people and as SNAP benefits we should not have a city talk about equity when their staff are on food stamps.

How is that equity?

We're losing food stamp money, right?

And I cannot literally, like, have to care for people as deeply as I do as a union rep. Like, if you want to— That's time, Tabitha.

I'm so sorry.

Contracts and bosses.

Okay.

Consultants and bosses.

Contracts and bosses.

We need union jobs for the front lines.

All right, a perfect, a perfect ending I think.

All right and that really concludes us.

That time is a little bit quick so it's about 7.34 so we're past that time but thank you all for participating and engaging.