Budget Committee - September 23, 2026   9/23/2026

St Paul, City Council, Budget Committee, Irene

St Paul, City Council

Vice Chair Yang.

Here.

Council Member Bui.

All righty, so we're continuing our budget series.

This week, we have the Department of Public Works.

So there's a lot to go with us today, so we'll keep the clock running so folks kind of are aware of how much time we have left.

I will preface that I am asking council members to hold their mighty questions as we get through the content.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

You will see, hopefully you can see the slides.

We are starting a few slides in at the request of Chair Johnson.

As she mentioned, we have a lot to cover today, so there are several introductory slides and you can easily go through those and search back with any questions.

A lot of it is just grounding in the work that public work does.

As we kick off, I just want to

Thank you for joining us today.

We are going to start off with the general fund.

You can see that the general fund

and the City Council.

I think one of the things

The general fund in addition to funding these key services and these key operations is we do have to take care of unexpected things.

We're going to talk a little bit more about some of those other options, but one really important one right now is the Bruce Vento tunnels for the regional trail.

Thank you for having me.

We'll be able to open the regional trail.

I don't have exact timing for you But I think it's just important for you to know that not only do we plan and execute to those plans We have to respond to things in real time and that is really an important piece of the general fund

So how much is the general fund relative to the overall budget?

So the general fund accounts for about 17% of the budget, where special funds accounts for about 83% of the budget.

You can note that there is a 1.6% increase in the Public Works general fund.

for this proposed for 2027.

I also want to note that that doesn't keep pace with inflation, which is 3.4%.

This gap is increasingly difficult to maintain aging infrastructure and address our deferred maintenance needs because our costs for materials, equipment, and contract services are rising faster than our funding.

This means that Public Works is effectively operating with less real purchasing power than the prior year.

The funding gap compounds deferred maintenance, making it harder to keep up with asset deterioration.

And while this is a true thing that these two numbers, inflation and the increase, don't match, we really as a group focus on cost discipline so that we can highlight and really focus on delivering the services that are needed and continue to maintain and operate the infrastructure within the City of St Paul.

All right, on to special funds.

As mentioned, that is the larger percentage.

There are several different special funds, including traffic warehouse, asphalt plants, engineering services, solid waste and recycling, sewer, street lighting districts, right-of-way maintenance, government special projects, and city grants.

The 4% overall increase in public works special funds can appear to signal

So the difference in the funds from year

So this is from 26 to 2027.

You can see slight increases across most of the special funds.

But there are two that are highlighted that are not.

One is the General Government Special Projects.

This is one-time federal money.

It's the ARPA funds.

So obviously that is going to be a change because we've been quite efficient at expending that money, which you'll see later in the presentation.

The other one is city grants.

That one is deceptive because the city very actively applies for grants and has awarded many grants, but it depends on the timing when it actually comes into the city.

So currently, as a city, our transportation planning group within engineering has applied for 18.

Regional Solicitation Grants, which some of that money would be projected maybe as soon as 2027, others in the further out years.

We have the Sycamore Building Decarbonization Plan, which has three grants worth about $2 million.

We were just recently awarded, and the contracts were assigned, I think, went through Council, maybe in the last week or two, for the Safe Streets for All, which is $15.1 million.

And we also have an additional $25 million worth of grants awarded and programmed for 2027.

So all those numbers will be reflected in our either year-end numbers or in 2027 numbers.

So it's a little bit deceptive.

So just know that we are very good, actually, at looking for outside sources and grants and have had many awards.

It's all depending on the timing when it comes into the city.

All right.

Overall, this is the adopted public works budget summary for our spending.

You can see that, overall, the change from 2026 as proposed to 2027 is 3.68%.

Some of these things, I do want to note one item, which is the Recycling and Solid Waste Fund, so the 241 Fund.

It was reorganized as Enterprise Fund 645, so those numbers are a little deceptive as well.

So I just want to make sure that you're aware of that.

So what's the history of how we got here?

We're not going to go through all of this, but I do want to kind of highlight some of the information related to the 2026 budget, because it's probably most relevant to what we're talking about today.

There was a $1.2 million reduction in general funds, a funding formula overlay, a reduction in vacant and temporary FTEs, which include

Office of Assistant Electrician and Street Services Workers.

There was definitely functional staff realignment for solid waste and recycling and street maintenance.

Increases last year in storm and sanitary rates, primarily due to MCES, so Metropolitan Council costs.

And we did also have an increase in right-of-way permit fees and asphalt plant fees.

One of the questions that you all asked was, what were the updates on recent initiatives?

You will find in your packet, there's a very long Excel spreadsheet where we have a large number of things we did address.

So as you look at that, please reach out if you have specific questions.

Because it is a long list, we chose to highlight three.

But if there are questions on the other ones, by all means, reach out to our team.

The three we wanted to highlight was the Common Sense program, which started in 2023.

In 2025, we completed our first Common Sense projects with Grand Avenue, Fairview to Snelling, and Jackson Street.

And in 2026, doing a university in Earl.

This has been a very, very important program for the city because with a known funding source, we are able to plan and execute in a better fashion.

So this was very, very important for the department to be able to look into the future and make sure we're building the right things at the right time.

The Transportation Safety Action Plan.

This is a document that was originated in 2023.

We're currently updating it.

As you all know too well, because you get the comments and questions, there are a lot of questions we get around traffic safety and traffic operations, whether it's street light stop signs.

traffic flow patterns, traffic calming measures.

When I talked a little bit earlier about the Safe Streets for All grant, that $15.1 million, that is related to our high injury network.

So while we don't have the plans all in place, I think this is important for you all to see because you will be getting briefing on the Safe Streets for All update, but it really connects to how it looks on these funds.

It's also another opportunity for us to use really high quality planning to make sure we're being responsive to the needs of the city.

And then the West 7th coordination.

As you know, there's been lots of fits and starts related to West 7th, going back to when it was Riverview to when we were looking at it as the West 7th concept.

Recently, we've been able to reconvene with the project partners, MnDOT, Ramsey County, and Metro Transit.

We were also able to secure 13 million in state bonding for sewer utility work, which is very critical in that corridor I will continue to seek funds for that as well to be able to keep moving And there have been MnDOT's been able to do some milling overlay and some more temporary fixes along the corridor But we are really working with a concerted effort With all the different partner groups to advance this so you'll hear more about this over time But I thought this was an important one to highlight

All right.

So overall, you don't need to go through all the things on this slide, but we had very distinct goals when we were talking about the 2027 budget.

The first is we wanted to limit the impact of budget cuts to critical operations, materials, services, and programs.

We want to build and find cost and program efficiencies across the department and do this in partnership with

and we wanted to preserve city jobs.

Cuts to jobs and materials are cuts to essential services and that's something

I want to reiterate because we can have materials and equipment for projects, but if we don't have people to do the work, we still are at a deficit in what we can do in the city.

There were several opportunities that we have taken advantage and some that we're working to implement.

As you know, one of the things I did when I came in was restructure the department and divisions to create a new collaborative traffic safety right-of-way management pillar within the department and on the same new leadership team.

This helps prioritize traffic safety and build efficiencies between traffic operations, engineering, and right-of-way.

I think we're already seeing the benefit of this realignment, both in freeing up more work or more space within the operations division so they can focus more on sewer and streets and making sure that everybody's aligned in the right ways.

I've talked a little bit.

We've received some very important grants and applied for 18 regional solicitation grants

Well, I want to highlight here a little bit.

The other thing that we did is obviously you did look at the mayor's priorities as we were doing this, but I went on a separate little side venture and really looked at all of your priorities.

So I went to all your websites, went through newsletters, went through things that you're sharing with the

with the community as well.

So not only were we grounded in the mayor's priorities, we were making sure that it aligned with all of the things you were saying.

So I would say the highlights are that we've focused on public safety, accessible and responsible governments, welcoming neighborhoods, a thriving economy, and safe and resilient infrastructure.

Overall, the proposed budget for 2027 is a little over $45 million.

There are you can see how it is broken down We have it both graphically and in the next page in tabular format because everyone receives information a little bit differently Again, the question was asked was the division and the blue side first Street bridge maintenance What was divided between winter and summer so 4.8 million for winter 5.3 for summer?

and then you can see sort of the distribution and the many things actually that we do across public works activities and

All right.

So this slide, this is one we talked a lot about in the pre-meeting, which was very helpful.

So thank you to the council members.

It was very helpful to have those conversations.

You can see a couple of things here.

Public works always comes in slightly under budget, which is a good thing.

That means that we're working efficiently, working within our means, doing what we need to do.

Right now, the 2026 number is still a little off.

As you can tell, it will be in alignment with the others by the end of the year.

We're ending construction season, so all those bills are being paid right now as we speak.

So those numbers will get in alignment.

One of the questions that was asked was what happened between 2022 and 2023.

So during that time, there was a lawsuit that impacted the city and our ability to assess properties.

So street maintenance expenses moved to the general fund during that time as a result of the court decision.

And that result was a total of $14.1 million.

And so that's why in 2022, the revised budget was a lower number than what you're seeing throughout the other numbers, which are fairly consistent over time.

We are really keeping a close eye on our budget as we move through the end of the year.

One other thing that we spoke about just with the Bruce Bento Trail is we are looking at other things that we should be spending money on this year to make sure we're maximizing the budget that we have remaining.

And there are four projects I want to highlight.

The first is the Bruce Bento Trail.

This is not a project that the city owns.

There's a

I don't have exact timing.

I can tell you all the parts have been ordered.

The cost of the materials is being shared with parks.

However, Public Works will be taking some of the material costs, but also some of the labor

The Wabasha-Gabion wall is another important one.

This is a place that had a landslide a few years ago.

Maintaining this wall and making sure it's up to our maintenance requirements is very, very important, unbudgeted, but also something we'll spend money on this year.

Copper wire theft.

I know this is a big topic for all of you and a big concern.

So we have an effort undergoing this fall.

We started two weekends ago, I believe,

where we've opened up some overtime for additional opportunity to go out and fix as many streetlights as possible.

You'll see that over the next few weeks.

We'll just continue it until we are at a point where we're comfortable within our budget limits, but we are trying to get as many fixed during the time as we can.

As you all know,

Thank you for having me.

All right, so now onto the proposed budget of the general funds.

I will note that we have this slide and then we have following slides on topic areas for each of these focus ends.

The first one is elimination of the alley program, a reduction of $300,000, a reduction of support for sidewalks of $500,000, a one-time support directed at revenue collection for the EAMS program, that's Enterprise Asset Management System program.

The shift of two FTEs from the right-of-way fund, which is fund 230, over to the general fund.

This is for Gopher State, which is utility identification for residents and for businesses.

And then also an increase of the municipal state aid allocation to street maintenance.

It's a one-time shift.

So you can shift a certain percentage of that money that comes in directed at construction to street maintenance.

We are intending to do that for this year.

However, we want it to be a one-time shift.

And so that is the $600,000.

And then the updated county maintenance agreement.

The county maintenance agreement hasn't been updated since 1991.

and there are not only have cost change but what we're doing in that dynamic has changed and so we have a team working between the county public works and engineering departments and our operations department to make sure we have everything identified and are getting reimbursed for what we do.

It's not something that we're looking as a revenue generator but to make sure that we're getting reimbursed for what we actually do.

All right, so the first one is the alley improvement pilot proposed cut.

So the alley improvement funding was originally $400,000 in 2024 in the general fund to reconstruct alleys.

This was reduced in the 2025 budget to $300,000.

Prior to that, alleys were assessed 100% to the properties.

Alley funds were expected to cover one to four alleys per year.

There's a very, very long list of alley needs,

There's more than 2,600 alleys and about 330 miles of alleys.

So really the funding at $400,000 was inefficient overall and acted more as a pilot.

So far we've completed three projects in 2025 and 2026.

You can see them listed there.

So for the 2027 budget proposes eliminating the alley funds for the alley improvement program.

I definitely would look to revisit this in the future, but given the budget gap, this was something that when we were looking at where our programs would be most effective, this wasn't one.

We want to re-emphasize it doesn't mean we won't do anything in alleys.

Street maintenance will continue to pothole patch and grade for the unpaved alleys.

However, it does become a lower priority when compared to some of the pothole fixing that we have on our streets.

But we do try to, especially when we hear from you, hear from constituents, we try to be responsive to those needs.

But it is a challenging thing, I think, as we look into the 2028 cycle.

It's something we can look at.

Is there a different kind of solution for this?

This one I will just gloss over because there was a request to have a little more history on the background of the program.

If you have any questions specifically on it, we can address those.

All right, so the sidewalk improvements.

So through 2026, the Sidewalk Improvement Program received 1.485 million annually.

175,000 of this is directed towards transverse grading.

So that's when a sidewalk's lifted up, and you can come in and grind it and level it, so reducing the safety hazard.

The remainder is used for sidewalk replacement and ADA compliance work.

We're seeking CIB funds for more transverse grinding.

It's a very effective way rather than putting the asphalt patches because it does actually level the surface.

We have a draft ADA plan that is complete and we'll be moving to all of you for consideration.

Currently less than 7% of our sidewalks are ADA compliant with a 60-year compliance horizon.

Right now we're expected to reach 50% compliance at current funding.

We do use some of the capital construction funding for this as well.

When we go out and do mill and overlay or reconstruction of a street at those intersections, we build in ADA compliance elements.

We're already out there.

We're already disrupting the space.

So it's really important to build those things in.

So that is one part of it that does address a piece of the sidewalk infrastructure system, but again, not all of it.

So the 2027 budget just reduces the sidewalk budget by $500,000 to

We are looking at other options.

We talked about this I think briefly at one of our meetings of building in a sidewalk improvement district to be pursued for sustainable funding.

There's a program in the city of Rochester that we are looking at mimicking.

We have our traffic planning group looking at areas throughout the city that could be

City of Rochester did it as a pilot and then deployed it across the entire city so our goal next year and this is why you don't see this reflected in budget numbers yet because we don't know the timing and we don't know the revenue and so next year will be a pilot year to try and get something implemented.

And then our technology piece.

I want to talk about this a little bit because there is the line item directed at the $300,000 to connect revenue.

So we've got three primary legs of this stool, and one is the enterprise asset management system.

This was primarily funded through ARP program.

I want to get

reduced manual entry of time cards.

Since the cybersecurity incident, Public Works has still been doing manual entry for time cards.

It's complicated because we're tied to work orders and different things.

We just went through our first billing cycle.

We're not doing that, and it seems to be working.

So I'm going to knock on wood.

And then the other piece is connecting the WAX and enterprise asset management system

to be able to do billing, especially for traffic operations.

We have not billed through this point in the year, so that is not reflected in our revenue.

So what we're doing is working on a manual system to be able to first catch up on billing and then get into a regular billing cadence.

And that is what that line item in the proposed budget is for, is whether it is looking at fixes to the system to be able to work in,

The other one I want to mention is Polly.

There's no issue with Polly, but we

I'm sure some of you have had calls or conversations about residential parking permits and all of those expire at the end of August every year and then people have to reapply and come in and pay for the year.

This year it was switched over to the Poly system versus doing it manually and what we found is it takes a lot of time to sign customers up for Poly.

We won't see this again next year, but on an individual basis, sometimes it's taking people 30 to 40 minutes to sign up for policy and then pay for their bills.

And why this is important is all the same people are doing this work.

And so what I've asked them to prioritize is pay people first, and then work on the parking permits.

And Director Barber, I think we were able to get through quite a bit here.

And just noticing the clockpiece, I think we can take a couple of questions at the side.

So I'll have you pause and just look at any of my council colleagues to see if there are any questions on the slides that have been covered at this time.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Director, for this.

We are speeding through a lot of good topics.

It's a good thing I talk fast.

It does help.

I have a couple of questions about the sidewalk improvements as a proposed cut if we could go back to that slide.

Sure.

So very much hearing what you're saying, that you don't yet know the timing or the anticipated revenue from the sidewalk improvement districts.

But looking at the proposed cuts as they currently stand and recognizing that the sidewalk improvement districts will be a pilot and that we don't know the timeline, I'm wondering if you just talk a bit more about what you expect the impact to the program would be.

How many fewer sidewalk repairs does that translate to?

I would love to have all the answers for those questions.

We really are working through the legal piece of it to make sure we can do it.

And I'm also working with our transportation planning group to kind of figure out where we could test this out.

The program in Rochester works very well, where instead of assessing property owners at high levels, you distribute things across a district.

And it leads to very incremental

Two questions.

One, just to follow up on Ms. Coleman's question, we know we can't do nearly the amount of sidewalk work that we need to given the current budget, and this is about a third of the cut to the budget.

So I'm wondering why the department is choosing to propose this cut before we have

As proposed, when we initially proposed it, the sidewalk reduction, it was paired with the Sidewalk Improvement District.

And because we don't have the full revenue numbers, it's not reflected in the budget yet or in the proposed budget yet.

Other question?

What was the other question?

Yes, we are increasing right-of-way fees.

I don't have those numbers right in front of me.

I think it went through Council a couple months ago, if I recall.

And I don't know, actually, if we're increasing asphalt fees.

We don't know yet, but we'll get that information for you.

And I think kind of along the things that are falling within the special fund slide, can you just share a little bit about the decreases or increases?

Just when I see the numbers, I see the super utility and the $126 million being a big number.

But is that a decrease from last year?

I guess I'm just looking at this slide and also the breakdowns of the public works budget.

and recognizing just how important it is to continue to understand not only the general fund expenditures but the special fund expenditures and they're not necessarily, you know, the template is a template and I think you guys have done a really good job of bringing forth a lot of information.

I think as we get into the special fund pieces too, I

I think I would like to see a little bit more of a breakdown or an understanding of, like, is the traffic warehouse line item a decrease, increase from last year?

What are the impacts embedded within the multiple millions that exist here?

So when we're saying, like, oh, the asphalt plant is a $3 million proposed budget for that, I don't know if that's an increase or a decrease from last year.

I don't know.

That's a number.

Yeah, so just thinking about

these pieces and the impact behind them.

There are numbers that are there, but what does that really transfer?

Sure.

So if you look at this one, the sewer waste and recycling, so 645 and 640, those high numbers are because those are the funds that have enterprise funds that can raise their fees.

So there's kind of self-contained funds.

The remaining is about 2% of all of it.

So some of those are incremental increases or decreases.

When you look at something like the traffic warehouse, that's inventory.

So it's either purchasing materials ahead of time for construction projects, or it is making sure we have materials in place to fix street lights and things like that.

So you can see where some of those costs slightly increased.

A lot of that's inflationary pressures.

And we try to, obviously, it's

It's in the best interest of the city to continue to purchase inventory so that we can be responsive in real time as much as possible.

They are just adjusting often for wages, for negotiated agreements, things like that.

That is what you see reflected in the numbers.

There really isn't an increase anywhere in true operational budget for public works.

OK, thank you, Chair.

I've got two questions that are connected.

One is around the department consistently underspending by about 5%, which is really great.

I guess part of that question is, is it that we are consistently underspending, or is it that we're offsetting it with new grants at the end of the year?

But can you speak a little bit to that trend?

And then a follow-up question then around

Right, it's probably a little of both and we'll also talk a little bit about FTEs because as we get into that section there are positions that remain open but there are positions that are

and the City Council.

yeah I would be interested because it's just you know with finite resources it is interesting to see a department that's consistently under spending so just having a better understanding as to like what that breakdown looks like and especially as it pertains to staffing and vacancies would be interesting and part of the reason why I'm wondering is because then earlier on

for me is 15 maybe it's 14 for you for the updates on recent initiatives one of the ones that's kind of struck me was around transportation and the safety action plan so we don't have any sort of measurable improvements to date for that line item

and there's no direct funding and the reason why I'm asking is because it looks like we've had at least eight pedestrians or bikers killed in 2026 which is the most in ten years and so part of me is wondering around you know is that one of the positions that is vacant or is there not a position

but in order for us to move transportation safety forward and pedestrian and biker safety forward, I'm recognizing that it looks like there's resources that would need to be allocated or reallocated.

So can you speak to that?

I don't know that we have a position open.

I think that a lot of the funding for traffic operations and safety initiatives really comes out of the street maintenance funds to date.

This is where that Safe Streets for All grant, the $15.1 million, really will make an actual true impact.

We'll be able to make more effort towards these efforts.

and direct it and align it with the safety action plan.

This is one of the reasons why I wanted to highlight this because, again, similar to the common-sent one, if you've got funding and a plan, you know where to execute it to be the most effective.

And it really ties to what is part of the information that went into this Safe Streets for All.

So there are positions already.

I don't know if we're going to need additional positions to actually execute that.

You take the common sense program, there were actually some positions within the engineering department that are funded by the common sense program because it took more time.

And so that will be part of what we evaluate.

The good news is we got awarded it.

The hard news is it was a week ago, so I don't have all the answers for the details.

But we can definitely circle back.

And I believe the update to the safety action plan comes back to you guys, I believe.

I don't know if it's a briefing or approval, but you will see that.

So that might be a good time to talk in more detail about

All right, I appreciate that.

So just like to get really nitty-gritty in the question then.

So no direct funding means like nothing that's coming out of the general fund but is coming out of the common sense.

OK, so there are positions that are available.

Whether or not we add more positions is TBD.

Correct.

The way that we have offset that is that comes similar to the conversation we had about streetlights when we had that special topic.

As hard as it can be, that money comes out of street maintenance to address traffic safety concerns.

So when we get notified or have issues, they have a long tracking list.

They go out, take a look at whatever issue.

If there's a solution, they implement a solution.

Thank you Director Barber.

I think that's really helpful and I'm glad to hear that we'll be hearing an update soon around that safety plan just because it does, it comes up even in community events and spaces that we're in.

Council Vice President and I were at the Duluth and Case Rec Center conversation on Monday and

Honestly, a public works staffer probably could have been there and talking about just some of the things that came up around.

Thank you Director Barber.

Council Vice President Yang.

Thanks Chair Johnson.

Thank you Director Barber for your in-depth presentation.

I have a couple of questions about the alley pilot program.

So with the proposed cut, does that mean that we go back to what we did prior to 2024 where we do assess those adjacent properties?

We have not talked about assessing properties to reconstruct allies.

That hasn't been a conversation yet.

I think perhaps it's a conversation, if this becomes part of the adopted budget, of is this something we need to consider.

We internally have not had that conversation yet.

I think we do need to find something that is more effective for a longer term solution for this, obviously with the

Thank you.

It made sense because it wasn't as impactful.

But it doesn't mean that we should just ignore it and not look for a longer term solution.

So I can circle back with you as we have conversations if assessment makes sense.

And I want to make sure that I have all the facts and know more about that and what they did in 2024.

And if that was impactful, that is just

I just have a couple of quick follow-ups.

Given the information I've heard from you and our staff about the pilot program, the impact we've been able to make, I am supportive of the CUD.

of Intercontractors.

It's contracted through us.

Because in the winter, budding properties take care of snow removal and things like that.

For all of the cuts this is something that we would have public facing information on because as you all know we get lots of inquiries and questions and complaints sometimes so like we want to make sure that we have proper answers for that and that's why I think it's important to highlight that our street maintenance teams will still be going out

Thank you.

Totally different question than my last question but on the poly update

The last bullet point about improved resident experience and reducing manual aspects of issuing bills in order to generate revenue.

I'm wondering if you could say more about that.

And also, I think, just a more general question about how the department is thinking about parking permits as a possibility for revenue generation, or if that's not something that you all have considered.

It is not something we've talked about as a revenue generator.

It's something obviously that some areas through the city appreciate.

The manual piece of this was actually a manual billing process that was happening year after year.

Going forward, residents will be able to renew their residential parking permits through Poly online.

This year, what I wanted to really emphasize is taking our staff a lot of time.

To be able to get people or assist people through signing up for poly and that part is taking a long time

I expect this not to be the same discussion next year.

It's important that we collect that revenue because that goes into Fund 230, which is the right-of-way fund.

And so again, it's not necessarily a revenue generator, but it does help.

Okay.

No problem.

There's a lot of questions.

This is fair.

It's complicated stuff.

So one other proposed budget item relates to Engineering Fund 732, and this is a shift of three

GIS analyst positions to OTC department.

It's a budget neutral shift, and so really it's trying to...

There are some GIS people that live within OTC already, and it's aligning three of the ones that are under PW technology over into that group.

There are other GIS specialists embedded within the operations of Public Works, with our sewer system, engineering, maps, all of that.

So there are some other positions.

Because we are financially still supporting them, we're working very closely with OTC as to how this will work.

Basically, the intention of

because sometimes when public works needs information and GIS data, we need it right away.

There could be an issue.

There could be a leak somewhere.

There could be something that we have to respond to in real time.

And so Director Wiskalas and I are starting a meeting on Friday to start figuring out how this would functionally work.

and to make sure that Public Works continues to get what they need from the positions.

I think I am supportive of centralizing services for some functions rather than having each department have like their own tech program to do the same thing.

and finding some enterprise solutions.

And this is just one of those steps in that direction.

And so we'll see if we can get it all lined up.

But that is one of the proposals for the year.

All right.

We did want to circle back on the Council Budget Committee topics.

We can probably go pretty quickly over these.

There are a lot of words on these slides, but I'm going

You were going one at a time and talking more about them, and then I didn't see a slide on the shifting the two FTEs from the right-of-way fund to the general fund.

Sure, so that is go for state one call so those they live with they had been within the fund 230 which it should actually be a general fund funded item so under our right-of-way department so more under street maintenance and that side of things or in under the right-of-way.

So under here, so this would fall under probably traffic operations or street maintenance.

But when you have positions like that within an enterprise fund, it can have a negative impact on this.

Just as a quick follow up, Madam Chair, obviously when we move things from special fund to general fund, we're talking about a tax increase to cover that as opposed to using other types of revenue.

There is not other revenue to cover this.

And Guffer State One Call is probably not something you want people to pay for or else they might not actually reach out to have utility identification services.

It had, but there was no revenue to fund it.

So did the special fund run out?

That fund, it is one of those areas where it probably shouldn't have been in the

Okay, I think Ms. Mitchell, my question for you is, so there's a $482,000 shift from the special fund to the general fund.

The special fund would have backfilled this in some way.

Can you share a little bit about how you, what decision was made?

Because this seems a little bit more like another example where we're shifting funding to kind of complement, but like I don't, like what

One quick clarification The gopher state one call positions are coming out of fund 230 the street maintenance fund.

I believe the The change in the engineering fund is moving the positions The GIS positions to OTC correct, but related to gopher state one call I believe that historically

We did have revenue in that fund for those positions for that work and then I think it was part of the last Street maintenance lawsuit that we had where we no longer received funding for those positions and they just never got moved to another place so for the past few years they have been being paid for out of a special fund with no revenue to support them.

So they have been eating a hole in that special fund.

So now this is just sort of aligning it somewhere else.

We need a funding source for it.

Council Member Johnson, yes.

I think that's the idea.

That's the intention.

OK.

Thank you for the context, because this is where we land where it's before my time.

Okay, thank you.

Council President.

Just one more question and then the rest can be followed up.

So go for a state one call.

My understanding, Council President, is that it is a state program that we are required to provide services for.

So is that... That is my understanding.

All right, circle back onto some of the special topics that we covered.

When we first presented at the pre-meeting, we only had the information in the spending side.

And we went back and looked at the revenue piece of it.

This is really kind of an important slide for public works in general.

So one of the things was we talked a little bit about the legal action that was taken in 2022 in the court case.

That is, if you look at the change in the budget in 2022 versus what you see in 2025 and then the realized net actuals

You can see in 2022, that was back when there were still some assessments available for that, for the mill and overlay.

Whereas you see where we're at in 2025, again, that puts pressure on the street maintenance fund primarily.

The proposed 2027 budget restores a one-time reduction to mill and overlay program.

So in addition to the one point

2 million cut in 2026.

There was a one-time added cut of the $318,000.

This restores that and also does not have an additional cut to mill and overlay as the proposed budget.

We deliver both residential and arterial mill and overlay programs, as we discussed.

I know there were questions in our pre-meeting,

I am not going to read this slide because you don't need me standing up here and reading, but I will just do the takeaway of investing in mill and overlay is a really important tool for us because it protects city assets and prevents exponential future reconstruction costs.

We talked a little when we met last about this topic, the scale of the cost of mill and overlay versus full reconstruction, but we still are limited in our ability for this by equipment, staffing, plant deficiencies,

that limit current operations.

Basically, we do as much as we can with the materials, projects, and people that we have.

All right, on to street light and wire theft strategy.

Right now, the 2027 budget does not include additional lighting budget.

Again, that money is absorbed by street maintenance.

We know what a priority this is for you, as evidenced by the $750,000 for the Shepherd Lighting Program, which will be installed in 2027.

We talked a lot about this during our session just on street lighting.

One of the key things we're doing is working a little more diligently, I think, now as we're moving through the budget cycling to get all the different partners together from us, Parks, St. Paul PD,

so that we have more of an enterprise solution to some of this.

One of those conversations is around the Shepherd Road project is, OK, if we go out and install these lights, can we work with St Paul PD at the same time to deploy some anti-theft measures so all this investment isn't something that goes away?

So we're really trying to do a both-and approach to this.

And we'll have more information as we really start building what this program might look like.

We are looking at potential opportunities for other legislative changes.

We talked about sidewalk improvement districts.

There is a potential

opportunity for streetlight improvement districts of a similar vein, but we do need legislative change to do that.

Right now it's as much as that as we want to look at this, so I don't have exactly what a legislative change would look like, but also if there's other legislative opportunities because

This isn't something that just affects the City of St. Paul.

And changing the charging level for wire theft was one step, but is there something more that we can work with the legislature to help invest with this?

Because, yes, St. Paul has been affected profoundly, but we're not

the only ones in the state affected so I think that this is a broader conversation that I want to have with our legislative priorities as we set those out.

Don't have answers yet for you but I think it's really important for us to focus some effort here because as we talked about this is a challenge that we really struggle to overcome right now.

So the takeaway here is there's no new funding currently proposed for street lighting and wire theft, and we will continue to have the number of non-foxing lights and will continue to increase.

As you know, we're working as hard as we can.

I talked a little bit about the overtime effort that we were doing.

They actually, the first weekend they were doing it, had to move locations where they were because there was already evidence of wire theft.

So this is

It's not for them not doing something.

It is, you know, we have to try and be reactive in real time.

We are also, for these areas that we're going out, have been notifying St Paul PD so they can increase patrols around the areas where we're doing the overtime efforts as well.

The EV Spot Network, I don't think we'll talk much about this one, but I did want to put this in here.

We had a presentation on this and actually I will defer you that you're going to learn more about upcoming proposals that will be contained within the climate proposal that will be coming from OFS.

So once you have that presentation, if you have additional questions for us, please reach out.

Alright, FTEs and vacancies.

Alright, I think...

Okay, overall, you can see where our funding has stayed pretty steady.

It's been flat generally over the years, but there have been some that have gone up.

Those are primarily because we've brought in the Municipal Garbage Program.

in Fund 645 and the Common Sense Program in Fund 732.

There were some positions that were funded by AARP, but one was in right-of-way.

One of the GSA, or Gopher State people, was moved out previously to the general fund.

And the GIS moved to, that we talked about, moving to OTC from Public Works, but still funded by Public Works.

The unfilled positions and the general fund.

So one thing that I was really excited to learn about is going through this process.

This analysis is public works retention rate is at 91.84%, which I think is amazing.

I think that is really, really a great thing.

There's a voluntary turnover rate of 8.15% over the last 12 months.

Here we include vacancy reports for both.

You'll see for general fund and special fund, this is the general fund one.

What you see here often are people who are highly specialized or seasonal and so it is very our positions especially sometimes the highly specialized ones take a while to fill if you're looking for a civil engineer with a certain level of expertise

Thank you so much.

with our HR department to make sure we're posting correctly, have classifications right, have background requirement needs correct, so that we are attracting people to this.

But I think that vacancy rate with the size of the department is pretty standard, I would say.

For special funds, it is slightly higher.

Again, we need this is

Due to both you see several civil engineering programs our positions we continue to recruit for those we'll continue to recruit for those But then there's also several other positions especially if you look at sewer services workers street service workers and our solid waste and recycling Service workers those are positions that we need to keep open almost all the time

There are revolving positions people come in maybe it's not for them or they come in and they go to another place in the city and I think it's really an important position to keep these positions I think it's their great entry jobs to get into the city and then you might find that you belong somewhere else and so it's we're working again with HR to find ways to both

And thank you Director Barber for that.

Thanks, Chair Johnson.

Director Barber, I know you mentioned that it's important to keep these positions open and sometimes they're a pathway for folks that want to come into the city and work here.

Yes, I don't have those numbers.

And it might be in our attached reports, I'm not sure.

But we can find out.

But yes, sometimes it does.

I think that happens.

I think you see that in big organizations like this, that you might come in and then you find, well, I'm more interested in working for parks or something like that.

And so that's a big part of why it's important to keep some room for these vacancies, because they do turn over.

I want to move over to street maintenance and I find that interesting because we do see some of that as well and that's part of why we need to focus both at recruiting how we do this

and the City Council.

I think I've grounded myself in this entire thing as we've talked about it is we need positions and people in addition to materials and equipment to do projects and so it's really a key part of this and because if we don't have that balance we're probably one of the more balanced departments in general with that

I don't have the actual percentage right here.

I want to say it was 53 or 56 percent of ours is salary and benefits and employee expenses, where the rest is equipment materials.

And we need to maintain that balance to be able to effectively deliver projects.

Director Robert, just a clarification on these two slides because we've had departments give just like a full listing of their vacancies and their intentions or kind of where they are in the process.

I'd love to just make sure that as a follow-up that the

the unfilled positions that there is that these are all of the unfilled positions and I know you've started in January but we have had examples of other departments where they have even given unfilled positions that predated January 2026 that were still open but maybe they were posted and then now there's a plan to do that

I believe this is the full count that we have, but I will say there's additional information that was provided in your appendix that talks about the vacancy reports, that documents positions that were and weren't vacant, when they became vacant, and their current status.

So there's additional detail in the appendix information.

OK, sounds good.

Yep.

All right, and we are on to our special funds and enterprise funds.

So one of the questions you all asked as part of the template was to have an understanding of what was happening with Fund 211, the ARPA projects.

Happy to report we've been very effective and efficient at spending the funding.

About $5.4 million came into Public Works, but we're at a point where everything will be expended by the end of 2026.

There was work directed at downtown investments.

There was work directed at the enterprise asset management system.

We talked a little bit about some of the challenges with that, so we fully expanded the funds, but we are also working on some manual systems to integrate our billing processes for that.

New snow operations, and we have a couple slides that follow some of this as well, but will be fully extended by the end of the year.

Thank you for having me.

Mayor of St Paul

for the VRS system to work for multiple systems across the department.

The same people are doing those jobs sometimes.

The street sweepers are the same people who go plow your streets.

And so having a consistent technology system would make a lot of sense.

But we will expend what we have by the end of the year.

The investments that we had for mill and overlay, pedestrian and traffic safety, and EV car share support were all expended.

All right, so a little bit of information because we knew this was one of your topic areas that you were interested on, just where we are with new snow operations.

So we completed the two-year alternate site parking process, research, and data gathering.

2025-2026 was focused on residential streets.

We conducted a review of that operations.

We're wrapping up the pilot research work and the final report will be to us by the end of 2026.

There have been many efforts in addition to working on the alternate side parking as really in snow operations from other northern cities in the US and Canada and conducting operational roadway classification work for snow operators.

And then we're also in this part of this effort piloted a comprehensive sign inventory in about a third of the city.

The greatest challenges for snow operations is making sure that we maintain access for emergency vehicles.

I'm sure any of you who had the snow highlights operational in your districts or in your wards heard conversations around that.

So we did definitely hear some complaints on arterial collector streets that were plowed and not treated with every snow event, not just snow emergencies.

and I would say like residential streets typically get the most complaints and cleanup requests and but what we found is overall that you know well some people didn't like the alternate street code they liked having their street cleaned so so we'll continue to work on this and investigate this as we look at implementing whatever our long-term plan will be but that will be looking probably at alternate street program and snow emergency model for St. Paul

Thank you for having me.

We are working with our street maintenance teams really to come up with our own operational plan this year.

Thank you, Chair Johnson.

I have a quick question around the optimization part, particularly around the

The GIS system that you mentioned, only because I had a chance to work closely with the staff on this as one of the pilots was in Ward 1.

It was actually chosen at a street that already was a one-sided street.

There wasn't a lot of attention for that, but I wanted to ask if you can go a little deeper in terms of What are some of the challenges?

I guess you know for as a millennial.

I'm thinking of like how to integrate you know a System to where if I you know go on Google Maps, and I need to go somewhere like that

It seems very simple for me to just put my phone there.

Is it something that is training our staff to use this mapping system?

Or is it structural around our equipment, our vehicles don't have the necessary equipment?

It's a fair question.

So the GIS system was paired with a software system, and that was the integration between the two things that didn't work.

And so that's why, because we already have all the work that built these GIS maps that tie to routes, is we're looking for a solution that can use that already to do all of the routing for all these different pieces.

I don't disagree, but I use Google Maps or whichever app that gets me here every day.

But it's having multiple things moving on the system at the same time.

So it's a combination of building automated vehicle locators and things like that so that we're following all the snow emergency routes, some of those different things, and getting through all the different elements of it.

It's the right question to

just imagine you have Google Maps and then you show up and you've got something else in the next vehicle like that doesn't make sense because technology is at a point that we should be able to connect all these things and so that is sort of the enterprise solution we're looking to and we will look within our department and talk with people because we have some equipment that we could deploy from like a graphical interface for vehicles but we want some consistency of what everyone sees

I'm happy to follow up and have more detailed conversations on that and what worked and what didn't work.

Just a quick follow up for that.

Is that reflecting the budget in terms of, because it seems like there's

There's a level of expertise around how to integrate this data or excuse me how to integrate this technology That's not per se like our our usual public works.

You know driver or worker right?

This is the more specialized like how do we integrate this technology across the board and make sure actually

Is that something that Public Works is contracting out, if that's reflected in the budget?

I do recall, originally when we had this proposal before us, there was a consultant that the department was working with.

The consultant will be phasing out.

But what we're doing is,

This won't be a perfect answer because this is part of what I'm still learning, to be honest.

So OTC is standing up more of a technology governance board.

So the software systems get vetted, and they get looked at in a different way.

So we have to work really closely with them, but then also working with our operational people to make sure that whatever we're putting out there is intuitive and works for what they need.

So it's definitely a both-and thing.

I don't know that we need a different

Continue on, Director Barber.

All right.

So we are in the process, and these will be coming also back to you as a group.

We have not met with you individually about the sewer rate utility changes we have for solid waste and recycling.

I think we've had sessions with most, if not all, of you.

But these are the proposed changes for next year.

It equates to $457.

Council President Baker.

Thank you, Chair.

It's a combination of costs that get passed on to us and also costs of what it's costing for us to actually maintain the sewer system.

And so it's

It's more complicated, and I think it would be better if we just provide you a summary memo of how we got to the numbers.

Yes.

So we do a sewer rate study, and we have somebody who does this analysis with us who's an expert in this area.

Just a follow-up, Chair.

Less so this year.

So historically, I don't have them in my notes right now.

Last year, there was a much bigger increase for Met Council environmental services.

This year, it is lower.

and it sounds, from what I understand, they're doing some internal work at the Council of Environmental Services to define how they do that so that cities aren't seeing jumps like they did last year.

And this year it's six something, is that correct?

Yeah, and I think just for our colleagues' awareness during our pre-meeting, you know, Council Vice President raised a really valid point just as we're looking at our fees and comparing it when it comes to the water fees.

We've seen increases there, but the presentation of that as well as just the information provided around like

when does that increase plateau like when exactly are we looking at you know a space where we're not seeing double-digit increase I think was a really valid question would just raise it again as we think about the follow-ups of just trying to understand where we're going I think there's an interest in the council to understand like just from some of these rate changes because we're gonna be thinking about we aren't thinking about inflation but we're also thinking about the direct impact that that

that has on households and everything is going up.

And so at the city, we just want to know and understand why is it going up?

What is it going up for?

And then also just what is the vision in the next couple of years?

Is this going to continue for a minute?

Thank you Madam Chair and Council Vice President.

We actually in some of our sessions when we were talking about these rates brought up that question this week and so it is one of the numbers like looking over at peer agencies to see what the trends are so we have requested that we don't have it yet but we will work on it.

Solid waste and recycling so again you guys all have had briefings I believe on this but you can see

In general, there are some increases.

We think the fees are charged per unit and collected as part of Ramsey County property taxes, covers carts, program administration, cleanup, education, and outreach.

The primary change you'll see is the new fees for the proposed solid waste assessment fee for 5 to 11 units and 12 plus units, which had not been charged fees previously.

So that is the primary change and driver for this.

And then the proposed rates.

You can see here, you can see the drivers in red at top, which is 3.5% in collection costs, which is by contract.

This is actually a positive news story because the contract was defined that that was the cap.

So I can't exceed that at this point.

And then the 12% increase in disposal costs is a Ramsey County cost that does get passed on to us and to our constituents.

There seems to be a trend here where everything trickles down to us from every other level of government.

I'm curious what justification Ramsey County has given us for the 12% increase in disposal costs.

I understand that has been going up every year for the last six years with no end in sight.

I'm curious if they have to justify that in any way to your department or if they have to talk about that in any way to this committee.

I don't have a perfect answer for this.

I'm sure Sarah can probably provide more context, but I think limited.

Is there any more context that Ms. Haas can provide?

Yeah, we were able to get through quite a bit in that time, so I appreciate that.

Welcome, Ms. Haas.

I talk slightly faster than Deb, too, so we'll be quick.

But it has largely been justified to us that it's the cost of increasing the capacity to do anaerobic digestion at the RNE facility, which is where we're required to bring our material.

They set their rates and it's approved by the Ramsey and Washington County boards because it's a joint powers between the two counties That would be the place that I think the city would have a voice to Provide comment and feedback on those rates.

We have been told they will go up again in 2028 long term the plan is to drive those costs down after these efficiencies are in place at the facility and

I have not seen that plan and just began initial discussions with them.

And Ms. Haas, while we have you, are other municipalities within those two counties then seeing the consistent increase that we have to have as a driving factor of that 12% increase?

Are they also feeling it?

Yep, it's Ramsey and Washington are both getting it.

And it's private and municipal collections.

It's different in other counties.

And that's why we're often compared to Minneapolis.

But their tipping fees are significantly lower than ours.

Sure.

That's my understanding.

And they're also discussing that at their city council level now too to see if it's going to shift.

Well, thank you, Ms. Hoss.

We appreciate it and appreciate that additional context.

I think it seems to be a common space, just where I think the more that we continue to operate and to be transparent with our, as you go up the government food chain, of the impacts of some of that and how it trickles down to the average taxpayer in St. Paul, I think is going to be really important moving forward as we maneuver these conversations and continue, especially now with their biennial budget,

and knowing that they intend to raise it again, I think it just being able to have a follow-up conversation proactively about this is what it actually is costing people.

I think is, you know, we have GIBC tax for a reason when it comes to property taxes for those same reasons.

We've seen a lot of pressures coming in from different angles and different forms of government.

So I think the impact though of our

I think the takeaway from the city piece of that is there's no change in the billing admin fee from the city, so we're doing what we can with that, but there are external pressures.

But both for those who are in solid waste and recycling fees, there will be a

I think that's something that is really important to me as I've stepped into those roles, make sure that we're very outspoken as to both what the impacts are and why.

To me it's always the why I want to know, so I know other citizens would want to know.

So this is just a good depiction.

It's really similar to what we talked about, but that there are differences between lowest households and average households and factoring that in as well.

So it is a range of how it impacts people, but it also is impactful of how people are managing waste.

And then finally you can see the recycling and trash budget for 645 is our final one.

There's some additional FTEs that are being added for customer support, working on more customer-facing friendly billing system, additional solid waste workers, and a public information officer to have dedicated staff for communicating.

We all get lots of communications and questions, and we monitor a lot of that in our department through Zendesk.

There's a large volume associated with solid waste and recycling.

We're really good at responding very fast, but we want to make sure we have a dedicated resource so those things get addressed as quickly as possible.

Questions?

Yes, I look forward to us ending right at 1130, promises.

So we'll go to Councilmember Coleman and we'll go back to Council President Nieker.

If we can get to Councilmember Bui, we will, but we will end at 1130.

Thank you, and mine is basically just a list of follow-up items from going way back to the parking permit fee discussion.

It would be really helpful, if possible, to see what we're currently – did you say Fund 230 is where those funds go?

Thank you for your question, Council Member.

Yes, we can do that.

And it's one of the things that when we were talking about the Gover State 1 call, living in 230 for a reason, residential parking is one of those as well, that we're going to look at, is that in the right place?

And figure that out to make sure, because obviously there's fees associated with it, but I don't know exactly that level of detail.

I just want to say I definitely will take you up on the follow-up.

I'll be following up with the email as well.

But my quick question, particularly around it's more of a focus area that I've been hearing from constituents around the management and kind of the fiscal responsibility that the city has been taking on.

But in the future would definitely want to see you know that cost being divided amongst other Municipalities and I just wanted to hear Short answer is yes this is often regardless of who the owner of the spaces are we're replacing street lights and doing a lot of the response and

It's both working across departments for that sort of approach within the city, but we do have to work with partner agencies, whether it be MnDOT or the county.

Again, I also want to have brought it up with our government relations person.

It was yesterday that I think this is a priority because I think it's a priority for the state.