##VIDEO ID:VyNdHQU6XJY## e e e e e e e e e 3 o' on Tuesday afternoon November 19th 2024 and I call this work meeting of the Bel try County Board of Commissioners to order and I understand cander you have a new employee hello hello um what's your name my name is freand Mendoza when did you start at the jail I started October 29th of 2024 okay and what brings you to Bel chery County uh my wife and I decided uh after extensive research into the town well it's better for us to move here and build new lives here and make everything better for ourselves awesome thank you welcome thank you and and and please stay for a long long time that's what I'm planning to do where where did you relocate from uh well I was in the Marine cor Iber located from different places but the most recent was California okay yeah so it's a lot better here than it is in California oh yeah too many fires just around the corner too well wait till January comes around he commented about the weather walking over oh yeah mosquito pick him up and carry him away in the spring right it's gonna be a interesting time I love the humidity then NWA loved it now it's going to be a different ball game here though the cold here uh awesome you ever driven on Ice before in South Korea yes okay yeah so it's a little tricky I start a sliding but uh that's when I said you know what oh no no no that's a that's a little too much for me right now oh welcome thank you thank you thank you thanks glra any other new employees Brent you've got some okay good afternoon good afternoon originally I had two employees two new employees to introduce and then was told that we forgot to introduce one back in January when she started so I'll start with our oldest new employee Caitlyn Bergstrom Caitlyn took over Zach's position a lot of people remember Zach kind of shepherding the whole one water one plan stuff um so I'll let Caitlyn just say a word if she wants yeah hi I'm Caitlyn yeah I've been here since March um I replac Zach so I'm getting in the swing of everything so I I'm originally from Minneapolis but I came up here to get my masters and I fell in love and I didn't want to leave so's been doing a great job for the one one plan and for you know helping um helping some of my constituents with with issues in my district and and been a welcome welcome addition thank you she got thrown into the fire right away yes she did the next one up is Claire Hansen Claire um took Ali's old position as a conservation technician doing work with land owner similar typ stff I'll let you so I grew up in Anoka I moved to aiji in 2012 for my undergrads Ser Heron for my masters um have a background in aquatic biology a little bit of education and then worked as a conservationist at hubard s wcd previously so glad to be here and at home welcome welcome and our newest one is Rose Moore and Rose took Megan's position and she is learning all the ins and outs of the office and helping everybody with all their project and is excited and energetic and is ready to help with everything we need so we're excited about all of them yeah yeah um I grew up in Northeast Minneapolis and I came up here to viij to finish or to do my undergrad I once again I fell in love with this place and I decided I wanted to stay for a little longer um yeah I just love working here it's so fun I love all my co-workers they're my friends so awesome congratulations thank you yeah thanks welcome thank you any other new employees wow that's the most new employees we've had in a long time that's awesome must have heard about the comp steud yeah uh does anybody have any future work meeting topics that they would like to have uh Mr chair yes before we continue um are the mics in audio okay for today's meeting I know there was some concerns for okay okay thank you thank you Mr no topics okay uh Jean you want to come up and talk to us about Northern Dental Access Center and welcome thanks for coming thank you for letting me uh I appreciate this opportunity to provide a brief update about the work of Northern Dental Access Center uh last month when Amy Bulls uh presented the results of your community health assessment the issue of dental access was raised uh and it seemed like a great time to reacquaint you with our work um um 20 years ago your predecessors had the foresight and wisdom um to Champion the idea of creating a safety net dental clinic uh to serve people who struggle to get access to dental care in the region Beltrami County invested planning dollars and Leadership to plan and develop Northern Dental Access Center even reing receiving a national award that still hangs on your boardroom wall uh today years ago we provided regular updates to commissioners about our growth and progress um and we've been remiss in the past few years so I'm grateful for this chance to come back today I've provided a few slides with a very broad overview of our work and then I'll be happy to answer any follow-up questions that you might have first I'd like to point out the service area noted on the map uh our mission is to provide access to dental care for people in need in this area alone there are 100,000 people enrolled in medical assistance in Minnesota SOA care alone those programs have dental benefits for children and adults but many Dental practices are unable to serve them we welcome those insurances along with offering an income-based self-pay cash discount program for care this slides also also notes our four locations while beiji Still Remains our Primary Clinic the next slide provides an overview are you able to thank you you um of our rapid growth over the past 16 years by the end of next month we will have hosted 30,000 patient visits this year alone with the recent addition of Park Rapids in Bagley that number is projected to increase again next year I also wanted to highlight for you our economic impact for the county bringing millions of state and federal dollars to the region along with thousands of families who travel here for care where they also buy groceries and gas and goods we employ 50 people with competitive livable wage jobs and full family health benefits and over the past 16 years we've have more than 26,000 patients of record who reside in Beltrami County alone that final slide highlights our approach to Services which includes the recognitions of the social determinants of Health that can often create barriers for people in need with community health workers on site a creative approach to Patient scheduling and offering patient Support Services we go that extra mile to help patients of all ages our commitment has been from the beginning to not compete with the private sector Dental Community rather we aim to be a welcoming referral source for the patients they are unable to serve here in piji we have six to seven dentists on site every weekday seeing about 80 patients a day we're up on an street across from the emergency room if you don't know where we are drive by you'll see the volume of uh traffic that we have and while the demand for care continues to grow and we draw people from farther and farther away we are still accepting new patients so if you're aware of someone needing care who is unable to access it in the private sector please have them reach out to us and I've left some rack cards with an uh here if you would like to take any finally this notes our board of directors as a nonprofit organization they are are the ultimate stewards of our mission I have been the executive director for almost 17 years and continue to be humbled by so many Community leaders who have shared our commitment to helping people in need thanks for listening quick overview I promised but I'm happy to answer any questions you might have questions for Jean yeah go ahead Joe yeah um on the first slide it showed your service area um but at the bottom it said no Geographic boundaries can you explain that so the is in general that's a um a visual that shows where we're drawing the most from but we take from all over the state and and North Dakota as well because Minnesota doesn't with the uh there there was one exception with itasa medical who I am care their County based purchasing prior to this year did not allow their enroles to cross count itaska County boundaries but we've finally engaged with a partnership with them too so we so people can go anywhere with that ins insur thank you do your uh dentists work just for Northern Dental Access Center or do they work elsewhere we have a mix um we have been able to capitalize on the independent contractor model by having people who are already in the private sector who maybe own their own practice work a day or two here and there for us we have semi-retired or people who have sold their practice U because they don't want to be in the business aspect of it just want to do Dentistry we have a few that have sold their practice 20 years ago and just like to stay in the dentist game and uh we're now just getting a couple of new grads out of dental school um where they can also get their loan forgiveness program through the National Health Service Corp so we have four or five generations of a real diverse mix of dentists some employees some independent contractors very good I know you're blessed with a excellent board of directors as well which is uh very important for an executive director so indeed um you got a good crew there I know so thank you for saying that Jim Mr uh thanks Jan for Prov providing the update I do appreciate that it's kind of curious um if you partner with any of the the local tribes or or IHS I know that um Red Lake is you know having some difficulties um with a dentist um and a lot of people travel to Cast Lake you know to receive their care it's kind of curious um if you provide any services or or any Partnerships that that may be helpful for some folks that you know live up in the the northern part of your your service area yes uh in fact our at at our last uh data dive over 50% of our patient base are American Indian people from uh the three area tribes but also from farther away um we don't have any formal Partnerships uh we do provide uh overflow um contract from Red Lake so they can refer patients that they are struggling to see or fit in um but patients who are dual enrolled in a tribe as well as medical assistance or Minnesota care they can go anywhere they want and so many go just like the option of something local but they uh also receive care in an Indian Health Service clinic so we see a little both and uh White Earth has also helped us with um most recently get a grant for Indian Healthcare we're one of the few non-indian organizations that receives the Minnesota Department of Health Indian Healthcare Grant because of the sheer volume of patients that we see so we work uh to uh train our team to be uh culturally competent and humble and uh welcome patients of all ethnicities to our clinic and I follow up a question Mr chair um do you envision or do you see a need for dentists in in the near future we always have openings for denst there's a shortage like all like teachers like nurses like bus drivers it's a shortage across the region um so we always have openings for dentists hygienists and dental assistants are also in a short supply in the region so we we almost always have openings all right thank you thank you Mr CH anyone else have a question Richard as I said at the beginning when I saw you uh here earlier Jean um I know that Dentistry through Prime West and and trying to get competent uh dentists or or situations for these people not just for preventative care but for the for the actual major work uh is very difficult to do and uh I think the more we can help someone when they first start having teeth trouble the the cheaper it is for the county or uh the city or anyone to uh to do that and and uh there's more and more because there's less dentists there some of them are pretty choosy about who they have and who they don't have and and the recognition of of insurance is is also a h a problem so we're seeing fewer and fewer we lost so many small town dentists uh especially during covid and that's why people are traveling farther and farther right and Prime West has said we they feel we have reduced emergency room visits for oral health issues and um so overall it should be cost savings back before we started when the county was motivated to help uh they were sending five 5,000 patients or more out of the county every year for dental visits and that was the impetus uh to get this project started and so you know here we are almost 20 years later um with this size uh and capacity it's just an incredible um statement of how a Community Coalition can really make things happen so and and also the idea that we keep people out of the emergency room has has proved to be effective yeah yeah good any other questions for Jean Jean thank you so much for coming appreciate you taking the time you're welcome and please have anyone reach out to us that uh that might need our help happy to be there awesome thank you thanks for your time ah Tom we going to have Pat dive right into it or you do you have a little something to start us off with well I mean if I go I'm going to steal his thunder so I think I'll restrain myself and uh Anderson Integrity come on up and uh share us the moment we've all been waiting for the bid opening in the GMP think we Steve has a little handout too Mr chair is are there fireworks no we couldn't afford them oh could coach been well you did commissioner gic's been in my ear it says you can't be corrupted well good is yours well thanks for having us today so today's a day we've been talking about for quite some time so back on October 22nd we received all the bids uh for the jail project to estare GMP and good news is numbers came back very favorable so as you can see the attachment that Steve has we handed out was the overall budget sheet so we kind of follow along so I know the overall project budget was $80 million and once we got all the numbers back established it our GMP amount would be 62 million 647 616 so you know came in I think some of the contributing factors is the time of year we bid it there's a lot of work coming up around state of Minnesota next year so we want to get out and get those sub bids earlier so that way people could secure their or secure their work for 2025 so that's part of the contributing factor so um that number compares to the previous worksheet we gave you by about five 5 a half million less yeah really favorable we're happy ecstatic to see that actually more similar to the first spreadsheet that we saw at ka yeah yeah no whatever that was eight months ago or more yeah you're looking at a culmination too of what I think 100 bids on 32 packages so the coverage was very well I mean we we originally solicited an excess of 200 contractors invited them to pre-qual and just over a 100 uh submitted the pre-qualifications so we got very high turnout on the ones that actually submitted the pre-qualifications and of course some of these packages you look at detention and recast there's only so many vendors on that that actually work and uh if you can see that as a reflection here uh the dollars that are actually staying vocally here are are pretty dog on good you're you're talking 43% Bel tramy County here that's staying and then if you even take it the next step and look at something like pre-cast and detention me that's $15 million of the 56 million bids and we're looking more like 60% uh staying here that has the availability to so that is excellent go over to Grand Rapids that number bumps up to 52% if you really wanted to do a chart to put Detroit Lakes because there is but that's 84 miles away so but you know because the rougher and ceiling guy which those bids combin is around 2.4 million so we kept a lot of dollars you know local well within close to the region to go could basically Bel tramy County if you wanted to look at it that way you know represents about that 42 43% which is extremely good and high we're really happy to see that yeah and there was a good solid post bid pre-qualification or post qualification so you all the bids received we we've been active phone calls interviews emails back and forth with these contractors just dot in the eyes crossing the KE making sure that they were fully covered on what they bid is holistically so we want to verify responsive low right apparent low on bid day is one thing but to go through and verify everybody is is whole complete responsive that's the list that's what we ran with it is 100% responsive low bids that we plugged into the GMP Amendment that's in front of yeah Joe did you have a question oh just uh Curious where some of the um contractors came from outside of Bel tramy County uh just if you can name a few off the top of your head like uh the County or the city like any from Grand Rapids or up the range or uh well Wells preast is Wells Minnesota that's southern Minnesota no what the tension is in Southern United States although they use Cornerstone for like some of the trust built cells that come out of South Dakota um TR Lakes had Herzog griffine from that and then Dow Acoustics Grand Rapids had Casper construction on the earthwork and TNT for the concrete yeah asphalt actually as well so that was good to see D is Detroit Lakes D CU six right arist is out of they got the flooring glass they're out of Alexandri Alex yeah Anderson's Grand Rapids y theth cting theth so some Del a couple St Paul or one St Paul bender on drywall the controls are a Fargo wired electric yeah so that was kind of a good blend but all come we worked with before in the past and always there's not well not going would not one company on that list that we've had a bad experience with you know so no they're all qualified that was the point right of qualifying those who can perform and and provide good services for the project so we can have some faith that they're going to perform and not hold things up as well so that was a really good list that we had put together and we're happy with those that did respond yeah thank you any other questions for for to bring absolutely ask that yeah guys as I was looking at the the B stuff one thing that struck my was the alternate 3B for changing for the camera system to category 6A cable for the cameras and wondering if you could give me some reasoning on why that why that was changed or even recommended for category 6A cable when I don't believe there's a camera the market that can do more than gigabit speed um as a connector and the 10 a 6A cable is to do 10 gig um for 100 meters so didn't know why we would need to spend the extra money for that unless it's like extremely difficult to rerun wiring 30 years from now if we ever wanted to put a different camera in there potentially I just don't don't know that that really is the best use of money to bump that up to a cat 68 cabling from what I understand uh commissioner that the 6A initially was throughout we Revisited that and said probably do not need it throughout so the engineer electrical engineer at EDI did reduce it 100% to category six across the board right as we talked it through we had asked at that time when we did that drop to bid things as an alternate it was bid 100% at either all 6A or not mhm after we had some post bid followup with them asked is there a need for maybe something specific like cameras and there could have been a little confusion When we dropped at 100% I think his intent was to only drop everything but the cameras he feels strongly that the cameras do need that I think it's your point future flexibility but not knowing the exact camera that you're getting the um just wondering if it's because I could potentially see it if it was because of where the cameras are being installed that it would be really difficult for whatever reason to to pull a new cable in there if if it was needed for you know a power over ethernet application or something not the speed so much as the power potentially um or if they're doing PTZ cameras where they would need more power potentially I believe might have been something to do with distance as well would that have played a role I uh I mean this would be a great question for yeah it just you know that cat 6A is so much more expensive and and you know for however many cameras are in the jail here $35,000 to bump up to to cat 6A cable just seems like a waste because I I'm very confident that cat 6 cable would would handle it for the foreseeable future for sure 20 plus years at least it's worth revisiting that certainly with the engineer of record to have him give a little bit more formal I don't want to hold up the show on on the whole deal but but if that's feasible that we could revisit that I would like to like to do that see if there's something that could I mean easily incorporate with the GMP and if it's something want to to you could deduct that we could dedu okay right out I think getting the engineers opinion on it because I know there was a lot of emails back and forth in regards to why he wants to see the day so yeah that' be interesting to get his Logic on that I've got 30 years in technology experience doing that stuff in low voltage cabling and so I just uh really question that part I think it was like 85,000 maybe to do the whole you know all sixa and we said no there's definitely not a need to do that yeah happy to revisit that and L said it's an easy thing that we can just cut that back out again yep follow it up as a know point of of business great but otherwise I'm very happy with how things came out and you got great bids and did a great job thank you Tim has a question um I guess a question for maybe Tom or or you Mr chair is this available to the public it is now okay y just check in because people watch the Youtube and they're probably wondering what what we're talking about so I just want to make sure that yeah it's available to the public and and we'll make sure that we include this in the minutes as well so okay thank you any other questions for cross Anderson and contegrity Joe Joe so those were the contractors you mentioned earlier uh not the subcontractors correct the subcontractors they are okay so we're a little ahead of schedule on awarding the subcontractors we have not awarded the subcontracts yet not until we get to the official notice procedure from the county and get our GMP executed then we'll award the subcontractors so that's part of forming our agreement when we went out to bid on the 22nd of October we had everybody hold their bids for 45 days uh that technically those 45 days would be up and you know we we can't hold those numbers past first week of December we're hoping for you know today tomorrow notice proceed and approval but certainly need that by the end of the month yeah so that we can hold all of those sub contract bids that didn't come in the door okay we get working on shop trying to submitt get material procured and so we can hit the ground running yeah so they can actually start ordering their materials that have long lead times and so on WE we've got contractors on to know can we pencil in our production slot for for certain elements of this so and part of it too is you know since the jobs you know spread out over the course of you know two years a lot of this material is not going to be need till like year and a half in so we got they have to let their vendors know they're going to hold their pricing right so that was the other key for that too one more item for you just to point out on that spreadsheet previously we had identified and it's still there a fund if you will for the existing jail facility at that time time was about 32 million we were applying to it to it with the favorable bidding we've up that to 8 and A2 we think that for now that seems to be a comfortable price point until it's vetted out on exactly what to do with that facility so just wanted to be sure you're aware that's included right now within the budget and there's still $267,000 in change remaining to apply wherever to that or contingency whatever it might be and to to piggyback on that the sales tax you know as anticipated you're going to see wasn't part of the 80 million but there'll be about two million of it coming back and that number was based off of what the contractors included on their bid form what they have estimated now those get tracked actual but we'll compile put that together monthly basis and then about twice a year the county can apply and get a rebate uh so it's it's projected to 2 million could be a little bit more could be a little bit less but that's a substantial dollar figure coming back to very all right hey guys uh really shout out to car Anderson and Conger you guys have done a great job and appreciate your keeping this under budget and I know if you wouldn't have Craig would have gotten off it's not an $80 million project right it so thank you very much we appreciate it thanks everybody thanks guys thank you glad to be part of it Paul bunan Drug Task Force update Commander Hart welcome thank you for inviting me back uh so yeah good afternoon thank you again for for having me back um we're here last month obviously run an update on the the heida program um today I'm going give you a quick update on on what's going on with the local drug task force so uh just a real quick overview um for anybody that doesn't understand uh the pon drug task force is what's called a violent crime enforcement team or a vet um authorized under Minnesota statue um our goal is to investigate narcotics gangs and Associate violent crimes um while traveling I guess without um restrictions that come with you know county lines city lines what have you and work with other vets around the state um on those on those crimes because these organizations are working together and they're affecting large areas of the state um we have we have oversight from What's called the violent crime coordinating Council down in St Paul it's made up of local state federal law enforcement then prosecutors and four citizen members uh the PA drug task force has changed a little bit over time um what member agencies are on but this is a quick breakdown of what PA bunny drug task force looks like today uh nine member agencies uh each agency typically assigns one or two Law Enforcement Officers to work as agents um under me on the drug task force um then I have oversight we have an executive board that's made up of the chief law enforcement officers um from each of the member agencies that have uh voting rights uh to look at kind of where we're at today um these are some highlights from uh last quarter uh we break things down into seizures and purchases and that's just really the type of case that we're doing um the only difference between whether we're buying the drugs directly um from a suspect or if we're interdicting them maybe uh as they're being trafficked into Bel tramy County um so seizures were up um purchases are down again that's just because we're doing less of those direct sales case last quarter um fentanyl has continued to be a problem a large problem um as you can see uh that's kind of a trend that both seizures and purchases have been up substantially um cocaine is down was down last quarter in the area cocaine has been something that's been very cyclical um across much of the state not you know just Bel tramy County but it kind of comes in in waves and and goes away for a while then comes back um drug arrest we're below average again that's not um anything that's alarming to me as I look at statistics on a quarterly basis just because you know one quarter guys might be doing guys and gals might be doing some of those longer term investigations to where the following quarters when a lot of rest and things happen in some of those cases um overdoses I'm happy to report have been um stagnant at least um they haven't gone up um as we've seen in previous years uh they be did begin to start to go up at the beginning of this year they often do in the summer months but then they they plateaued out a little bit um I've talked to um you know my colleagues all throughout the state and um the individual that oversees all the the vets and there's really not an answer to this right now as to why um it's not a supply thing I can tell you that because there's plenty of the drugs out there that are that are being trafficked and being sold um but I think safer use practices um you know some treatment programs to programs maybe some of those things are working um so that's good to see and hopefully that's something that um continues downward Mr chair so you mentioned uh overdoses here and these are reported not these are reported and true and these are what's reported um so there there's a a lot of overdoses that happen that aren't reported to law enforcement um again that that goes with safer use practices where people you know whether they using a buddy system or whatever um you know someone overseeing maybe somebody who is using in case they do experience some of those overdose symptoms that there's someone there with Nar canol oxone to help so thank you um these are our statistics from last quarter uh the different drugs and then the prices you see associated associated with them are the street prices that we get from the Minnesota Bureau kerit apprehension you know so we did the calculation based on how many drugs we seize and then what the average street price for those drugs would be so on your top left we see just over eight pounds of methamphetamine having a street value of about a quarter million dollars um last quarter uh almost 500 of the fentanyl pills that I believe we spoked about last time fentanyl pills are less prominent um up here in Bel tramy County for whatever reason reason the powder uh fentanyl is is something that uh we we typically see in our case more often um we see it's just under three pounds of powder fentanyl $166,000 street value psilocybe and mushrooms have been something that have been trending back as well uh just kind of an FYI that's repeatedly we've seen some decent seizures of psilocybin mushrooms uh in the last few quarters um and cocaine like I said uh it's pretty cyclical um but sometimes we see it some quarters sometimes we don't these are our seizures compared to the same time uh last year um again this is a snapshot it's not saying you know things are completely off-kilter off balance but um we were a lot busier this year than we were last year that's for sure um arrest again our arrests were up what we really look for is in Minnesota there's a first degree through a fifth degree as far as range of controlled substance crimes with the most severe being a first degree um so those first degrees and the federal um you know conspiracy charges those are the cases that we like to focus on those are you know the people most uh responsible for bringing larger amounts into the communities is aren't your users um they may be users on top of it but um they're responsible for a lot of the drugs being distributed in our County um last month like I said Captain KK and I were here providing an update on the heida program these are some of the graphs that I included um in there just about the trends that we included in that petition showing the increase uh in seizures we've seen in our area in the problem that we're having um so this is heroin and Fentanyl the spike we've seen dating back to 2017 and then the same thing with methampetamine um the dramatic seizure we've seen um in methamphetamine seizures in recent years uh we also track um you know if we're placing children on holds when we're doing search warrants that kind of thing um and then obviously firearms that we're taking off the streets um you know those are key obviously performance measures that um are important to to show highlight uh these are some case highlights um just to show some pictures maybe of what you know some of these substances look like this is that about two pound seizure of fentanyl um again this wasn't directly in our area but this was an individual responsible for um fentanyl being distributed in our area U this was a a a stash spot um it was a fake battery compartment used in a motor vehicle um people often use hides uh like this so um interdicting and and finding some of the stuff often can be a little bit challenging but um I hope you know your battery box in under your hood is not uh tied down with bungee straps so that's kind of a giveaway there in the middle again that's the siloc cyb and mushrooms that we saw this quarter uh return on investment so something I do um every quarter when I'm uh preventing or conducting my update to my executive board is our return on investment um it's it's good to show you know that we're using money wise wisely and every money all the money given to us uh to do what we do is is uh having an impact so for last quarter for every dollar awarded to the drug task force uh we had a return of return on investment of about $519 um and then specifically I just wanted to to talk to you today about uh obviously the work that's been done in Bel tramy County uh we have one agent from Bel tramy County that's assigned to uh the drug task force like I said most people have one there's multiple agencies that have two agents assigned to drug task force including Cass Lake and the white Earth Indian reservation and the Cass County Sheriff's Office um you know with the increases we've seen it it's a lot of work um buiji has become you know that Central Hub which is why we got this height of designation a lot of stuff is coming here first and then going outwards um and a lot of the stats the the major stats that that we see are coming from the the Bel tramy agent the B agent and in their cases so um so what I do at the end of every year is do uh an agent appraisal and I look at you know the agents work throughout the year and how they're stacking up across uh the taskforce as a whole um these stats right here in the blue are the seizures made uh last year by the Bel trammy agent and the Orange is the agent median across the rest of the task force um just blowing those numbers out of the water it almost is is the exact same for the buiji agent again case initiation the Bel tramy agent uh initiated almost 25% of the cases on the p and Drug Task Force last year which shows you the the amount of work obviously that that agent is doing but the amount of work that that's out there for that agent to do so um thank you I don't you guys have any questions of me questions D thanks for coming thanks for coming back appreciate it BR I thought maybe you were gonna make Caitlyn do this I'll make her do the next one all right one water said one plan for the upper and lower red L update do you want me to do that one first or do you want me to do the Cannabis cannabis next I'm sorry we got the canas I'm sorry all right I'll do either one at your pleasure all right um we are here today um to first of all I'm Brent Roode Environmental Services director um two reasons one to give you an update kind of um what the draft cannabis ordinance includes and also to ask you to schedule a public hearing for that cannabis ordinance at your next County board meeting on December 3rd there's in your resolution or uh your uh consent agenda there's an item in there for scheduling that public hearing so um I'll start out with kind of where we're at um just quick kind of background the Minnesota Legislature legalized cannabis use and sales um kind of forced local governments into registering businesses and allowed them to create rules and then the more we move into this the more we learn the more we realize that yeah that's probably a good idea um ocm is the new government agency in state of Minnesota office of cannabis management you'll see that and hear about that a little bit um the right side just kind of highlighted that um ocm has been working on administrative rules they just kind of completed but not really completed but they pushed them out in September of 2024 and they're still working on updating them and tweaking them as they um have questions that they can't answer and they're going through the administrative rule process the rule making process and they're hoping to have all the rules finalized next summer um businesses are able to by law um start being issued licenses on January 1st what we're being told by our policy analysts at AMC is that that's likely not going to happen January 1 they're not going to be ready um they're still trying to staff up and do everything so one of the the best analogy I've been told is that we're um we're we're going down the highway at 70 M hour learning how to drive and somebody just ahead of us is still building their road so that's kind of what we're doing here it's not normal but that's the process we're in um just some quick timeline uh June of 24 is when we really started doing this talking about this at the county level um we talked about this with County Board discussed a possibility of a moratorium ordinance and what local implementation could potentially look like July you held a public hearing adopted a moratorium ordinance that or that moratorium goes through January 1st um August the County Board provided some guidance and um recommendations to the environmental service department Planning Commission for that ordinance um October the environmental service department Planning Commission completed work on the uh draft ordinance the Planning Commission held a public hearing last week November 13th on this cannabis ordinance um and then that night they voted to they made a couple or one minor edit and then they voted to recommend approval to the county board so um on the right side of the screen the highlighted Port that's where we're at today that's County Board presentation here and next steps would be public hearing next week or next board meeting if you are uh agreeable to that and then adopting an ordinance prior to January 1 either at that first meeting in December or the second meeting in December would be still time it could be adopted after January 1 it's just the moratorium ordinance expires January 1 so um the kind of some background information before we get into details of the ordinance itself um this is confusing for most people when we talk about this so I'll I'll keep trying to say this but cannabis retail businesses have to register with the local government where it's located before they can start sales cities and towns can delegate the registration authority to the county they're not required to but they can um local governments don't register the non- retail businesses so like cultivating and Manufacturing those don't get registered um the state of Minnesota office of cannabis management licenses all these businesses so they'll have a state license and then if they're doing retail sales they'd be registered at the local government level and that's that's kind of it um so now we're going to get into the ordinance draft language the summary um brand you might want to mention that the that the order of operations or maybe you'll get to it about that they have to apply for the license first and then come to us to get registered and approve I can do that right now thank you um yeah the right now the state of Minnesota is in the process of vetting um this pre-application period where applicants of social Equity were allowed to apply to the state for licenses ahead of the general public they're they're through the majority of prev vetting is what I've been told but they're still uh a lot to do and then they'll be hopefully holding a lottery for those licenses and then after that the general public can apply so they can't come to the county and ask for registration until they've been issued a state license the state will issue a a preemptive or preliminary license based on getting local registration approval which includes zoning approval um that kind of sums it up hopefully um so then at the registration level these are um registration requests going to be coming electronically to the county the county auditor's office in our ordinance would be um in charge of that registration process and I Envision it would be similar to the liquor license tobacco license registration that the county auditor's office does um I know the process is a little bit different I've been talking to Leela Roth in our auditor's office who does that work um so she's been talking to ocm and is kind of figuring that um how that's going to look and how that's going to work out already uh the county sheriff shi's office would be required to complete the mandatory compliance checks of the registered retail businesses um I apologize to the Sheriff's Office but this is required whether we have an ordinance or not um the state says this is what's going to happen and then environmental services department and the Planning Commission would review conditional use permit applications for specific business requests and that's mostly from like a zoning perspective um the in the ordinance it says the county will limit the number of business to one for every 12,500 residents that means we would have a maximum of four in the in the area of the county where the County ordinance would apply um cities and townships can choose to adopt their own rules and they can choose to have unlimited numbers they can choose to have different numbers they do not have to be as restrictive as the county um this is kind of a a backwards rulemaking where most of the times County sets the standard and then cities and towns have to be at least as restrictive this one the statute is is written a little bit differently where cities are given their own kind of unique path of um administering this and townships that one is still kind of undetermined or undecided as far as rules and guidance goes um the other thing I just learned recently today uh this morning was that the tribal compacts and the tribal Agreements are being worked on at the state level but right now in the Draft rules it does say that those business licenses can count towards our um maximum number if we decide to have them count towards our maximum number um next hours of operation uh the Planning Commission determined would be 10: a.m. to 10 p.m. and Advertising Signs they'd be allowed to Total not to exceed 100 square feet combined um here's a summary of the buffers so in State Statute they allow counties to um limit where these bus retail businesses could be located and these are the maximum distances that statute allows so the that's what's in our draft ordinance now and um it was an interesting scenario where the city of kellier came to the Planning Commission and presented information that their city council has a b or yep sorry my bad the city of black duck has identified a downtown business district that is within a th000 feet of their school and that is a place where they wouldn't mind seeing a cannabis business go if somebody wanted to put one there so we added language in our draft ordinance that allows cities and town that have delegated authority to the county essentially the the power to Grant variances to these buffers they would have to do it at their council meeting or town board meeting and vote on it and then we would get their minutes and we would have the official here's what they approved and so we could go less than that um there is no other process other than that um kind of a zoning summary so these are the different um activity types cultivate a manufacturing wholesale Transportation delivery and Retail and they're all a conditional use permit in the non- shorel zone and Retail is the only one here that would be allowed in the Shoreland Zone as a conditional use permit and so uh the conditional use permit the the whole reason that counties issue conditional use permits is so that the county has the ability to review the application on a caseby Case basis look at the business proposal look at the area that it's going to be going in and then um approve that application with appropriate conditions that's why it's called a conditional use permit so whether it's off street parking or lighting or security or noise or odor limits or things like that that was that's what the Planning Commission then would just um initiate in with the conditions and the condition you permit um temporary cannabis events is another kind of category that's in State Statute um kind of unique how it's it's worded and written um it just says our ordinance says a permit would be required for that that permit would be issued by the auditor's office similar to their um actual registration and then I just added in here for clarity that they would be required to get a conditional use permit for certain events if it reached over a thousand people because if it reached over a thousand people our County public gathering ordinance would then apply and that requires a conditional use permit so whether it's a temporary cannabis EV event or not um in there it say it specifically says they can't apply to host one of these events on county-owned or city- owned property in those places that have delegated their authority to the county so they'd be doing it on private property and then um the next thing isn't related to Temporary events but low potency we've kind of had some um confusion or uncertainty there I've clarified some of that stuff today um but it would be a conditional use permit it's it's essentially retail sales so it's it'd be a conditional use permit non Shoreland and Shoreland it' be allowed in Municipal liquor stores without a conditional use permit it's just allowed flat out and then it doesn't count towards our 1 to 12,500 people those are the low potency retail sales and um our auditor's office has looked up the ones that are licensed right now by the state of Minnesota for low potency sales and I I don't remember the exact number but it's in the low 20s range in belamy County that are licensed to sell low potency um stuff right now and that is my fast summary of a 133-page draft ordinance does anybody have any questions or discussion or questions for Brent else Tim um Mr chair so I was just kind of curious about cities within you know beltram County have they expressed what their intentions are are they going to assign our um to the county or are they going to do did you say cities yes um I've talked to a couple of them I haven't talked to all of them them um we are I'm still working on scheduling a date to invite cities and townships to a like a work session Discussion Group where we can just get together and talk about what the ramifications would be if they delegate Authority what it would look like if they didn't um what our ordinance includes and what they want to do I I assume based on what I'm hearing out there that most of the cities and townships are going to want to delegate authority to the county besides the city of bidi um I haven't talked to the city of will but they're one that typically likes to do their own thing so I would assume they would do their own thing here too but we'll reach out to them and talk to them all thank you um anybody else yeah Joel yeah yeah um I believe the city of buiji set their buffer for schools at either 500 or 750 um so would they be in violation of this Ordinance do they have to redo it or they find because they're their own City jurisdiction um and they're doing their own per um registration yep I so I confirmed that this morning with our policy Analyst at AMC they're they're fine to do it on their own they can have an ordinance that completely goes against what the County ordinance would have um as far as the number of registrations the buffer requirements the process for permitting all of it so yeah they they have their own authority to do that Craig yeah thanks Mr chair just uh why especially for Christina who's here the city administrator of black duck um I know they had talked about wanting to do kind of a partial delegation of authority and I'm just wondering how that would fit because I believe that the city of bidi is is probably going to settle on on authorizing up to six uh non non-municipal establishments which would essentially afford the county to be able to say no other ones are allowed anywhere else if they got their six before somebody like or someplace like black Doug did and and wondering how that partial delegation if they if they have their own ordinance but it doesn't have them doing everything is that still able to afford them the ability to have one separate like just like the city of bidi can have more than the four that belamy county is allowing yeah my understanding is they wouldn't be able to partially delegate after we've kind of talked about more and learned more um really the they want to delegate the inspection part on the back end because they don't have the staff and the people to do that and stuff and we've just kind of talked about logistically that you know we could maybe charge for those services or something like that but it would most likely be delegating or not delegating and then if the city of buiji had their six and the county quota has been met before any other ones were outside the county our ordinance says that we wouldn't issue a right registration to anymore and so then I think at that point the County Board would have to consider either amending the ordinance to allow something or maybe the people that are providing information and feedback to the Commissioners says we're good with that we're fine with that is there an opportunity for them if if they do delegate and don't have their ordinance initially can they change their mind and come up with an ordinance y once they so if they have a business that just says yeah we want to do this and and uh we're going to apply for our license and and that then they could actually create an ordinance and then they would pull back that ability to to have one at that time yep that's the way I understand is they'd be able to resend their delegation to the county and adopt their own ordinance and Implement their own rules at that time okay yep thank you Richard Brent it sounds like this ordinance is really going to have to be what they call a living ordinance that there's going to be a lot of changes it might be passed in one form January 1 but it may look quite a bit different in a year's time yeah I would agree with that um I I think that there is a likelihood that the administrative rul making process at the state level creates some circumstances where some things in our ordinance just are conflicting with state law at that point and so we'll need to update it to comply with those rules or whatever they come up with um this is kind of the the worst case scenario for rule making or ordinance making I think where you're forced into doing something fast without knowing all the answers um It's a situation where we've kind of we're doing the best we can with good intentions knowing that we're going to probably revisit this and have the ability to to do that so there there was a comment made at the Planning Commission level where you know it's it's easier to adopt a restrictive ordinance up front and then pull back on some of those restrictions later than it is to adopt a Bare Bones ordinance and then add more restrictions it's so so that's kind of the the tenor here um yeah I would I would agree with that that I expect there will be changes any other questions for Brent Brent good job I know this is has thank you Brent it's been a tough deal so thank you you did a great job changing too yeah yeah like they said summer summer of this coming year before they really have things before they have things done six months from or more than six months from now so and I would just remind the Commissioners that the December 3D public hearing is on the consent agenda if you have any issues with that we can make sure we pull it off but otherwise it's on the consent agenda to have a public hearing on the third and we pretty much need to do it then in order for us to be able to to move forward and pass something before the first of the year yeah all right thanks BR now we can do one wat said one plan now we can do one wat one plan come on up Kaitlyn well I I I told Caitlyn she should come down and be here because she's the one that helped this process over the last six months is um to get it kind of to where it's at today so if I don't uh know the answers to any technical questions or anything like that she's my support here today um kind of have a a few different things going on tonight uh or just giving you some uh update on where we're at with the upper lower Red Lake one water St one plan process um just some background this process began in 2022 um it's a Cooperative agreement with Beltrami County belamy SD the Red Lake Watershed district and the Red Lake Nation um this is actually the first one in the state that I aware of where the or a tribal nation has signed on as a policy Committee Member um in forming a onew sh one plan a lot of other tribal Nations have been involved with them they just haven't been formally on the policy committee so um we're breaking some ground here in the state of Minnesota um there's been many policy committee meetings many advisory committee meetings steering team meetings a lot of work behind the scenes with Houston engineering our consultant and um for Drafting and coordinating this process the draft plan went out for review this summer to the agencies and the public and everything um there was a public hearing last month at seven clans Casino end of October um up in Red Lake the plan is about 180 pages long I I brought you a uh a copy just to see we won't go over this I was going to freak Tom out and tell him that since we're ahead of schedule maybe we'll go through the plan but we won't um so next steps uh the next steps are to submit the plan to Bowser for approval adopt it as our official water plan for that area of Bel tramy County and implement the plan on your consent agenda today there is a resolution that combines those three things so if you pass the consent agenda with that on there it essentially authorizes the county to submit this plan to Bowser for approval contingent upon Bowser's approval then it adopts the plan and we begin implementation of it um the next thing we have a um memorandum of agreement that we've drafted Caitlyn's been working on that um this one's been a little bit more unique than some of the other memorandum of agreements around the state because we have a tribal Nation involved and uh so we've been working with our County attorney and the tribal attorneys and language that works and uh fits with everything and so we have a memorandum of agreement a resolution on the consent agenda as well tonight and the memorandum of agreement essentially states that we're all going to work together to implement the plan we're going to create a policy committee to make recommendations to the Fiscal Agent um the grant for for implementation is it's a large grant for implementation of these Watershed plans but the grant is really with a Fiscal Agent the the policy committee isn't a like a joint Powers entity or a joint Powers board it's not a legal entity it's kind of an Advisory Group um all the local boards the County Board the sbcd board they all retain all of their own authority as boards the policy committee members don't take any Authority with them they're they're essentially acting in good faith on behalf of their organizations and making recommendations to the fiscal agent on on implementation and everything else um Bel trammy s CD was the Fiscal Agent for the plan and we're assuming likely will be for the implementation as well um Caitlyn was kind of our lead person for the plan process and um we've got another guy in our office Dan who likely would be the lead person for implementation if we're the ones that would be doing it so since his primary workload is soil health and egg related stuff and that's a a good chunk of the main priorities of this plan is dealing with eggs type stuff and so it would make sense to have that person administering the plan up there as well so um I sent a summary of the plan in there it was just kind of a brief high level overview of the plan in the in the agenda bill but um that's all I have for you today I just wanted to make you kind of aware of what the details were with those resolutions and what those really meant and if you have any questions Craig sure yeah is this very similar to the Headwaters one Watershed one planet where it's all voluntary the farmers the all the land owners and stuff are offered programs that can assist and and help with the conservation and protection of our water and and that but it's not a heavy-handed situation where they're they're all of a sudden have a bunch of regulations on them correct yeah it is exactly the same okay it's all voluntary there's no rules being created with this plan um it's it's essentially providing dollars to go and Implement these restoration or protection goals and be working with land owners who are are volunteering to be a part of that you um a lot of these there are some Financial incentives for land owners to do it to participate in it whether it might be like um it might be converting a traditional row crop to implementing cover crops or no till drill into their operation it might be a a cattle um a confinement area that would be looking at um establishing some rotational GR raising to better keep vegetation on the ground so that their cattle have better forage and less manur sediment going into their creeks in the spring um some of it is providing drinking water to cattle to get them out of the streams and providing for fencing to keep them out um yeah so there's a lot of incentives but not mandatory the carrot versus the stick exactly yeah so just want of people that might be listening to to know that thank you yeah anyone else have questions for Brent U one last question uh cost of the county other than our staff time um so the Grant in theory pays for all the staff time okay for implementing and for all that stuff what the grant doesn't cover um so we're we're not required to provide a match for these grants because um for the planning grants because it's already assumed that like the county commissioner that goes to these policy committee meetings those expenses aren't covered by the grant so there there are some expenses to the county but by and large it's all covered by the grant itself great thank you Caitlyn great job thanks BR you did a great job with this thanks thank you moving on to the classification and compensation study welcome an Shader good afternoon um so myself HR director and Shader along with we have some representatives from Baker Tilly and then also uh County Administrator Tom brry will kind of be going over the classification and compensation study that we have uh the results for so just a quick overview the purpose of a CL the classification and compensation study was to develop a pace structure that will allow the county to maintain fair and Equitable structure for employees most importantly the study will follow or must follow Federal and Minnesota pay Equity laws for the local government pay Equity um some requirements of that and of a job evaluation system that meets those goals the elements would be a structure that's kind of based upon the skill effort responsibilities and working conditions of a position this is done with big biger tilly safe point factor job EV evaluation system which they will get into a little bit more here during their section of the presentation uh we must also ensure the pace structure is one that is used to determine comparable work value for all classes of of our employees in the organization and all the positions so our last study was done over 10 years ago and that was conducted by Springstead and the implementation of that study was by using the next closest step when the results came through um for this study the board approved the classification and compensation work group and that consists of um commissioner Anderson County Administrator Barry auditor treasur treat and then myself uh as a our director we developed different elements that we going to go into the study itself and then sent that out for an RFP for um proposals to conduct the study four rfps came back and with that the work group reviewed and scored the rfps individually and then met as a team to kind of go over our evaluation and then we selected the top two firms to bring in for an interview from there the recommendation was that we go with maker Tilly which the the board approved um and just some highlights about Baker Tilly itself or themselves they follow the best practice and guidelines to collect and analyze um data for compensation classification studies the firm also specifically focuses on providing compensation consulting services to all sizes of local government so one of their statistics about you know the firm that we found out with the RFP process is they have done over 500 projects that are specifically or with specifically 30 in the last year in for Minnesota agencies um in the last four years excuse me the team of professionals that we'll be will be chatting with tonight um they have direct local government experience and also human relation or human resources experience as well and they are certified compensation analysts so today we have our Consulting manager Sarah and our classification and compensation analyst Thomas and I will pass it over to them thanks an all right well I do have a bit of a brief presentation for you all thank you so much for the opportunity to share our findings and recommendations for the classification and compensation study for Bel trammy County so taking a look at our full process we want to be as transparent as we can with what we've done throughout this study so we work through a five-phase process with the county um I'll go through each of these phases but letting you know that we're here now in the Final Phase of phase five of project completion where we're preparing the final report um handling all project documentation over for delivery and then administering ongoing training with HR so diving into the five phases we start with project initiation which is where we get to understand the needs in the working relationship with our project client team um understanding what needs are going on with the county right now a very large uh data collection effort than underway understanding your existing pay structure policy handbooks job descriptions organizational charts may have the union and collective bargaining agreements we needed to know about just how salary is administered in belamy County we did do uh communication meetings introducing ourselves to employees and Leadership letting them know about the study and have the opportunity to answer questions the largest part of our data collection effort though does come from the position analysis questionnaire so this is an online question we had over aund uh over 99% of the employees participating in the position analysis questionnaire process it's an opportunity for the employees to tell us in their own words about the work that they're doing for the county those paqs are then routed to a supervisor for review and had uh 99% of the positions represented in our paq process this is really important because it formed the basis of the study so it all of our data and all of our analysis really stem from the the participation of employees and their supervisors in this early phase process from there we moved into our phase two which is position review we started by reviewing all 144 titles making recommendations for adjustment and as Ann stated we then conducted our job evaluation system which is a point factor tool we call it safe it stands for the systematic analysis and Factor evaluation it's a process that allows us to understand the hierarchy of jobs within the organization it's a measurement of the position not the person in the organ in the position and it's measured based off of these nine compensable factors the typical ones like education and experience not what the individual holds but what the position requires we also look at the level of work or complexity of the job who they're interacting with on a regular basis the physical demands the working conditions or those environmental exposures whether the position has autonomy and discretion and Independence to make decisions what's the impact of those decisions on the organization and the type and scope of supervision exercise again because this is a measurement of the position not the person in the position we are in compliance with uh Federal equal pay and Minnesota local government pay Equity act this is what's really uh forming the basis for understanding great assignments later on while we're out and doing understanding the internal Equity of the organization we're out to Market so in phase three we worked with the or uh County to identify comparable and competitive peer organizations organizations who look like you work like you we carry a significant threshold of the positions in the county to Market this case 75% of the positions were carried to uh Market best practices say that we need to at least calculate market values for 50% of the positions so we go out to Market with at least 75 guaranteeing that we're going to get enough data to be able to make adjustments to the pay structure and then we do make some adjustments to that data once it comes in so something like work week if another organiz is on a 375 hour work week we want to make sure that the annualized rates are the same we age the data if it's not for the current fiscal year here that only happened with the Bureau of Labor Statistics but most importantly we don't wait the data this is a law of averages we're working on as we and understand the positions and so no one peer is given preference over another no data is pulling the data in any given Direction it's a law of averages and then we don't just do a title for tile match we actually dive into the duties and responsibilities to ensure a quality match as well so the county identified these 12 public peer organizations to be included in the study and then you can see our three published surveys those are Bureau of Labor Statistics comp analyst and the economic research institute those are included to help represent the private sector in this data overwhelmingly the majority is coming from those public organizations but if we do have analogous positions they're in competition for talent with the private sector those are going to be incorporated as as well we are able to collect or compile data from 11 of those unfortunately the mij area schools was not able to participate in our study at this time but we were able to capture 14 points of data from the peer organizations as well as those private sector surveys so in total 110 Benchmark positions were included in the survey we're able to capture then Market values for 94.5% of belamy County's Benchmark positions from there we prep compared a couple of different reports looking at comparisons of the salary ranges ensuring that your minimums are going to be competitive so you're able to draw Talent into the organization but we don't just look at the minimums we look at midpoints we look at maximums we want to understand the full range so Bill trammy county is not just a training ground where you can become come into the organization train them up but you're not competitive at the midpoint or the maximum and you may be losing Talent as retaining employees as well so we look at the full range spread we also look at different threshold representing 5% above 5% below of market and then we did have an average of about seven matches on average for each of the Benchmark positions the more matches we have the more confident we are that this is the true market data for that position so great Market data here with 94.5% of The Benchmark positions represented in market and looking at that data that we are able to calculate market values for based on the draft market results on average Bel tramy county is 6 .6% below Market at the minimum 12.4% below Market at the midpoint and 17.3% Below Market at the maximum so what this is showing us right now is exactly that scenario we're a bit more competitive at the minimum but we are losing ground throughout the pace structure as we get approaching midpoint and even at the maximum right now overall this is showing a lagging Market uh philosophy this is likely just a function of it being 10 years since your last study making incremental changes kind of the the results of covid everybody kind of catching up and so this is a great opportunity for the county to really recalibrate your entire pay structure to be Market competitive and make up some ground here so once the market results are complete then we start turning our attention towards pay plan development we did make recommendations for adjustment with with your existing pay plan and it's going to help make sure that you're in compliance with Minnesota pay Equity but also um that you have a great compensation philosophy and it's going to meet your business needs so from there we move into phase four phase four is our pay plan development Bel tramy County currently has one pay plan and we're recommending keeping that same one pay plan for all of the positions but with some recalibration we want to recalibrate this to Market so you're Market competitive and it's also going to be tailored a little bit and and really undergoing those uh compensation best practices once we had the pay structures developed then we worked with the project team to review the proposed grade assignments we worked with Department directors received feedback made adjustments and from there then we were able to look at our implementation costing and provide recommendations as well phase five is again that project completion where we're working on the final report the final uh presentation and then being able to turn all documentation over for delivery as well as ongoing training for HR and and her team so I want to walk you through kind of what we've done to the pay structure why we've done it as well as then getting into our recommendations so this is familiar this is your existing pay structure or your current pay plan for belchy County it is a 10 step pay plan meaning we have steps one through 10 and minimum representing step one and the maximum representing step 10 it's 25 grades however not all of those grades are in use you can see we do have those Reds highlighted there for grade two and grades 22 23 24 where they're not all in use that's likely just a function of supervisor subordinate separation or or getting people up to speed pretty quickly into the pace structure the majority of the positions right now are falling within grades 3 through 21 there's a couple of measures that we use to determine and understand the health of a current existing pay structure the first is really that function of the number of steps and the percentage between steps so on average average we have right now 3% between each step though that is inconsistent sometimes it's 2.9 sometimes it's 3.1 its average is about 3% but it is inconsistent right now as we go from step one to two to three and up through step 10 on average we do have then about a 30% range spread that distance from minimum to maximum if our range spreads are too narrow or we don't H or we have too many steps sometimes that does make a function of our minimums competitive we're even losing ground at the maximums um and so we want to make sure that we're really looking and understanding how to recalibrate this to Market another important statistic that we use is what we call the midpoint differential that's the distance between each grade at the midpoint right now you have a 10-step pay plan which means there's not really a clear midpoint midpoint right now is mathematically somewhere between six and five and six um ideally what we like to see is an odd step pay plan so that midpoint is very clear by the time you're fully proficient in the role you should be paid at or near the market value for your position midpoint meaning Market is our common terminology there but we also want to make sure that your minimums are competitive so you're starting midpoint right now is at $19.99 an hour you can see that's somewhere between that grade one step five and six so what we're looking at and what we're proposing is keeping the same structure with some adjustments so we are keeping the same 25 grades we are looking at using more of those grades now though and then we do have instead of a 10-step pay plan we have a nine-step pay plan so that mathematical midpoint or it is very clear it is aligned at step five now is we very clearly understands how somebody comes in to the pay structure at step one and moves up through step five step five representing when they should be at or near the midpoint of their uh pay structure aligned to Market and so this step five is aligned to the market at the midpoints at about 95% our goal here is because the results of market showed that we are about we're more than 10% uh behind Market at the midpoints we have a significant amount of ground to make up by strategically lagging the market in the short term the County's going to have the opportunity to really recalibrate this entire pay structure really get on the line to internal Equity make sure you're in compliance with Minnesota pay Equity standards now that everybody is where they should be within the pay structure and all the positions are calibrated now everybody moves equitably together and in subsequent years you can close that ground or make up that difference from going from a 95% of lag Market to catching up to being 100% of market so this is meant to be a strategic lag in the short term but we have that looked at those differences between steps now instead of that inconsistency it's a consistent 3% between each step for grades 1 through 12 3.25% between uh steps for the grades 13 through 24 the purpose there is we just need a little bit more wider range spreads for the positions at the top end of the pay structure you can think that these are department heads leadership managerial positions and so we want to make sure that they have enough earning potential but also making sure that they compe itive in market with the market rates for those positions we've expanded the midpoint differential against that that that uh difference between each grade at the midpoint we've expanded that because we do have a mix of all of the positions in one pay plan so we have a mix of positions that are eligible for overtime non-exempt positions and positions that are are exempt or not earning overtime and as employees move through their career progression sometimes they get very stagnant at that transition between a non-exempt and exempt pay plan because they're looking at that next rung on the ladder and saying I'm really comfortable I don't have to earn anymore because I'm going to out earn my supervisor and so by having more separation here between the grades it allows us to be Market competitive but also uh has that avoiding compression and making sure that we do have good distance between supervisors and subordinates here now these numbers were not just picked out of a hat they're not picked out of random I'm going to tell you there's a little bit more math behind it I'm the giant data nerd so I'll talk to you about a good regression analysis all day long but I'll keep it uh short and sweet which is this is really what we use to then figure out how to tailor that pay structure to the new market conditions so we want to make sure that we're in alignment that your minimums are competitive the number of steps makes sense and that career progression works as well so each one of these blue dots represents a position in the organization where we have the job evaluation scores and the market dat where they intersect and then the dark blue line in the middle is that line of best fit the dotted lines then represent the pay plan that we have designed and proposed that are really falling in alignment and parallel to that market data this is what's really helpful in understanding how we make those structural adjustments to the pay structure but this does not tell us where the position should go on the pay structure so this is about the structure itself the next part of this process is now that we have the pay structure and the values aligned where do the positions go so that's what we call grade assignments so in Minnesota because of this Minnesota local government pay Equity act grade assignments are purely based off of the job evaluation scores we use the paqs or those position analysis questionnaires from employees and their supervisors to score the positions that's what we use to then make determinations for grade assignments in total 142 unique positions were classified to a grade in in the proposed pay plan purely based on internal Equity we don't consider again the person in the role their performance how long they've been with the county even their existing salary this is about the value of the position not the person in the role that's what allows us to be in compliance with that pay Equity that's what pay Equity is so then once we have those gr assignments determined we did review those with the project team um HR facilitated conversations with directors to ensure that we were evaluating the positions correctly got their feedback and and needed to make any adjustments or changes to re-evaluate the positions again using those paqs as the basis and then feedback from directors that's what we use to then determine those great assignments from there we then move into our implementation scenarios so up until this point in the study I haven't considered the people in the role at all about what the structure looks like and the positions itself now here once we figure out how much is this going to cost Bel tring County to implement our recommendations we start plugging people back into the equation so the calculations that we about to show you reflect base pay only so these do not include anything like supplemental pay practices shift differentials overtime or even our benefits and those kinds of components so this is purely reflecting base pay adjustments only important to note that Baker Tilly does not recommend a pay decrease for any employee as a result of a study in the case that we do have a handful of employees that where their current salary is above or outside of the new proposed range we do not take money away from them to put them onto the pay structure or find them an appropriate step if there are a handful of employees that are above the the new maximum we consider and make uh recommendations to Red Circle or freeze those employees until the pay structure shifts and and market conditions catches up to where they are again that strategic lag in the short term by the time we're leading Market they will likely be folded back into the conversation so we prepared four different implementation scenarios for the county to consider the previous implementation of your your previous study was option one this is where employees based off of their current existing salary move to the closest step without a decrease this is just to get all employees onto the pay structure option two is actually where we move employees to the staff that correspond to their years in position so they may have been with the county for 15 years but last year they've made manager and so we want to move them to the appropriate step within that manager pay range so if a a position or a person in a position has been in their role for three years they would move to step three the math there is then taking uh the minimum of that salary range and then determining 3% for each of the three years and that was what we determined is that adjustment to their existing salary so three years in the position step three option three is the move to the same step so ease of administration ease for employees to understand whatever your current step is currently is what you'll be on within the new existing pay plan if employees are at step 10 because we're going to a nstep pay plan they would be on step nine um unless that would result in a decrease of their salary in which case they're red or frozen option four is employees move to the next step from the closest step which means this is the same option as option one but then we give everybody an additional step this is helpful as a calculation that can predict how employees are moving through the pace structure and what it may look like next year if everybody achieves a step so those are those implementation scenarios again then we worked to understand where the 451 employees of Bel TR County are currently within those and prepared the the recommendations and the calculations So based off of our uh snapshot results of of the the pay uh payroll at the time we have employees that are below the minimum are at 155 employees that have a current salary that is below the new proposed minimum so option one is just trying to get them to the closest step without that decrease 291 employees have a salary that is with within range within their new nine steps and then we do have five employees that are above the maximum again you can see for each of the scenarios their salaries are not uh adjusted and there are no additional calculations for those employees those are our red circle so I'm happy to answer any questions but I do want to end with our recommendations which is really urging uh Bel trammy County to approve the pay plan and the position grade assignments that were uh in compliance with Minnesota local government pay Equity act based off of the job evaluation scores reviewed by the project team with feedback from department heads and Leadership um and then approve an implementation scenario that addresses the County's compensation philosophy business goals one that is fiscally sustainable our goal was to not just to deliver a pay structure that works for this year but one that will allow you to maintain over the life course of of the pay structure and our biggest recommendation is just to continue efforts like these maintain the classification and con uh compensation system by routinely reviewing positions job descriptions market conditions adjusting the pay structure and salaries annually to keep Pace with market and even adopting General increases annually to reward employees and ensure that there is this advancement through the assigned pay ranges these are this is the project team and I'm happy to answer any questions anyone has about our process questions I doesn't look like we have any questions Sarah that was a great great run through you guys don't want to talk about a good regression analysis all day I'll do that all day uh Mr chair I just wanted to follow up on Sarah's presentation and talk with you about the committee's discussion and recommendation regarding the four implementation options that's been presented uh Sarah and Thomas will remain on the line in case you have specific questions as it relates to imp mation options and and kind of what we'll be discussing next but um after carefully reviewing uh those four implementation options that were presented uh by Baker Tilly the classification and compensation committee looked at those options as well as the County's finances and is making the recommendation that the board adopt option three and to also include a 1% additional Market adjustment above the 2% cost of living adjustment that's already been established for 2024 five what this would do is it would essentially uh not only keep employees whole uh with regard to the implementation of the study but it would also make sure that we don't start uh behind by implementing the 2024 market assessment results in 2025 so we've talked with Baker Tilly uh our HR directors talked with others to try to figure out how could we take the 2024 data and ensure that because we're likely to implement in 2025 should the board approve this uh we we just don't want to be behind so what would we need to do to the 2024 data to get it to be 2025 data and the the conclusion was it would need to be adjusted the entire pay structure would need to be adjusted by across the board 3% increase the good news is 2% is already established and budgeted for next year as part of negotiations uh so that's the reason for the additional 1% recommendation by the committee um thanks to the wisdom of the board uh for saving for this project and planning for this project the money that we have budgeted for this project will um will uh pay for the project so you already have this money budgeted right now it was very close I mean we were very close on the estimates but the money is there so I wanted you to be aware of that I I did also want to give you um thanks and also let you know that your additional uh wisdom and forethought during Union negotiations is one of the biggest reasons why this number isn't in the double digits uh you might recall there was a midyear adjustment that was made to Market of 4% uh which is something the county hadn't really ever done at least in recent history had that not occurred these numbers would be four to 5% higher than they are currently and that would simply have been unaffordable so the reason reason the numbers are smaller than maybe we anticipated in going into this is because uh especially as of late the county has done a really nice job trying to keep Pace as much as we could within the means and the data that we had available to us uh in keeping the staff whole so I just wanted to mention that uh in regards to next steps uh if the board does uh consider approving this plan and it is on the regular agenda for your consideration this evening um the plan would be to implement it for all non-union staff m numbers in the pay period that includes January 1 2025 we just need time internally to process these results do all the pads for over 400 employees and get the calculations right and proofed and then give that information all over to payroll to then enter and so on and so forth uh the implementation for union members will likely follow a different path uh we want it to follow a similar path um but because we have Union contracts we have to follow you know we can't just Implement so we have to meet with the unions one of the things is that um the recommendations that we are being made tonight are outside of established Union contract implementation language for uh a classification compensation study update so because of that we're likely to have to uh enter into what is called a memorandum of agreement with each of the unions and so we'll need to sit with those unions share with this information um with the business agent the representatives and uh and then through a memorandum of of under of agreement rather uh attempt to implement the same way we're trying to implement for the non-union staff we want Our intention here is to keep everybody the same keep everybody whole we just have to follow a different process as you might imagine because we have Union contracts in place so um that's the intention um if the board does approve the study we would like to inform the staff as soon as we can I mean I can guarantee you if if you prove this tonight our phone will be ringing off the hooks tomorrow morning and everybody's going to want to know where they're at where's my grade where's my step how much am I making am I losing money am I whatever you know and of course the recommendation we have is that nobody's losing money um but we are going to get these questions and I just maybe this is directed to the staff more than anybody else we're going to need a little bit of time to parse out this data I mean this is one comprehensive study and in order for us to get everybody's individual data out we might need a couple days to do that so I would ask the the staff to be a bit patient with us while we attempt to do that we want to get you the information as soon as possible provided the board approves it uh so that that's our intention um lastly I just want to say um a project of this size and nature uh comes along along fairly infrequently I mean as you've heard before it's been 10 11 years or so since we've we've done a project like this it's an expensive project it takes a lot of time it's uh somewhat distressing for the staff uh going into a project like this and not knowing what the results are going to be um it's difficult on on leadership as well it's certainly yourselves you know how are we going to be able to afford whatever the number is going to be um all of that's very distressing um so I just I just want to maybe throw a couple shout outs to to some folks uh first of all I want to start with the board uh for your absolute and unwavering support of the staff uh right from the very beginning discussions which really started during Union negotiations several years ago uh this board was clear um about its support for the staff and I'm I'm so grateful to be working with a board that cares so deeply about our County Workforce so thank you for that um if it wasn't for your wisdom and forethought and your planning and your saving years ago we we would not see this project come to fruition today so thank you very very much for your leadership um I also want to thank the committee because um all of us have jobs all of us who are on the committee have jobs we got lots of other things going on this is an enormous amount of work it takes a lot of time and uh and we're talking about colleagues and we're talking about impacts to the county and we're trying to balance all sorts of different things like finances and operations and impacts and Union implications and staff and all of this kind of stuff and it it's trying it's hard and I I just I want to thank the the committee for its professionalism uh and for always putting the interest of the staff in the county first and foremost so that has been very very rewarding for me at least to be a part of a group like that um I want to thank Baker Tilly as as you see I think we hired the right team we we had a team of experts on this project right from the very beginning that is incredibly knowledgeable um I've been through a couple of these studies before uh the command by which Baker Tilly took this project on and the the way that they have been able to help the committee and the county along the way and the professionalism and tenacity and patience they had with us along the way um has just been absolutely uh you know immeasurable it's it's been very very impressive and I'm very very grateful to Sarah to Thomas and the leadership team at Baker Tilly for helping us through this um they've ensured that this is the most fair and objective way that we can approach this study and um and and I'm very very proud to to uh to have them as part of the project I also want to make a shout out really quickly to the management team um you know they they've were instrumental and helping us along the way to the department heads had to look at their structures they had to look at the internal arrangement of their structures and help us evaluate the equity and organization of their structures they provided that feedback we had conversations with them that was integrated into the process and and of course that takes time for department heads particularly those who have large departments to go through that process so I'm I'm extraordinarily grateful for them um for their feedback and support and and their contribution and lastly I want to thank the staff um it might not seem that the staff has done very much but they've done they're they're the basis of all of this right we're we're working so hard to try to uh to do what's right for our staff and this project started at the very beginning with the staff um you know willingly contributing to the process by developing their um paqs or their um Personnel action uh Personnel their position analysis questionnaire we have so many acans on this say there you go you got it yes thank you um but also I I just want to thank the staff for their trust in the process right we're we uh we've worked as hard as we can to try to produce the best result that we can we know that for some people it may not be the result there hoping for um but I can guarantee you that it um is it's the best that we could do with the objectivity and the alignment with the state and federal statutes that's required for this type of work and uh I'm just very proud of it and I'm I'm grateful for this staff's patients uh we'll try to get you your results as soon as possible should the board uh favorably act on this this evening uh but that's all I have for you this afternoon uh our HR Director an uh Baker Tilly and myself will stand for any questions that you might have as a reminder this is on the regular session for your consideration it's not on consent in the event that you decide you want to have additional discussion at that point in time as well questions for Tom or for Baker Tilly NOP I think we're good all right excellent great presentation thank you thank you Baker Tilly we appreciate it um I guess I'll just stand here for the next item if that's all right all right moving on to administrators update right thank you Mr chair uh I have a very brief update it's only been a week since we've met so you know although that's all a little bit of time I don't have a whole lot for you um I just was going to update with uh you on our second meeting with Health and Human Services leadership team uh we did meet for another two and a half hours the budget committee and and leaders of Health and Human Services to go through the remaining half of their presentation um as you know we've been working through uh trying to get a better understanding of of the Health and Human Services budget the constraints and challenges and and the opportunities available within that budget and within process improvements uh to to make a better outcome um you know next time as we go through the budget process um it as I said before it was extraordinarily lightening it was very informative um it is something I think the board would benefit greatly from hearing we probably should have tape recorded it now that I think about it because then you could have just watched it on your own but um I do know an linth our health and human services director would absolutely love the opportunity to answer any questions or talk more with either of any of you about uh about what they're doing because they're actually doing some pretty darn cool things um in fact a lot of the things that they've adopted on their own are are are imper parallel with high performance organizations um so it's it's very exciting for me um to to watch the evolution of that group and uh and I'm excited to see what's next um I think we're going to see some really great things from that from that work group and sometimes that's all it takes is it takes a challenge for us to then seize an opportunity uh to transform what we do and and I'm I'm absolutely convinced that they're on a great path so I just wanted to give a vote of confidence there for that um and then uh I want to let you know I am currently finalizing the County's 2025 legislative platform I think we've got about eight items on that list so far uh just another plug uh to you all if you have anything that you would like uh for us to include on that we'll be happy to include those my plan is to present that to you for your initial consideration at the December 3rd meeting um lastly Diane if you have those hand out this will be great I just wanted to mention that uh it's getting close to the time frame where we have to do that end of the year minutia you know things like committee assignments PRM stuff newspaper blah blah blah all that stuff and so uh in anticipation of some of those conversations in December I wanted to pass out the current committee list uh for committee assignments um so you all want to kind of just look at that maybe talks among amongst yourself about what committees you want to remain on uh what committees you may want to change uh we're also going to give that list to commissioner elect Winger uh so that he can also participate in that process uh somewhat informally because really you know you all still get to make the decisions but um at least he can maybe provide us some insights about what his interests are what committees he might want to be on and that kind of thing uh and then then we can get you that information and then you all can deliberate on that um nothing's required right now uh we' got several weeks before we're going to bring this up for discussion but uh just something we wanted to kind of get you prepared for uh lastly just kind of fun thing I wanted to give you a reminder that we're going to have the United Way chili cook off and the basket raffle it'll be on Wednesday December the 4th it'll be in this room from 11:30 to 1:30 a great deal of competition a lot of fun a great way to mingle with the staff and I know they would love to see our County board members there so no pressure but uh you are certainly welcome and invited to attend uh and if you'd like to participate we can put you in touch with somebody who uh who can help you with that too that's all I have for you this evening I'll stand for any questions you might have any questions for Tom uh with that I did communicate with the other commission members about uh doing what we did last year we all kicked in 20 bucks and and Diane was gracious enough to take our $100 and get a really great gift basket not sure who won it but I know that they they really liked it and so um I I'm I'm I'm inviting all the commissioners to kick in $20 so that we can have a basket from the Commissioners so thank you very much appreciate it thank you give thatan yeah we'll give it to Diane um and with that uh any other business uh at this time any where we at any changes anything want to be pulled from the agenda so now will be the time good all good on the agendas okay all right we're adjourned till until 5 o'clock --------- ##VIDEO ID:3KnFkKkSAIs## e e e e got that e e e e it is 5 o'clock on Tuesday afternoon November 19th 2024 and I call this regular meeting of the Bel try County Board of Commissioners to order please rise for the pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the repic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all is there any citizens that would like to uh make a presentation to the board that's on an item that's not on the agenda please come forward and I'm going to have to re read this first anyone wishing to address the County Board on an item not on the agenda may come forward at this time to be recognized by the board chair please state your name and address for the record comments are limited to five minutes a Personnel complaint against an individual County employee may not be heard initially at a board meeting Personnel complaints may be submitted to the board in writing through the county administrator's office a person addressing the board may not use profanity or vulgar language welcome please state your name and address my name is Kelly the and I live um just south of itasa state park at 35380 East boot Lake Road Park Rapids Minnesota just moved there a couple weeks ago so I have to keep the address in front of me um so for the last few years I've been working to create public awareness about the issue that those who are convicted of possessing Distributing and producing child sexual abuse materials receive extremely weak sentences which does nothing to help protect victims and prevent future victims of these heinous crimes 90% of those convicted of possession get little to no jail time probation has proven to show that it does nothing to stop them from creating more victims I realize this may not be a high priority for you right now but I would strongly encourage you to join with other counties in the Northland and add this to your legislative priorities this issue is inextricably linked to the sex trafficking industry child sexual abuse materials are fuel for the traffickers to groom abuse and desensitize their victims the language of the bill that will be introduced in the 2025 legislative session by representative Christa kudon in its current form is HF 432 over the years that this legislation has been introduced by representative Matt grassel it has had bipartisan support but unfortunately there have been key people that have been obstacles for passing this legislation their main objections have been that they don't want a mandatory minimum sentence even for the worst of the worst of these offenders and that it would increase incarceration costs their objections ring Hollow when you look into the face of a young child that has been raped and tortured on camera for all the world to see and their lives literally shattered the ripple effect of these crimes is widespread from the mental health of the law enforcement that rescues the victims and investigates these crimes to the current and future families of these children the drug abuse rate is also a factor in these cases as the victims try to find ways to cope with the trauma they' been subjected to this should be a high priority for your county as trafficking cases have been reported in every single County in Minnesota downloading of the child sexual abuse imagery is also happening at an Astron astronomically growing rate according to the BCA in every County in Minnesota especially since the 2020 lockdowns this leads me to another related issue I would like to encourage you to be supportive of private organizations that come into into your county and want to provide support and housing for traffic victims in the long run private organizations providing these services will take pressure off the current County Services that are being provided and ultimately save the taxpayers some money which should be a top priority for anyone in public office for the record Law Enforcement from across the state have been extremely supportive of our efforts on all of these counts as they are demoralized when having to arrest the same people over and over again for the same crimes they are the front lines to provide help every time another victim is created I appreciate your time and attention to these critical issues and I do have a handout thank you thank you is there any other other citizen wishing to address the board all right with that we move on to the agenda Mr chair a motion we approve the agenda as presented is there a second second discussion all those in favor I opposed that motion passes uh moving on to the approval of the consent agenda do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda chair motion is there a second second discussion hearing none all those in favor say I I I opposed that motion passes as well moving on into the agenda with the jail bid results in the guaranteed maximum price Amendment um I would uh entertain a motion to approve the jail bid results and the GMP Amendment and Exhibits Mr chair I'd like to make the motion that we approve the the jail bid results is there a second and and the GMP amendment of course and we have a motion and second uh do we have any discussion about this anything that you want to discuss further about this I'm sorry Mr chair I just want to make sure for the record that we have uh the full motion and the full second support for the motion since it was partially broke yeah sorry about that motion is for the to approve the jail bid results and the GMP Amendment and Exhibits and Exhibits what you know whatever is on here Y and I can't recall who the second was that was okay thank you so much sorry all right any discussion I just said I I expect that if if it is found that we um are able to remove the $35,000 for um um um the bid alternate number 3B I think it was for the cat 6A cabling for the security that that that will be able to be removed after the fact um that we won't be stuck with with this that's correct yes so Mr chair commissioner gosig that is correct uh any changes to the agreement at this point in time would be would be made as a change order anything would that you know takes away or or subtracts from the contract would be a deductive change order we have a a very streamlined process for that uh anything that we added after the fact of course follows the change order process that's in the original contract agreement um so but but that's entirely possible uh and I I think the conversation with the electrical engineer behind the scenes and the design and operation teams follow up on that uh we hopefully Enlighten that conversation and perhaps allow for that opportunity all right seeing no other discussion then I'll call for the vote all those in favor the um the motion please say I I opposed motion passes moving on to classification and compensation study I would entertain a motion to adopt Baker til's classification and compensation study with the implementation option three and add a 1% Market adjustment above the approved 2% Cola for 2025 to update the plan to 2025 Market rates and authorized staff to fund the implementation is there a motion Mr chair I'd like to make that motion you would like to make that motion is there a second I'll second it we have a motion and a second is there any discussion seeing no discussion all those in favor say I I opposed motion passes moving on to additional items uh legislative or lobbying issues that anyone has seeing none we'll move on to commissioner reports uh commissioner suar uh thank you Mr chair so last week I was uh I attended the um management team meeting it was a good meeting it's good to be back uh you know doing my assignments and as I mentioned uh last week that I will be uh resuming my committee assignments back in January and also want to let the board know that I will be absent at our next uh meeting on December 3rd so thank you okay commissioner Anderson good thank you report um commissioner gig we had a solid waste committee meeting this morning um had a Planning Commission meeting uh but nothing um that stands out to report report about we have our Airport Authority meeting tomorrow night okay Comm gold um there hasn't been much the last week a committee meeting for bcap and couple of things coming up this week uh there's a bcap board of directors meeting coming up on on Thursday and um Northwest uh juvenile center board meeting coming up on Thursday as well which I'll plan to zoom into um and then also coming up is the AMC annual conference um down in Minneapolis which I plan to attend as well so and part of that is the uh rural County uh caucus organization they they'll meet that Sunday night Sunday night commissioner chair I had one other thing I forgot about the the fairboard um we had a meeting there last night and um there was questions about you know they're working on their budget and questions about when we're going to do the Development Fund I know um administrator Barry U mentioned you know that we were probably not going to do that until you know January February time frame but uh um you know just um they're makes it a little bit difficult for them to to budget without having any idea I don't know if there's a way that we could get them any kind of estimate on what we might have from the natural resource um and from the Development Fund so they you know it know are we going to have any money this year or we going to have you know um you know potentially 15 grand or or you know what what are we going to have potentially available to that they could apply for and do they even waste their time applying or is there not going to be any money know it' just be nice if we had some way of of doing that like we used to to some degree but maybe not official until we know what the numbers are after the the um um bids are out in the beginning of December well perhaps we could have Shane give us a kind of a ballpark of where he thinks we might be at that's what I would like to see if we could get something like that that' be nice thank you Comm gold yeah I forgot to mention a kls board meeting this Thursday not bcap um and and part of the meeting is to work on the budget for next year um I know we've um put together flat funding for KR krls from from uh Bel tramy County this year but essentially it's amounting to a little over a $19,000 cut uh between the buiji and black duck uh libraries so um we're working on um where to um find those dollars uh out of the local branches so um hopefully we can do that um otherwise um maybe we can make a a last minute budget amendment um at our uh next meeting G yes I like to make the recommendation that you ask them to use it out of their extensive resource Reserve funds instead of cutting something well we are using that money for the uh Levy buy down so that Bel more of it is what I'm saying you've got a lot you could use more of it well that's just a suggestion instead of cutting yeah um it's supposed to be used for emergency Reserve purposes and and Capital Improvements which we have been doing uh that that money is actually um pretty much budgeted out for Capital Improvements over the next several years so but we're looking into options all right with that uh commissioner Anderson and I went to the canvasing um process and Jody did a great job of explaining everything and how things tie out um I think people would be amazed at the all the work that goes into having to make sure that every vote counts and the proper procedures are done and so shout out to Jody and all your staff I appreciate it thank you um we had um the Cannabis uh public hearing was last Wednesday and um it was interesting that we did have a a city city of blackd came um and that's why Christine was here today to kind of find out what was going on with that so it was interesting to see what was going on there um airport Affairs committee met uh on Thursday morning um the airport Authority joint meeting with the city we did on uh last night um and I think that went really well went kind of quickly and so um other than that um I have a Prime Health board meeting this Thursday in Alexandria but uh with that I looks like uh I have chat about uh before December 3rd meeting so our next meeting is December 3rd 3 o'clock work Session 5 o'clock board meeting um I'll have chat about for that and then it looks like Joe you probably have the management team meeting on the 11th any other questions with that I'll entertain a motion to adjourn don't move is there a second guess we'll STI second all those in favor I oppos we are adjourned thank you