Twin Cities
St. Paul
Budget Committee - April 22, 2026 4/22/2026
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Budget Committee - April 22, 2026
4/22/2026
Attachments
Agenda Accessible Agenda.pdf
Minutes Accessible Minutes.pdf
Discussion
1. Quarter 1 Budget to Actuals.
Presentation.pdf
2026 Adopted SF FTEs.pdf
2. Budget Committee Scope.
Adjournment
1. Quarter 1 Budget to Actuals.
Cheniqua Johnson
00:01:34
Now we've had some debate about whether a roll call is required, but we're still going to do it in the spirit of formality because it's our first budget committee, so go ahead.
SPEAKER_02
00:01:43
Vice Chair Nguyen.
00:01:44
Here.
00:01:45
Council Member Bui.
Cheniqua Johnson
00:01:46
Here.
SPEAKER_02
00:01:46
Council Member Coleman.
Anika Bowie
00:01:47
Here.
SPEAKER_02
00:01:48
Council Member Kim.
00:01:50
Council Member Jones.
00:01:51
Here.
00:01:51
Council President Baker.
00:01:53
Here.
00:01:54
Right, six present and one expected to shortly be Council Member Kim.
Cheniqua Johnson
00:01:59
Chair Johnson So one just really want to say I am very excited to have us be the first Budget Committee that I have the privilege to chair Along with my vice chair.
00:02:21
I'm super excited about this year and the year ahead.
00:02:23
I also really appreciate the time that I
00:02:26
the office of financial services staff and team have taken to actually be able to present today and really just want to acknowledge that you guys are maneuvering a bunch of different things right now and so just want to say thank you for being here in person and then also for all of the work that had to go on the back end for this presentation it'll match the HRA presentation later on this afternoon but Director Logsdon I just really say thank you and welcome
SPEAKER_06
00:02:52
Thank you.
00:02:53
Yeah, thank you so much, Chair Johnson and council members, for having me today.
00:02:56
I really appreciate it.
00:02:57
And Laura Logsdon, I'm deputy director of OFS.
00:03:02
Before I jump into the presentation, I want to welcome Joe Harney, who's our new OFS director.
00:03:07
I believe he'll be in front of council this afternoon to be sworn in, so you'll see him again soon.
00:03:12
But welcome, Joe.
Cheniqua Johnson
00:03:13
I was going to say, should we call him up now and be like, hey, it's coming in.
00:03:17
And then, OK.
00:03:18
I won't steal your thunder from it, but I might call you up afterwards.
00:03:21
Say a few words.
SPEAKER_06
00:03:22
I'll defer all questions to the OFS Director.
00:03:27
So, great.
00:03:28
I will jump in.
00:03:29
Are you seeing the PowerPoint?
Cheniqua Johnson
00:03:31
We are.
SPEAKER_06
00:03:32
Okay, perfect.
00:03:33
So today I'll be presenting information that the council budget committee requested recently regarding the city special fund FTEs and the general fund budget to actuals for quarter one of 2026.
00:03:44
I want to thank the OFS budget team and the accounting team and our department partners, finance leads across the department for their work on putting all this information together.
00:03:56
So first I'm going to start with the special fund FTEs.
00:03:59
I provided the kind of detailed Excel spreadsheet so you all should have access to that information.
00:04:05
You can dig in, you can cut the data any way you want, but it's really useful, really interesting data.
00:04:12
What we have in the 2026 adopted budget is 780.36.
00:04:18
FTEs funded in special funds and that represents 97.5 million dollars both of salary and fringe.
00:04:26
Those FTEs are paid for really by a diverse array of revenue sources and I've got some examples on this slide in the table at the bottom that shows the FTE count and the total cost by fund type and
00:04:40
and then examples of what those revenue sources are that are within those funds.
00:04:45
So one example, enterprise funds.
00:04:49
Enterprise funds are set up like business services.
00:04:53
So that's like our police impound lot, our parks golf fund, our public works sewer fund.
00:04:59
So that revenue is paid for by fees that external users of those services are paying the city.
00:05:05
So as you kind of dig into that data, you'll find a lot.
00:05:10
of information about all of the different revenue sources that are supporting those special fund FTEs across all of our funds.
00:05:19
The budget team worked with departments to identify which of those funding sources are ongoing versus one time and indicated end dates within that spreadsheet as well.
00:05:30
So the vast majority, 89% or 696 FTEs are supported by ongoing funding sources.
00:05:38
and the
00:05:57
I think at some point it'll be very helpful to just kind of know of those that are non-ongoing so like 83 you know
Cheniqua Johnson
00:06:27
committee.
00:06:42
I know that one of the conversations last budget cycle, we were notified that maybe there was funding that we thought we were going to get that we didn't get.
00:06:50
And so just in advance of that, it would be really helpful to have that, to have kind of like the breakdown of when we're expecting to do that, when we're expecting for them to roll off of the funding cycle or if there's any that are kind of at that risk piece again of not being funded for the new year.
SPEAKER_06
00:07:07
Sure, Chair Johnson.
00:07:09
So the spreadsheet currently has a column that indicates the end date for all of the sources.
00:07:14
So it'll say in there the specific year that all of the funding ends.
00:07:20
So for like opioid funding it says I think 2038.
00:07:24
and so the grants should all indicate the actual end date as well.
00:07:28
And then certainly through the budget process, if departments want those positions to continue, if they're intended to be permanent positions, departments would be bringing forward budget requests to either shift those FTEs into other funding sources, requesting general funds.
00:07:49
Departments would need to be bringing that forward in the budget process for sure.
00:07:52
That's how we would address it.
Cheniqua Johnson
00:07:56
Okay, thank you.
SPEAKER_06
00:07:57
Definitely.
00:07:57
So this slide then shows... Council President Naker has a quick question as well.
00:08:03
Sorry, thank you.
Rebecca Noecker
00:08:04
It will be quick.
00:08:08
That's me saying it will be quick.
00:08:11
How has the number of special fund FTEs changed over time?
00:08:18
I know generally we've seen FTE growth and I'm curious if you have a ballpark of those numbers and if there's been a difference between special fund FTE growth versus general fund FTE growth.
SPEAKER_06
00:08:28
Chair Johnson and Council President Naker, at the top of my head I can't say, but all of that information is in our annual budget books.
00:08:36
So we could definitely pull up, there's a table in each annual budget that shows total FTEs, special fund versus general fund.
00:08:45
So we could pull that together really quickly.
Rebecca Noecker
00:08:47
Thank you.
SPEAKER_06
00:08:48
Definitely.
SPEAKER_05
00:08:50
Any other questions?
SPEAKER_06
00:08:52
All right.
00:08:54
So on this slide, we're still in special fund FTEs for 2026, but this is a breakout by department.
00:09:01
So you can see here Parks and Public Works have the greatest number of special fund FTEs.
00:09:09
I think PED has the greatest percentage of special fund FTEs.
00:09:12
I think 100% of PEDs staff are funded in special funds.
00:09:17
You can also see there are several departments that have no special fund FTEs, and all of their people are funded for out of the general fund, so that includes
00:09:23
Council, Emergency Management, HR, Mayor and OTC.
00:09:29
On the right I've also included a high level summary of what those FTEs are doing.
00:09:35
This isn't all inclusive because in those departments they have a lot of FTEs.
00:09:40
that are out of special fund public works and parks in particular.
00:09:44
I tried to just do what are the greatest number of FTEs, but there are folks doing other work as well.
00:09:52
So for example, in DSI, all five of those FTEs are the HART team.
00:09:57
But in OFS, our special fund FTEs kind of cross many divisions.
00:10:02
All of our fleet team are funded out of special fund.
00:10:06
the portion of the OFE team is funded with grants.
00:10:10
A portion of our treasury team is funded with special funds, but not all of them.
00:10:15
So this is just kind of a high level representation of what our special fund FTEs do.
Cheniqua Johnson
00:10:21
And Deputy Director Logsdon, you mentioned PED's operations.
00:10:27
The special fund that they're funded from actually comes from HRA.
00:10:30
That's correct, right?
00:10:31
The transfers come from the HRA.
SPEAKER_02
00:10:33
Right.
Cheniqua Johnson
00:10:33
So the funding source is within the HRA's budget.
00:10:37
The funding source isn't within the HRA's budget or it's like an HRA transfer.
00:10:42
It says the funding source isn't such here and I just wanted to
SPEAKER_06
00:10:47
be able to clarify
Cheniqua Johnson
00:11:21
And just as a follow up then, just about how much of the PED's operation or overall operation costs or FTE's are covered with the HRA funding.
SPEAKER_06
00:11:31
Chair Johnson, I don't know off the top of my head.
00:11:33
I know Deputy Director Green is here, if she would like to speak to that.
00:11:39
But I would defer to the PED staff, or I can get that answer afterwards.
Cheniqua Johnson
00:11:46
OK, yeah.
00:11:47
I just think from that amount, it would be helpful to know the FTE costs, because I think it's actually a majority.
00:11:55
But thank you.
00:11:56
Keep going.
SPEAKER_05
00:11:59
I don't know the exact number.
00:12:18
I know we have like six to seven that get a partial reimbursement from HUD and then outside of that I believe the number of FTE fully funded so to speak although the funding runs across all of the sources is 60 somewhere in the 60 range but if you have that if Brian has that information we can parse that information out
Cheniqua Johnson
00:12:49
Great.
SPEAKER_06
00:12:54
Next I'm going to move into budget to actuals, but are there any other questions related to special fund FTEs?
Saura Jost
00:13:04
Alright, sounds good.
SPEAKER_06
00:13:06
So for quarter 1, 2026 budget to actuals, what we're seeing right now for spending and revenue is that it's very similar to where we were in 2025 at this time in terms of
00:13:16
kind of percentage of our budget.
00:13:20
When we look at budget to actuals, kind of at any given point during the year, there's a few kind of key things, timing issues to keep in mind, and I have those listed on this slide.
00:13:29
So first, there's always a payroll lag.
00:13:31
We get paid two weeks after the end.
00:13:35
Our payroll is on a two-week lag, and then there's another one to two weeks before it actually is reflected in N4.
00:13:40
So there's always a bit of a lag there in terms of payroll.
00:13:44
Transfers occur.
00:13:46
at the City Council and the City Council and the City Council and the City Council.
00:14:09
for ETI and INET, which are technology related.
00:14:12
Those occur monthly.
00:14:13
Other departments manage their internal bills.
00:14:17
And they can be billing monthly, twice a year, quarterly, annually.
00:14:21
So there's a lot of variability in when billing occurs.
00:14:25
And then internal services.
00:14:26
Some monthly internal service charges can be delayed at the beginning of each year because we're on a delay of when we start closing each month.
00:14:36
So at the beginning of each calendar year,
00:14:39
we're still closing December of the prior year and that takes a few months and then once December is closed we start closing January of the current year and then we kind of get caught up mid-year so there's just some things kind of timing delays and things to keep in mind anytime you're looking at budget to actuals.
00:14:55
So on this slide I've got the general fund budget to actuals for in terms of our spending
00:15:02
And on the whole, we're at 24% of budget, which is very similar to last year when we were at 22% at this time.
00:15:10
I've noted on the right a few explanations for outliers.
00:15:16
So the first one, emergency management, they've spent 86% of their general fund budget so far.
00:15:21
That's only because the vast majority of their general fund budget is a one-time annual payment that we make to Ramsey County for
00:15:28
of the City of St. Paul.
00:15:49
are just sitting in that kind of department right now and those get allocated out to all the other departments once we start our month-end closed process for the year.
00:15:58
So the total spend is accurate.
00:16:00
It just will be pushed out to all the other departments soon.
00:16:05
And then the last one there is the PED.
00:16:07
That's what we were just talking about previously.
00:16:10
So that $870,000 is an admin fee
00:16:13
to support PED and so the department will be submitting those internal bills according to their practices.
Cheniqua Johnson
00:16:23
Alrighty and we have two questions that I see Council President Aker and then Council Member Jost.
Rebecca Noecker
00:16:29
Thanks Chair Johnson.
00:16:30
Two quick questions.
00:16:31
One, do we have a
00:16:34
budget year-to-date column, I feel like it's always very helpful to be able to see what we would have expected to have spent by now versus what we've spent by now, not just what we would expect to spend by the end of the year, just to your point to kind of highlight whether or not things are moving as expected or not.
00:16:50
That's one question.
00:16:51
And then should we be concerned?
00:16:53
I know the mayor's budget, it looks like it's 43% spent at this point, and there isn't a accompanying note to explain why that is.
00:17:00
So I'm curious if you can speak to that.
SPEAKER_06
00:17:02
Sure.
00:17:02
So on the first question, the budget year to date, the budget is annual.
00:17:09
So we could manually just go in and divide it by 12 and say this would be, if we had this kind of standard consistent spending and revenue each month, this is what it would be.
00:17:20
But those factors that I noted on the previous slide of certain transfers and charges only happen
00:17:25
you know once per year like it wouldn't exactly reflect reality the closest is probably our payroll which is you know the vast majority of our spending is payroll so we could look specifically at employee expenses divide that total budget by 12 and compare to that and that would be a pretty good indicator.
Rebecca Noecker
00:17:42
Just as a quick follow-up through the chair that's that's actually kind of what I'm getting at I mean I we can all divide by four and know where we should be at this point but given that there are certain expenses that happen for example the payment to the county
00:17:54
in this first quarter, the budget year-to-date for that line would show that we would expect to have spent most of the budget by now.
00:18:01
And so it would look right.
00:18:03
Budget year-to-date would look aligned rather than looking like we've spent 86% of our budget and we shouldn't have done that already.
00:18:11
I know that this is a standard practice in lots of the boards that I sit on with that year-to-date line.
00:18:15
And maybe it's not in government, but it just feels like it helps set the expectation and the reality accordingly.
00:18:22
So maybe it's something we can look at for the future.
SPEAKER_06
00:18:25
Sure.
00:18:25
Thank you, Chair Johnson and Council President.
00:18:28
To your second question, the mayor's office, that spending is a little higher than normal because of the exiting administration.
00:18:38
So severance payments, vacation payouts, which are all normal, but basically occur probably once every eight years or 12 years or four years when administration changes.
00:18:51
So that's why that's a little higher.
00:18:53
And the bonus payouts are part of that as well.
00:18:56
All payouts to staff that left are included in that.
Rebecca Noecker
00:18:59
Are we concerned about, sorry, through the chair, that this will leave the mayor with not enough budget to make it through the year?
SPEAKER_06
00:19:08
Chair Johnson, Council President, no.
00:19:11
The mayor's office has made all of the hires that they have intended to make.
00:19:16
They worked really closely with OFS and with HR when they were making those hires and looking at staff salaries and we told them this is what the 2026 adopted budget is.
00:19:27
There was no
00:19:28
Committee.
00:19:31
We talked about how the mayor's office budget might be a little overspent this year because of the typical payments that occur when administrations change.
00:19:39
But that's something that the city can manage on the whole and can manage the general fund on the whole.
00:19:43
We have several departments that overspend every year and several departments that underspend every year.
00:19:47
So we have no concerns about managing that.
Cheniqua Johnson
00:19:51
I think it is a follow-up just to one of the things that I think would be really really helpful for us as well just we are I think everyone here is aware of the public news articles and the public were mentioning around the mayor's budget overall and just potentially some of the pieces and questions that still remain if we could get a staff like just a breakdown of what that actually translated to as far as like
00:20:17
and also the justification for those bonuses.
00:20:23
Being able to see those out of the mayor's budget would be really helpful just because I know for me that that's something that I still am very interested in seeing that I haven't seen.
00:20:31
And so that's not something that I expect for you to have to say today.
00:20:35
That's more so a follow up that I wanted to note for the record.
SPEAKER_06
00:20:38
Chair Johnson, and that would be a request of HR, HR to manage that process.
Cheniqua Johnson
00:20:43
The expenditures and just like what the amounts were would be HR?
00:20:48
Yes.
SPEAKER_06
00:20:49
OK. Yeah, it's all in contracts.
00:20:52
So HR managed that process.
Cheniqua Johnson
00:20:55
OK, wonderful.
00:20:56
We can follow up then, commute with HR and make that request.
00:21:00
Thank you, Chair.
Saura Jost
00:21:05
Thank you, Director Logsdon.
00:21:09
Council President Anchor actually asked pretty much all of my questions and follow-up questions, so thank you for doing that.
00:21:16
Mike, I do want to clarify, so you mentioned the majority of these
00:21:22
department budgets and what we see in expenditures are staff time except for a few of these specific cases.
00:21:30
So for most of these departments, except for the ones where there are notes, can we expect to see the budget?
00:21:38
This is kind of what Council President Naker was touching on, but around 25% because we're a quarter of the way through the year, that they would increase that way.
00:21:47
Just with the majority of the expenditures being salaries, is that what we can expect to see basically?
SPEAKER_06
00:21:52
Chair Johnson and Councilmember Jones, yes, with some qualifications.
00:21:57
There are certain department general fund budgets that do include transfers to special funds that are not specifically for FTEs.
00:22:06
And those transfers occur in Q3 or Q4.
00:22:09
So some qualifications.
00:22:12
But generally, the vast majority of our general fund spending is for FTEs.
00:22:14
So that's why, on the whole, we're at 24%.
Saura Jost
00:22:18
Thanks.
00:22:18
And I'll just add, I really appreciate all this information and everything you just said about some transfers that occur in certain quarters.
00:22:25
I think as I'm learning more about the budget and how it actually works and how it's expended throughout the year, just even understanding that's very helpful.
00:22:33
So I'm grateful for all the information being shared today.
SPEAKER_06
00:22:37
Appreciate it.
00:22:39
Alrighty.
00:22:40
Alright.
00:22:41
Next we have revenue.
00:22:43
So on this slide we can see our Q1 revenues for 2026.
00:22:48
Right now we're at 4%, which is pretty comparable to last year when we were at 7% at this time.
00:22:53
The reason revenue in Q1 is so different than spending in Q1 is because our major revenue sources don't come in in Q1.
00:23:01
So our first property tax payment from the county comes in at the end of May, and our first local government aid, or LGA, from the state comes in in July.
00:23:10
so in Q2 and Q3 that's when you'll start to see revenue drastically increase so this is very normal I again have a few notes about outliers here so for both general government and library that's where we'll see the property taxes and LGA come in so it's the same note there
00:23:31
and then the other outlier right now is OFS.
00:23:35
So all of our interest payments so far this year, they all get deposited in OFS at first and then as we do that month-end close process, it gets distributed out to other departments and other funds.
00:23:47
So OFS being at 200% of budget right now is not accurate.
00:23:51
It's just because we haven't done the month-end close process yet.
00:23:57
And then certain departments do not generate general fund revenue.
00:24:01
So that's also normal.
Cheniqua Johnson
00:24:04
I see a question from Council Member Coleman.
SPEAKER_06
00:24:06
Thank you, Chair.
SPEAKER_07
00:24:06
Thanks so much, Deputy Director.
00:24:08
Just a quick question.
00:24:09
With the county delaying or offering the ability to extend property tax payments by two months, I'm curious if that has any impact.
00:24:17
I assume we still expect a payment on schedule, but then potentially a second payment.
00:24:23
I'm assuming we're fine there, but I just want to double check.
SPEAKER_06
00:24:25
For sure.
00:24:25
Chair Johnson and Councilmember Coleman, yes, we will still be getting a payment from the county at the end of May.
00:24:31
They have been sending us updates on that program that they've set up.
00:24:37
The uptake I think has been somewhat low, so the impact to St. Paul is pretty low.
00:24:41
I think it's in the tens of thousands, so it's not going to have a major impact on our first property tax payment or I think on our annual property taxes.
Rebecca Noecker
00:24:55
Council President Baker.
00:24:56
Thanks, Chair Johnson.
00:24:58
Director Logsdon, can you remind us of the sources of the revenue that come into the city attorney's office, the council and the mayor's office?
SPEAKER_06
00:25:05
Sure.
00:25:05
I will, Chair Johnson and Council President, I'll do my best off the top of my head, but we can definitely follow with more specifics.
00:25:11
So the city attorney gets some revenue from outside sources that are paying for city attorney services.
00:25:20
So they contract with
00:25:22
to PHA, public housing, as well as Port Authority.
00:25:27
And so those are some sources there.
00:25:30
For council and the mayor's office, I'm going to need to follow up.
00:25:36
I don't want to give wrong information.
00:25:37
Can't Joe just tell us?
00:25:42
Thank you.
00:25:44
Yep.
Cheniqua Johnson
00:25:49
Okay.
00:25:51
Well, I really appreciate just kind of being able to get a glimpse of this.
00:25:54
I know this is our first one, right, of four that we will ultimately have for this year and continuing.
00:26:00
And so just one of the things that's really important is just that we had to have a starting point.
00:26:04
So I think the feedback that was received is just the additional columns or additional information that would be helpful, right?
00:26:12
Deputy Director Logsdon responded to their initial request that came from council of what this would look like.
00:26:18
to really expand that, change that as we go forward, especially to get the information that we ultimately are looking to see when we have enough time to do so.
00:26:26
And I think it would be curious as well to the OFS team to know, based off of what we've been able to see here, what the feedback is, and if this hits what we're looking at and what we're wanting this conversation to be like moving forward.
00:26:40
And so I just want to say, with the questions that were put in front of OFS 2%, this is exactly what
00:26:48
I will say a shameless plug in the
00:27:09
has maintained our AAA rating standard here from Fitch and S&P and they reaffirmed our rating which I ultimately feel like is a testament to the work that you all are doing and is quite the achievement.
00:27:24
And so I just want to name that as well while I have you in front of me and while I have the team as well because that's something that I know we work really hard to maintain.
00:27:32
to your credit.
00:27:33
And when we get into the midst of everything, most of last year was under your leadership.
00:27:39
And I do want to take a minute to acknowledge that, especially as someone who stepped up to serve in an interim time, especially when there was just so many anomalies.
00:27:48
So I want to say thank you for your service as well as an interim director.
00:27:53
And I look forward to being able to work with you in your capacity as deputy director as well.
SPEAKER_06
00:27:58
Thank you.
00:28:05
Thank you, Chair Johnson.
00:28:06
That's super, super generous.
00:28:09
Yeah, we were so pleased with how the presentations went with the rating agencies, and we felt like we had a really great story and strong message to bring of how St Paul managed through immense challenges last year, but you never really know going in how they're going to view that.
00:28:26
And even our most critical rater, which is S&P, was just really impressed and really on our team, or really on our side.
00:28:35
It felt like such a huge testament to the work of our whole team, everybody in the city, decisions that the council made, that the mayor made.
00:28:43
So, just super, super pleased to get through what a huge challenge we faced last year and to come out with these outside entities acknowledging St. Paul is a great city, you should invest here.
00:28:56
So, it feels really good.
00:28:58
Thank you.
Cheniqua Johnson
00:29:00
No questions left, but thank you so much for being here and being able to do that.
00:29:04
If people have questions as we digest things, Kamuda and I and Vice Chair Yang are really asking for folks to kind of be able to, one, yes, you can share them with OFS, but also you can also share them with us so we can start to compile those so that way we can get it in one form versus multiple different requests that are coming from council members.
00:29:24
if you do have questions or you think of something that you are reading especially through the appendix as well or the attachment which I thought was really helpful when it gave you the breakdown and by funding source don't hesitate to reach out to us as well so we can hopefully put it all on a list and compile it in one request versus many.
SPEAKER_05
00:29:42
Thank you.
2. Budget Committee Scope.
Cheniqua Johnson
00:29:48
Okay, so the Budget Committee scope is something that I'm going to bring on the agenda for both this month and you'll see it again in May.
00:29:55
In part because what our goals will be as we continue to kind of go for the year is to one, get through our budget retreat and then two, also from our budget retreat start to have presentations and our calendars and ultimately for folks to really kind of know where the Budget Committee will be ultimately going and what presentations will be which.
00:30:17
and City Council.
00:30:33
to kind of hold that here versus withdraw and then also be able to share with council members kind of what to expect moving forward when it comes to budget dates and presentations.
00:30:44
So I know that some council members have maybe sent presentation requests last year.
00:30:52
and I will need that again this year and so in part as a follow-up either from the retreats or just information that you've seen and maybe haven't seen presented.
00:31:00
We did get the full list from Vice Chair Yang at the time as well around what things are still pending and some of those are still captured for the year so it may already be scheduled but there are several blanks or several opportunities where the Budget Committee can still fit in presentations, still fit in requests and so we want to be able to do that.
00:31:21
in a way that also responds to what comes up out of the budget retreat.
00:31:26
Yes, Council President.
Rebecca Noecker
00:31:27
Madam Chair, just to be clear, if we sent suggestions, requests for budget committee topics to, at the time, Chair Yang, are you saying that those have been calendared or that you need them sent to you again?
Cheniqua Johnson
00:31:40
Yes, they have been accounted for.
00:31:43
We have the list from previous year.
00:31:45
There are still within that list several things that are not scheduled, several dates that are available with things not scheduled.
00:31:54
But yes, if you send a request, so next meeting will be the presentation on the biannual budgeting coming from Ramsey County.
SPEAKER_02
00:32:01
for May 13th.
Cheniqua Johnson
00:32:04
And so that will be a part of it because it's been a council priority long before I became chair.
00:32:10
And so that was a request that we were acting on that has been confirmed.
00:32:13
We have another confirmation I think in June as well.
00:32:17
And Kamuda, I'd defer to you just to kind of like which presentations do we have confirmed.
SPEAKER_00
00:32:29
Thank you, Chair Johnson.
00:32:30
So for the month of July, we have a presentation confirmed by Dr. Susan Brower.
00:32:35
She is the chief of the Demographics Center for the State of Minnesota.
00:32:45
She will be here on July 22nd to present analysis on demographic data.
00:32:52
And then Ramsey County is coming on May 13th.
00:32:56
They will be doing a presentation on biennium budget approach.
00:33:01
Looks like the county is following a biennium budget process.
00:33:06
And they will be here to share their perspective on how does that work.
00:33:10
Thank you.
00:33:10
Thank you.
Cheniqua Johnson
00:33:11
Yes, Council Member Kim.
SPEAKER_08
00:33:12
I'm also wondering then about property tax trends that we usually get from Ramsey County.
00:33:22
Could that be requested at some point as well?
00:33:27
It's just interesting to have the demographic information and the property tax trends together.
Cheniqua Johnson
00:33:32
Yep, so one, I'll have to go back to the initial request that was made to the Ramsey County team to make sure that they can, if they can add that, and if not, we'll get it rescheduled.
00:33:41
Okay, that sounds good.
SPEAKER_08
00:33:42
And a quick follow-up, thank you, Chair.
00:33:44
One thing that was discussed, I think, or mentioned multiple times last year when we went through this process, was what's the cost of doing business?
00:33:52
So just for the city to keep the
00:34:08
City Council.
00:34:10
What does that baseline look like for every single department?
00:34:13
What does that look like in terms of a minimum levy?
00:34:16
We said a max levy, but I think it would be interesting for the city to start a conversation that at a minimum for the city to have the lights on and have butts in seats, we have to pass a minimum levy of what percent?
00:34:28
For me personally, that is a question I will be lifting up and hopefully asking.
00:34:36
Chair Johnson
00:34:44
there's an opportunity for us to, I don't want to say like educate the electorate or residents but just like how do we provide more information that helps them contextualize the vote that we take when we set the max levy.
00:34:57
So just sharing with my colleagues that's one of my goals for this process this year and looking forward to working with you Chair Johnson.
Cheniqua Johnson
00:35:03
Understood Council Member Kim.
00:35:05
Council President did you have a follow-up?
Rebecca Noecker
00:35:08
I did, but I don't even know if I raised my hand.
00:35:10
So I'm going to yield to Council Member Jost.
00:35:12
I thought I saw it.
Cheniqua Johnson
00:35:13
I thought I saw it.
00:35:14
Maybe I wanted you to raise your hand.
00:35:16
Council Member Jost.
Saura Jost
00:35:19
Yeah, Chair Johnson, thank you.
00:35:20
I wanted to respond to Council Member Kim's comment.
00:35:23
I think the idea of understanding sort of a minimum levy is really like even what that range looks like is really important because I do think that the public
00:35:33
you know it doesn't fully understand kind of what all this means as many times as we try to tell them that you know this is the cost of doing business of the city this is the cost of operating our city I don't remember the exact numbers last year but I did try to think about that for myself
00:35:49
I remember we get figures from OFS in their first presentation where they say this is how much the contract staff salary increases are for the year.
00:36:03
And I remember in my head looking at it that if we wanted to just cover those without making any cuts, without doing anything, we would have been looking at a levy of over 10%, I feel like.
00:36:11
And so there were cuts made, there were money moved around, there were things added, but it's very challenging.
00:36:18
And I think that that's something that our community members don't necessarily fully appreciate.
00:36:26
But that usually results in the mayor last year basically asking departments to consider a certain cut so that we could bring that number down.
Rebecca Noecker
00:36:39
Council President Baker.
00:36:40
Thanks, Madam Chair.
00:36:41
I'm ready.
00:36:42
I really appreciate the conversation, and Ms. Kim, how you brought it up multiple times last year as well.
00:36:47
And I think what I'm curious about, and I think we need to identify a little bit more clearly, is because in some ways, the cost of doing business is the budget.
00:36:57
That is the cost of doing business.
00:36:58
I think there's a difference between what would our budget need to be next year if we just kept everything the same?
00:37:07
and didn't add anything new.
00:37:08
That's one number, and I think that is really helpful to communicate to people.
00:37:11
This is just what happened to last year's budget because of inflation, because of contracts, whatever.
00:37:15
But then I also hear what you're saying, Ms. Kim, this other question, which is different, which is kind of minimum viable product of the city of St. Paul.
00:37:24
And you could argue that we're above that right now as a city.
00:37:27
But in some ways, I don't know how we, that's kind of up to us to determine what should the city be doing.
00:37:33
And so I'm curious how you or others would say, like, butts in seats.
SPEAKER_08
00:37:38
I think just to add to that too because there's like yes and then what's that number and then with the grants and things that we use to supplement like alleviating the levy on the tax base like it's like what's the big starting point I think to Councilmember Joe's point right like to just do this is higher than the number we're gonna we would even levy because we have all these additions and
00:38:07
but just like how are we helping work through that number to show kind of like the how the beep and bop is made because last year we were talking about it we have a 23 million dollar budget deficit right but we never really kind of got to see well this helps break it down this helps break it down this helps break it down right so I'm even thinking about it in terms of like
00:38:31
Council President
00:38:50
what are our priorities and what does that budget look like so really excited for this conversation in general but just thinking about the ways that we we talk about the budget this year but also kind of show our math to our residents I think is just interesting and also important yeah 100% agree yeah I really appreciate just kind of like the the overall discussion especially the ones that kind of encourage us to dig deeper as policymakers and folks who have the authority right ultimately at the end of the year to set that
Cheniqua Johnson
00:39:19
budget for 2027.
00:39:20
I think especially as we're thinking about what the city should and should not be doing, it's really what I think around the budget.
00:39:29
Especially this year, we have several federal dollars that are rolling off of our revenue source and or special funds that
00:39:38
should be in theory expended by the end of the year because their money really originated from ARPA funding.
00:39:45
And so there'll be a lot of discussion around what we keep, what we don't keep.
00:39:49
And I think that those discussions are what can happen with us as well as in partnership with the mayor's office.
00:39:54
And so that very well also might dictate
00:39:58
what things we continue, what things we don't continue, and how much those things cost in order to continue them.
00:40:03
Especially if they are currently grant funded or currently funded by something other than the levy itself.
00:40:09
And so that's going to be really something that we watch this year too.
00:40:13
And I think, more importantly, just educate ourselves about.
00:40:15
That's part of why being able to ask today just for some breakdowns of the employees.
00:40:21
The numbers of employees that we carry on special fund dollars is really important.
00:40:25
in the sense that we have 3,000 employees, 700 of them are through special fund dollars and not currently on the levy, not currently in general fund dollars for whatever reason.
00:40:37
Or some of them have live spans of funding for ten years, others are rolling off this year.
00:40:42
And those will be really, the urgency level will operate within the departments themselves too in trying to find external sources as well.
00:40:50
of the City Council.
00:41:14
So this item will be back next month when we anticipate just having a little bit more of some presentation holds as well so you guys see the dates and what we're anticipating and who we're bringing forward.
00:41:27
I will say that Camude has already done a phenomenal job of outlining the departments.
00:41:31
So we are prepared with the presentation schedule for the budget once the mayor has done her address.
00:41:37
So hearing from departments has already been.
00:41:39
and the City Council.
00:41:54
I only have a few to fill and not like all the year, so that's great.
00:41:57
Thank you.
00:41:59
We have about three minutes or so before I want to head us over to the, oh wait, is it 11.15?
SPEAKER_02
00:42:05
We have some time.
Cheniqua Johnson
00:42:06
OK, Council Member Bui.
00:42:08
Oh, I thought we had an hour or so.
00:42:10
Yeah, we have more time than I thought.
00:42:12
OK, OK.
00:42:12
I had 45 minutes in my head, but that's because it's an internal when I want it to end.
Anika Bowie
00:42:16
I appreciate having this early on so we can have kind of these like candid conversations around the approach to the budget I just wanted to add one of the things I really appreciate from last year's budget process is having external partners present to give us more so of like an independent overview and like a fresh renewed look at the budget because I do think you know especially for
00:42:43
Some of the most senior, long-lasting council members, like my colleague, President Naker, I do see you can get into a pattern, right?
00:42:53
Whereas the directors are giving you the proposals that's coming directly from the mayor.
00:42:58
There's not really a lot of autonomy or wiggle room to really look at the concrete cost of doing business.
00:43:07
And I would love to, you know,
00:43:11
have like analysis particularly around like the income levels of our residents and per neighborhoods and also just see like where is their earning potential right and where's the pain points and like what commercial corridors are actually like what what each commercial corridor is generating because there is a cost of doing business but then there's also the investment into our cities and our businesses that actually we depend on those
00:43:41
of the City Council.
00:44:01
intentionally.
00:44:02
Also, the last thing I want to just mention as well is I would love to track what is our top revenue generators.
00:44:10
I do think this is a great ballpark in terms of which department.
00:44:16
But even within each department, where are ways that we can be actually investing more into a department or a program?
00:44:27
and the City Council.
00:44:47
of the Year.
Cheniqua Johnson
00:44:51
With that we are adjourned.