##VIDEO ID:JA4gwZimR4U## Commissioners and public health we're good sir we good okay we'll call the county board meeting for December 3rd to order we'll serve the pledge allegiance I pledge Al unit States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice Beth roll call sure commissioner slan here commissioner Heinen here commissioner ginsky here commissioner Johnson here commissioner pop present thank you I'm going to start saying that okay approve the agenda Monty do we got anything to no move for approval Mr chair is presented we got a motion in a second all in favor I post same sign motion carries uh County board meetings are broadcast live and video recorded on YouTube please refrain from speaking from the audience area and come to Podium so viewers can hear you the County Board OB observes Robert's Rules of Order for its meeting so please obtain the board's chair consent before addressing the County Board public comments are generally reserved for the open Forum segment or public hearings however public comment on other agenda items may be allowed at the discretion of the board chair as we begin today please turn off your cell phones or turn them to vibrate thank you open Forum there's no one signed up okay consent agenda move for approval of consent agenda items 1 through four Mr chair second okay we got a motion and a second for consent agenda items 1 through four all in favor I I oppos same sign motion carries okay next we're going to do the truth and Taxation tonight we are conducting a truth and TR taxation public meeting the purpose of this meeting is to discuss the per proposed 2025 budget and Levy after the brief staff presentation I will invite members of the audience to the podium for questions and comments about the proposed 2025 budget and Levy if you wish to address the County Board please sign up on the sheet in the back of the room when you come to the podium please give your name and address if you have if you have come here tonight with questions about the property values on your truth in taxation notice please sign up on a separate list in the back of the room and our Land Services office will contact you please put down your telephone number and the and the best time for us to call again the purpose of tonight's meeting is to discuss the proposed budget and Levy not specific property evaluations please sign up to speak with the county assessor and they will do their best to address your questions we will now begin with our truth and Taxation meeting with staff report Monty so just a does that apply to anyone who has a specific question about your values that are on your statement any have specific questions about the values on your statement so again you know if you may want to sign up and then Brian can give you a ring uh when it's convenient for you sir sure sure of course if you want to testify please do but he can give you a call sometime later this week okay so we're good okay all right your mic on Monty yes sir I just wasn't close to it okay thank you yeah all righty well as you said Mr chair the purpose of tonight's truth and Taxation meeting is to discuss the proposed budget and Levy um the statutes really don't tell us specifically what to talk about it just says it should be discussed and then the public give it an opportunity to speak so uh we have folks here tonight so my comments are going to be deliberately brief so there's lots of time for you all to hear from the folks that have shown up here tonight so I'll go through this pretty fast so um I'd like to focus first on this summary that's in our packets and this gives you a one-pager quick summary of the proposed 2005 budget and Levy the County's proposing a a 4.98% levy increase for 20 from 24 a $24.9 million Levy our this our 10e average is still pretty low 2.7% is the 10e average Levy change um the the third bullet point down as Brian told us we're seeing a little bit of stagnation in our tax capacity we've we've we've seen sizable growth in that the last several years that has slowed down couple factors the increase in the Homestead market value exclusion and some value reductions tied to sales data uh we're going to see a slight reduction in our tax capacity 7% for payable 25 so that will result in a tax rate increasing from 44% to 46.5 but I want to point out we're still down from a peak of 77.6% back in 2014 so down substantially from where it peaked back in 14 um the the operating budget s is is almost $70 million and and uh that's due in part to a very large 2025 Road program it's going to be probably I think as Chris told us one of the biggest ones in history uh lots of things going on finishing up kha 7 uh the 29 extension the 29 roundabout lots of big projects uh the nice thing is though most of that is funded with federal funds state funds our local option sales tax and willage tax uh no Levy dollars are going into the roow program so the next several bullet points uh down talk about well what makes up this increase for 2025 well as you often hear employee compensation benefits is the largest portion of that we have a 2.5% General wage increase uh next year most of our employees still receive step increases that averages 3.2% and uh so that's that's you know count as I usually say every year County government is a people intensive operation so it's not surprising that you when you see General wage increases step increases that translates into the largest part of your Levy increase moving on down the board approves some new positions for next year we'll talk about that in a second we're seeing increase out of home placements in human services uh we're going to get some additional charges from department of corrections as they allocate some of their central office costs to us just a little note there is that our probation office here is managed out of the St Cloud doc office uh so they're going to start charging us for some of those Central support costs uh the board chose to add a dental benefit for our employees uh new benefit starting in January a com more Comprehensive Dental at this point all we have is preventative Dental this adds a little more comprehensive to cover more things like that filling cavities and and so on excuse me uh we're seeing increased usage of the East Central Regional Juvenile Detention Facility often called liono Lakes more juveniles are being place there the last item is uh we we're seeing a pretty pretty decent increase from extension because as we heard they need to be competitive trying and attract and keep Regional Educators so they need to do something on wages for those folks so that's why we're seeing that that increase uh to us for those shared positions I mentioned earlier there's some new positions that are approved uh moving on down to the new positions two Detention officers our our Sheriff told us that the Department of Corrections has told us that we need to fully staff all of our posts 24 hours a day 7 days a week uh as a compromise the share proposed going into what's called a five post jail where uh five of the I think it's six posts will be staffed 247 and that allowed the board to add just two positions rather than the eight that the sheriff said we ultimately could need um to help pay for this we're going to eliminate two part-time positions and the board has asked the sheriff to bring the SCS crew leader into the jail to cover shifts rather than having a crew out there because crew sizes have been really small because the populations in the jail are so low the board added environmental Tech technician ditch inspector of course as you know we've been doing much more aggressive ditch program the last several years and the board wants to make sure those ditches are maintained so we need someone to stay on top of that and as Chris told us environmental permitting is getting vastly more complex and time consuming and that will assist the the the highway department in managing that aspect of Road design several positions in human services a lot of them are driven by it's case load it's uh it's Cas load in Income Maintenance it's case load in men choices it's in it's case load in the Home and Community Based Services area you heard from I believe it was Sandy talking about the backlog of getting to the men Choice assessment it's like it's in vir is like six months to get to some folks and we're supposed to do those a lot sooner those men Choice assessments are folks needing um long-term care talked about the dental thing so Mr chair so that makes up the the uh the changes in the proposed budget from 2024 I'm going to quickly go over yes sir Monty as a note I think we should we should make the public aware that the added positions for the Human Services uh the uh with dealing with the case load is all um Grant related so we get grants back from the the state government for those positions thank you sir for bringing that up that is that is true right is proposed by Human Services all those positions are fully offset by Revenue so we earn Revenue we do more work we earn Revenue uh so those are are covered right no no Levy dollars are added for those positions yep thank you good point all right so really quickly this is kind of under the subject of you know the overall budget you know where do where does County get its money where does it how does it spend the money well this graph shows you where the money comes from as you can see the largest part is the property tax levy 37% and again kind of going back to that very large Road program we're going to receive 122.5 million excuse me next year in state and federal resources for the road program Human Services as you mentioned brings in substantial federal and state resources to help offset the our cost to administer State program so almost $10 million or 14% of our funding picture comes from those Human Services Revenue sources uh a few other larger ones you can see the wheelage tax and the local option sales tax 4.3 million and again that goes exclusively to roads the Kat system and the local Road system um one I like to point out is County program Aid that is you you sometimes hear about LGA for cities that's this is lgaa for counties and for us it's only about 5% of our overall funding picture I know with cities historically it was a lot larger there were some instances where almost half a City's resources came from LGA it was never the case for the county it's always been as long as I've been here 22 years it's always been about that 5% number so it's it's a property tax relief mechanism but it certainly has its limitations because it's not a large part of our overall funding picture now where do the resources go uh these are what I would call sort of operational categories you can see salaries and benefits the largest piece almost a third uh capital projects is a big one this year with again all the the road program uh Capital Equipment that we need to replace in Highway and and elsewhere Sheriff squads operating budgets make 177% and employee benefits are 12 so that's obviously the biggest piece is of course is is health insurance and so on debt service has been has been reduced down to a really small part of our budget just 1% we have one remaining Bond issuance and they'll be paid for in about four or five years that'll be done and we won't have any more debt so moving on to uh this is an I I like to sort of give this illustration of what I would call a typical Department because when you have you look at the overall budget you include the highway this massive Road program it kind of tends to distort what a typical budget is and a typical budget is primarily dominated by salaries and benefits and the the point I'm trying to make is that that's why when you have you know a general wage increase a general step increases it does translate into those Levy increases uh for most departments uh because the most departments are supported by in many instances Levy like especially your General Revenue fund departments primarily Levy so uh I I kind of like to point this out for your typical Department almost 75% of their budget is made up of salaries and benefits and again what I'm doing here is I'm kind of just taking the capital off the page because in most instances capital is funded with non- lovy sources like the again the RO program all right so this is I think one of my last graphs is U this shows you by department so where do the money go by Department um uh Chris RNs the W for the largest budget for next year 31% for Highway uh it's probably the largest one ever um and then Human Services second at 23% and then Public Safety of course which is the sheriff's office which is the law enforcement side jail we also toss uh probation into that I believe we also put Emergency Management so the top three make up 71% of the total proposed budget and you may be wondering well what's General governmental well that's like um auditor treasure uh Land Services um County Board County Administrator those kinds of General County functions we lump to that cat ategory called General government that's 16% of the overall budget again you can see debt service is down to less than 1% of the overall spending budget so Mr chair the rest of this is uh just detailed spreadsheets things that I like not many other people do but uh and they're in the packet and I should say is that this material let me just if I can open up if I may in our County website is um um this information has been posted on our website for a couple of weeks so folks to see so where they go out there what they'll find is they'll find the summary I just just went through but they also if they really into budget stuff the uh the detailed line item budget is out there too so all I'm not sure how many pages a couple hundred pages so think I started out this year I mean since you know talk about the budget this is the budget you know all these detailed line items buy department so if someone wants to really get into the details and examine the the budgets by line and by Department it's out there on our website so Mr chair that is all I had does anybody have a budget book here the we got a B budget like you I I'll at this point I what I'll do is I'm of course available answer any questions best I can and turn it turn it over to you Mr chair okay County Board any questions for Monty nothing new to us no no um anybody in the audience want to speak on this or ask any questions okay just come to the podium and uh say your name and address please good evening ladies and gentlemen my name is Glenn cashm 4785 55th Street Northeast I'm a part of a farm Family Farm Corporation and I know we're talking about Taxation and all that I'm very concerned what is our number one industry in Betton County I believe it's Agriculture and I'm kind of concerned because I'm the president of the beton maax Farm Bureau Federation and Farmers have came to me and said Glen do we realize that beton County's taxes is is getting crazy and obviously when you go from 20 2023 to 2024 and we're going to see a 30% reduction in gross revenue on the farm because the crop prices it gets to be a bit of a challenge so as a farmer as a lifelong member or resident of Bon County I'm just concerned some of the big ones is pilgrims PR over there on Highway 10 um as a county what are we going to do to protect our number one industry which is agriculture that's the number one sector is pilgrims P Pride golden plump chickens and um I'm glad that we see see the budget of uh using some good money for roads and and bridges and all that because everything we produce on thei field has to go down a road but I just want to emphasize that uh on behalf of all the farmers of Betton County please keep in mind when we're setting our budget what do we have to do to keep our number one industry alive we have two huge Machinery dealerships in the county and uh we have to try to keep them and we don't want to lose anything we drive up the road we see Morrison County Little Falls they have a lot of Industry going there why can't we get some of that it's a constant challenge so on like I said in behalf of the farmers I thank you to you gentlemen for doing what you're doing but do what we can to try to keep our taxes down thank you thank you believe believe me it's a tough conversation every time I mean when you're looking when we start our budget just with the wage increases we're looking at a 5% Levy right there and from that point on we got to start working down um Bard you guys got anything I agree I mean that's that's where we end up starting every year is this magic 5% number on our wages and yeah we sit around for two and a half days in arguing we got it down to 4.98 yeah yeah and the other part is that we've seen the value of of land go up and and Farms go up in value and they're carrying a big burden with that because it's based off your you know total valuation and when we continue as Farmers as you know Glen I farm and when we continue to purchase land at these high rates we're not helping ourselves at all I mean it's uh you know it's based on what the sales were across the county you know and Glenn you you mentioned a little bit too and and the positive side of that and you hit it right on ahead I believe 85% of our County's land use is an egg and some way shape or form whether it's emu or chickens or dairy everything in between right and and we do have very strong right to F ordinances set in this County and and I think we do our very best to promote egg as much as we possibly can because again that number is 85% it's not 25% right so we're very much aware of that you know one other thing we might want to Pro point out is that you know over the course of since 17 we established Benton economic partnership and they've done a lot of good things in the county to attract businesses bring businesses to us uh I don't know if you're aware or not but that organization just found us a million dollars that we were going to have to put off the levy into County Road 29 and and one and without that organization and we'd have never found that money so you know if you can get out and promote be it's a membership County driven organization that's doing a lot of good for the county there's several businesses that have have came in and expanded or had um a startup from that organization and the county does supported to somewhat but boy there's a lot of good businesses out there that are supporting it every day yeah and we do hear we hear it at the state level I'll I'll consider the three of us more more uh City with Sock Rapids in in uh in St Cloud area but uh we hear from extensions down in the cities on on like how well our Count's doing on egg and and how we're promoting things and and I think you guys do a very good job of of pushing that stuff forward thank you Glenn for your comments thank you thank you who else would like to speak my name is Daniel Doan I live on 13015 85th Street Northeast Foley question I have is uh I didn't really look at all these increases over the past several years we've only been here seven years and has it been a static increase every year of a certain percentage or or where's that at good question Monty can answer yeah Monty can answer that but I think it's been pretty pry it's been pretty consistent pretty consistent yeah know what you're talking about let's see here it's that graph that's in the packet of I still have this open yeah so that's that's the best illustration right there so the this is the these are the annual percentage increases in the levy starting back in 16 you can see follow my finger across there you know so it's it's it's the last few gear where 2022 we really 5.9 yeah 5.47 last year 5.15 and as commissioner Johnson pointed out a lot of that's just compensation driven and we we we're trying to be competitive on wages and benefits so that's a lot of the driver you back in these years we we had some debt getting paid off which really helped uh keep the lobby down but you know that's we're down to having one debt debt right now and that's going to be paid off in about four years so that really helped in those years so what is that last Levy you just talked about that's going to be gone in a year it's about 300,000 gone it's at 4 years yeah oh yeah 2014 tax bonds with round about so it's about 300,000 in four years yeah one other quick question I knew I do know you guys are we're building a new building here in beton County and in Foley um when is that how is that going to affect taxes and when is that going to go into play I go ahead I'd like to start but uh I let's not put the card in front of the horse we're not building one at this point oh okay I've seen it on the news it's on the news we're we're going through the process of figuring out what the costs are going to be on it and I if you go through um basically what we have right now and what the upgrades are to bring it like we got elevator needs we got we got so many upkeep needs right now we got got to look at all options um one of the figures that we got to redo this building and to get it where we need plus add-on for all the space that we can't use down below was about was it 75 cents on a dollar 80 cents on a dollar so I think that came in like 20 21 million 22 million yeah that's off the books for now then that's off well it's off the books we're we're we're in the process of getting pricing back on what it would cost and then we'll be doing what four or five Community outreaches to let people know options and everything like that so and Mr chair if I could maybe just to answer that question a little bit better is we have purchased the property across the road so the county does own that lot for a future building at some point and so we're in those discussions of is that the direction we're going to go or not yeah one other quick thing was what are you when you talk about road maintenance and ta taxes and what is there any road improvements coming up I noticed I seen that they're going to redo and 43 out of town in a couple years all the way to Golden Spike Road and 66 out here but is there anything this coming year road projects that are the budget maybe Chris Chris you want to address the 25 Road projects yeah yeah as Monty indicated earlier it's a it's a big year so yeah County Road 43 in town here actually is in the budget next year that's going to be a joint effort with the city of Foley they're going to reconstruct some of their streets in town and and Norman Avenue in Foley is also a county road so that's one of them we got a couple Bridge repair projects up on 22 and get Granite ledge and then on 51 southeast of town both of those combined is about $2 million and once again about half of that is being funded with federal funds the big uh County Road 29 and County Road one roundabouts there on the north side of Sock Rapids that's almost a $4 million project now uh thankfully we got that $1 million Grant somebody mentioned be getting for we have a million dollars worth of just Excel Energy relocations in that project um in in the budget though in these numbers was also reconstructing CA 3 and County CA 5 in Gilman we think that's going to be delayed now because Gilman has a significant portion of that project where they want to reconstruct their their sewer lines under our road and they don't have all their funding in place uh so the B and then we've got some you know uh some Millan overlays there's a sand mix overlay on County Road 25 for next year our routine maintenance of patching um and crack filling is in that budget as well throughout the county so and hopefully finishing up kasas 7 yes that's right because that was yeah since that was a 24 budget that's going to carry over into 25 thank you I forgot about that so Casas 7 reconstruction which we started this fall will continue next year and finish up so just to put in perspective it cost about a million a half dollars per mile to reconstruct a road nowadays so that's the world that we're living in and it was just what 7 800,000 yeah when we did uh County Road 78 yeah s or eight years ago yeah it was about $750,000 per mile so that local option sales tax is really helping our yep y that really is but one other thing you might want to note is that if you took all the levies in the in the whole state every County in Minnesota we are the 28th lowest there's a lot of counties that have a higher Levy than we do so we're number 28 and we've taken the tax capacity since I've been here when I got in we were like you know what Monty say 76 78 out of 87 and we're down in that 40s you know U we need to get down my my goal always was that we could be middle of the pack I don't think we're ever going to be on the lower end because we don't have the drive for businesses like some counties do to to come to the county we're working on that but it just don't seem to happen so um you know they we work on it every day every time we have budgets or we have something going on we work on trying to get Bon County competitive because as you know businesses are not going to come to Bon County if you're in the higher end of the tax rate and to go a little bit further on your uh your question on the building uh believe me the five of us up here have been working diligently on that we shut it down for a while um because pricing kind of got out of control and uh a few things so I mean we understand completely all of our taxes go up with something like that and it's got to be done the right way that's why we' took the extra steps to figure out if we do stay in this building what is that going to cost us and I think a lot of people would agree that if you have to spend you know 75 cents on a dollar to redo a building that's this many years old why not just do it right and do a different building if it fits in the time with everything coming off the the uh the bond ratings and stuff like that all of our debt coming down to nothing because if we don't do something we're going to have to put a substantial amount of money in these buildings so them are the things that we'll be bringing out to the public and we want to hear everybody's opinion anybody else on that the city council meeting last week and they they turned down fixing 43 in the city of Foley they they turned that down so I don't know who's if they're not going to fix their portion of the of the road when they do it or if they're just not or somebody else is going to do it or council meeting last week so imagine that that's news to me I might want to check it out I'm just yeah I haven't received that we're still working on finalizing engineering plans and drawings for that project I just listen to the City Council meetings and they was on there and I didn't know I guess call tomorrow guess we'll find out yeah Chris you want to handle that that's part of my job yeah anybody else want to speak on anything is this stuff that's on the computer can you get that on your computer at home yep yep Monty do you it's County web page it's public knowledge on the home page you'll see a link in the news and takes you to this presentation and then that line and detail it's all out through on the we page yeah and if anybody wants to borrow a budget book i' happy to give mine up yeah they can have mine too I just don't have it with me y so mine's in my truck right and I does anybody know what the comparisons are in like maax County and in Morrison County compared to the increases in Benton County yesy those are available they are available okay I can tell you last year was it last year year before malax was 27% they got it down to 16 yeah how about St SC new jail that that new jail is got to proove a sales tax that's a sales tax deal so that doesn't that doesn't affect their Levy so you're everybody around here is going to be paying anybody who goes and buys anything in St Cloud is going to be paying for that just like our local option sales tax that we receive like if somebody from from St Cloud buys something that Runnings County gets part of that believe me I tried with the Sterns County Commissioners to tag our building onto theirs but that didn't work didn't fly did and our local op option sales tax for our roads um 39% of that comes from people that don't live in Betton County that just travel through Betton County Purchasing items whether you know that don't live in the county so that's why we're seeing a larger Road and we're getting our roads more or less fixed up up to where they should be instead of where we were we are uh we are also actively pursuing federal dollars yearly now and that's been paying off dividends we we did get the earmark of $5 million for the extension of 29 which is going to help bring uh traffic around the uh the school in Sock Rapids as well as it should spur development out in that area which are going to help taxes we were working on um other items uh such as one County one from 29 to 23 getting that expanded so that it can be a corridor for the APO area so we're we're lobbying hard for federal funds that we could never do in Bon County without and it's paying off we I think we're close on on that that raise and and that Federal funding for one so even with that roundabout we got grants for that roundabout too that's getting put in on 29 y y you know Mr cheriff could maybe back to Glenn's comment about you know and this isn't specifically egg but I want just want you to understand what we're trying to invest back into Bon County so beton County received approximately $8 million in American Rescue plan dollars from covid right and so we decided we spent about a little over $3 million and investing into Broadband countywide to the home to the businesses that's was in cooperation with beton cooperative and that fiber is all being installed for free to the site um so we invested about $3 million of that and then the other dollars a lot of that was invested back into our cities uh for you know expansions and any kind of infrastructure Water and Sewer so that they can build some more homes what rice is putting up 40 some homes y uh we gave them dollars for new water tower Gilman uh $400,000 them you had to use that in a certain amount of time we did it had to be designated by the end of this year and spent by the end of 26 but my point is we tried to take all those dollars and invest them back into the county and we were one of the very few counties state of Minnesota that did that a lot of counties took those dollars and put it into their general fund baton County actually received an award at AMC a um Association Minnesota counties last year for our Broadband project because we we we went all in and we'll be one of the few counties that are Broadband countywide CH I was going to add add there's a question about you know the levies and a Statewide average is 6.4% % Statewide average proposed lovies and I think we're at 4.98 happen to have maax and Morris I do I do here we go um maax let's see 6.1 take my glasses off Max 6.1 Morrison 4.7 okay just so we're just a little bit more just a bit under us right y yep y um you know the other thing a lot of people don't necessarily realize I'm correct me if I'm wrong Bon county is roughly the 25th largest populated county in the state of Minnesota a lot of people forget Bon County goes all the way to the river so we have all of e St Cloud Sock Rapids and so there's significant dollars drawn there okay okay and we're one of the fastest growing counties in Minnesota Y which I didn't realize all right yeah I mean we're it's hard to see that we're one of the fastest growing compies when we uh when we invested all this money back into the cities our our goal was really to drive housing whether that's in rice they needed a water tower whether that was in Sock Rapids infrastructure buildout because if we if we can build a 100 homes that's a gift that keeps giving every year for 100 plus years so that was our mentality when we did that instead of putting it into Revenue loss which a lot of people did I'm going to say probably 80% of the counties and cities put it into either Revenue loss or did something for them for their own uh county or city correct every city every city in the county got oper funds from us y for something plus their own plus their own yeah all right does anybody else got any questions great questions too by the way thank you okay if not we'll move on to Chris for Chris thanks Brian thank you Brian thank you thanks a dum question Chris not need the screen okay you did have a caller online uh oh did uh did the caller want to have have any comments would uh would the caller online have any questions for the board comment about the budget caller okay guess not just list one last time for the caller online all right Chris all right yeah uh Monty's right you know me I always like to have things on the screen so the agenda item I have before you today is a follow up to an item we talked about at the last board meeting uh Lin Hoffman has uh proposed to us to offer lobbying services for us and we talked about it last uh board meeting uh oneyear agreement well I went back and asked if we would consider a two-year agreement could they offer us any discount and so they are they're offering us a fiveyear or 5% discount if we would enter into a two-year agreement um it comes out their fee for State lobbying Services would be $3800 per month um so for a two-year um uh two years would be $91,200 to provide some representation at the state capital um next year if you call last board meeting we talked about things you know more Road funding for the Mayu Lake Road Corridor or more funding for the 29 extension um if there's an opportunity for a sales tax exemption on this new million uh new building we heard that that could provide some savings to the county as well so I just present this to you for consideration if you would like to enter into an agreement with lar and Hoffman for lobbying Services um I did also ask about Federal and so they'd be willing to offer us some federal representation out in Washington DC if you would like to consider that uh that's an additional fee though that's an additional $3,500 per month and for two years that would be $84,000 so uh something for you to consider so Mr chair you know back to your comment earlier about uh a five million earmark from the feds I mean that's why we're even considering this at all I mean it's a tremendous amount of money but some of the return yeah pry good return on the exactly plus the 750 on each sip grant for the roundabout Mr chair people have to understand that we as Commissioners don't have the amount of time to be at the capital pushing for these funds you know the last three years we were in DC Jared and I Scott and uh commissioner pop you know all four of us have been out in DC looking for funding try to find funding and in my opinion we've came to a a roadblock in a sense because we never know when bills are put up at the capital we we never find out about that we've been working with our local Representatives too here and we need help we need help we need more help than what we can provide Mr J and I think this come about when uh me and Chris were visiting with somebody that from this company and they were representing sasago County and Sago County had nothing but good things to say about how much money they got for us or Minnesota 8 and County Roads like that and they said that it was all done because of this and um you know I don't know if we give it a shot for two years and see what the dollar numbers are um um it just seemed like it was they were doing things that we couldn't do M you know and they're they do it every day we don't do it every day as a commissioner supposed to be a part-time job and supposed to be yeah supposed to be and you just can't attend everything that's that's up there for you know to get those funds so and we can we never find out about when they they've got the hearings or anything either you know and like you said commissioner pop they're there every day you may be surprised that when there's stuff that does come up they're going to notify right um the they'll notify the county or whatever and then you may be called upon to go down and testify before that so it may be causing more work in general for the County Board to get to address some of these issues that were there but it's a m fact about knowing it when it when it happens it I I do believe that at the state level it just seems like at the at the national level we've got the APO which uh uh we are a part of with the Bon County area and and a lot of our big road projects right now the high dollar ones the five extens or County Ro 29 extension and the county road uh one from 29 to 23 those are the big projects that are in the APO area uh the area planning organization so we get lobbyists out in uh DC under the APO so when we tag along like I was just out there uh last month uh we had Direct meetings with Senator Smith uh clo Bashar um emmer um uh stabber pretty much everybody out there in our area we got direct meetings with due to the lobbyist uh getting us in there getting us uh 20 minutes to a half an hour just so happens to be I had to be I sat on the plane back with Senator Smith and stabber and it's like I could have just flew out there and flew back with them I got more time there but better conversation on the plan honestly those personal relationships they um um Senator Smith's uh Anna uh the her right-hand person actually brought up again this is now the the third year in a row she's brought up our book that we made for the 29 extension and she says she she shows it to everybody to come in looking for money saying this is what you need to do this is how we understand what your projects are and we got the money the first year on that we did so as a board I think we're committed to keep going out and looking for every dollar we possibly can and that's only going to help grow our community and uh and and keep our Levy going in the right direction and and I don't know that going in the right direction is down but if it's just gradually going up to me that's a win right now compared to a lot of counties out there right and I look at it a little differently I look at it the money's there if we don't get it somebody else somebody else is going to yeah so is there any grant money available for something like this or what's your what's your return on the dollar investment you're getting you know we're kind of in the kind of in the dark we're going what other people say about the company and what they've done um we don't have any hard numbers you know they haven't given us any hard numbers on what they expect for return I think I think people would be surprised of how many counties have lobbyists yeah you know so I don't know how many counties but I I will just say you know everything south of us all those big counties south of us they have lobbyists they all have lobbyists and that's why they get all the federal money three years ago we went out to the Transportation Alliance out in DC it's a big organization everything like that and everybody's like oh it's a waste of money you're on the plane going out everything you get out there and after you get in you're like everybody's like this is the best kept secret don't tell anybody this is good because the more we can keep this down the more money we all get so the more that they keep seeing you and the and the Senators and and House of Representative they all tell you that hey we appreciate you coming out shows that you care shows that you you you really want the money and they come through they want to be at these ribbon cutting ceremonies and and stuff like and we're in a unique situation whether you like ear marks or not it's a whole another argument but representative or Congressman emmer you know he's fairly large uh profile in the party and he gets a handful of ear marks that he's going to spend in his district M so somebody in his District's going to get it yep and we were so chosen to be picked we were so did you have a question just a comment I've been down to the state capital probably 25 years every year with the Minnesota Farm Bureau oh sure and they have lobbyist because if you don't have somebody at the table you're barely on the menu yep exactly it's a good way of putting it too you know and it's a lot of money they're not working 12 months out of the year but they really are because it it's if you're not there you're not there you have to be there and you guys can't be there the public can't be there all the time who do you compare it to as far as cost it's hard to say but well it's it's like our cost to go out to get that $5 million was probably $5,000 it's pretty good return yeah very good return so it you only have to hit hit the lottery a couple times every every five years to pay for that um that that money you pay in a lobbyist well you could look at it frankly the $5 million bought a few trips yeah did yeah so and they're they're not they're not exactly fun trips because I don't I don't see myself ever living in DC so I was uh I was definitely looking forward to getting back on the plane coming back so 90 degrees were in a suit and tie yeah so so is there any chance you could get three bids for this project for these lobbyists I mean how did we ever pick this particular company to represent you that's a that's a good good question and I I'll kind of go through it but I think we had some good um communication with another County correct yeah so commissioner pop mentioned it so we knew right away that shago County uses this firm um I also learned so I talked to that County engineer and they were very happy with them and some of those things that that we already talked about it takes somebody being down there at the capital um you know we've had good luck talking to our our representatives for they're always happy to talk to us but in these committees they're just a handful of votes we need somebody that can walk into the doors of these other legislators that wouldn't give you or I the time of day because we're not in their District but their vote counts but also I learned that Washington County uses this firm Lin Hoffman and they were very happy uh that's where I learned that Washington County used them for um to get some money for some Capital funds for some building projects that they had for County buildings and stuff that's where we learned that well maybe now we're broaden our Horizon past just Road and bridges is there other funding sources that we're not used to going after that they could they could open our eyes too so so to answer the question we didn't approach or talk to other firms but we did vet this firm and call some references to see what they were happy with so and they represent quite a few counties correct yes yeah so um and I think a lot of it had to do our gut feeling was pretty good the next day after we met with their rep out in DC yeah I it really felt like you really you know care well to expand on your comment at our last board meeting you know this was really more of a one-year investment we felt you know we didn't know if we could get a a big enough return in one year so let's go with two and then see if we can get a discount to do it so that's what we've got in front of us today Commissioner of pinch game myself and Chris also had an interview with them and that was about an hour and a half yep you know very good very good and you know we we do a pretty good job with our local Representatives but I have to laugh one of the comments that uh that a local rep made was uh well you got picture a bus going to a football game with a bunch of students that are going to be playing right well our group is in the trailer so you need to get on the bus and that wasn't we were talking with the wrong people yeah so Chris makes a very good point it's not just our area legislators it's the other ones that sit on the Committees that got to get convinced about our projects correct y we had the bonding tour come to Betton County last year and we had to testify to the bonding Tour on on the the uh um right in front of the sock rapid school district and we did very well matter of fact uh I think it was just a a stop for um I I'll say one we we had a chance because they were stopping but at the end of that meeting it it turned out very well we are one of the one of the highlighted projects didn't get funding but yeah commissioner Pinsky and I testified so did Chris so the school superintendent yeah B and and O'Driscoll and alrisco too but obvious obviously you guys know that there was no bonding bill so so it takes somebody even just advocating for a bonding bill first and then once they get the everybody in favor of that say Hey Benton County's got a good project of course we're always going to say good project but when other people are saying it's a good project that helps yeah and and Betton county is starting to be pretty well represented down at the state level with with AMC with the with all the counties uh we got the Broadband award last year Monty do you want to speak on the mcit can you or not oh yeah right this year you mean we're we're going to be recognized in the work comp area by mcit it's County of the year in the work comp category so pleased about that commissioner pop has been policy chair for the two years egg and was it environment and natural resource so Bon County's being pretty well represented down there okay so uh what are the wishes of the board would uh the board wish to proceed with entering into an agreement with these or uh I'll make a motion to enter into an agreement with the lar and Hoffman for Lobby Services two years for the two years great is that for state of Minnesota representation or does that include federal state of Minnesota representation okay got it I'll second that okay we got a motion and second any other questions source of funds I think yeah commissioner Johnson's question where is this going to be paid for uh at this point I would suggest the commissioner con contingency okay yep this sound okay that way it puts it on us and I think Mr cas said it best if you're not there you know he sees it every day yeah fine with commissioner contingency yep you can call the question Mr chair okay we got a motion in a second for a two-year commit with with alar and hoffen for lobbying all in favor I oppose same sign motion carries all right Commission comments do we want to do our updates updates I'm happy to start if you'd like to go all right uh November 19th I was able to sit in on the culture team I know commission and commission kinsky are normally on that commissioner kinsky was absent so I was able to sit on that I one as in DC right yes yep that was well worth my time uh the 20th had a Highway 23 Coalition board meeting uh the 21st commissioner pop and I sat in on the Wetland interviews the Wetland specialist that we're hopefully going to be hiring um also had a Foley care board meeting that evening and then of course we had our cow yesterday with GLT Architects and and finalizing our budget numbers so that was it for me okay I had uh after our last board meeting I had the library board we pushed the $350,000 towards the 2026 budget of surplus money that we've generated over the year um we had I had a Micah meeting for the executive committee we're still going out for interviews for our Micah uh CEO or yeah executive director I don't um me and commissioner kinsky and schlungen were at the um extension deal that was well attended uh down at Jack and Jim's and dwell um good good good food good participation a lot of things get done we got a lot of volunteers you got to really I mean this is the largest attendance since I've been going that they've had enthusiastic enthusiastic yep this you know an Olson down in the down in downstairs has got more enthusiasm than anything I've ever seen um I think that's about it that's it for me okay I did the interviews with commission Johnson and that for water tech so I also sat in with commissioner Johnson with the cultural team uh had a historical meeting uh I actually was with sat in on the board meeting Thursday morning M it was interesting of course I'm also on the infrastructure housing committee with central care so I've been having a lot of meetings with them talking about housing and that's all I had um I also had the in Township meeting okay I had uh the HR interviews um the APO we are going to table the Belt Line talk right now on the environmental until after the new elected officials get in St Cloud has got a new mayor and three new Council people so um we are tabling that but right now it's looking at uh for environmental one we would we would split our portion of 50% so whoever beton County's belt line is already going to be taken care of with this 29 extension so anything environmental around the Belt Line would be paid by um the APO area at a 50% whatever jurisdiction that is in they pay 50% and then they pay P their percent of the other 50% of their APO portion okay so it's a very fair way of doing it and I think that belt line is going to be huge uh going forward um chairing that next year I will be chairing that next year yep okay so uh but it yeah that'll be great because I know that there's a few cities that are not on board on that okay but it is what it is but obviously that'll have to come back to our board to approve and everything like that uh 4 that was a great that was um that was well attend and when I walked in entertaining I I ended up uh I ended up getting back late uh from a basketball tournament for my son and I walk in I'm like oh my God I was like thinking there was going to be 20 people there there was well over a 100 110 yeah 110 so it was it was well attended um then I had the DC trip that went very well um out there it was the APO it was uh um Brian Gibson who's the APO um we'll call it D director and then uh Joel persky from um Stern County ranne danielowski was supposed to be there but she had some medical stuff come up but uh we went around and and we lobbied for everything from 23 from Foley to uh Mora uh to everybody to we hit everything we possibly could including housing including homeless including you name it so our 20 minute meetings usually ended up being about 40 so and you you get Joe and myself going we can talk a little bit yep other than that that uh I had pretty much the rest what what you guys had that's that's all Monty you ready said some cows we are done for the year right oh no no our calendar is full to be honest with you I left m home all we wanted to mention is the celebration of the uh completion of the Foley Wastewater regionalization project will be tomorrow from 4: to 7: at Stone Creek golf course um we we put this on the committ the whole listing previously to meet the three-day poster requirement the city asked for our VPS is there a who who who might be able to attend so we can let Sarah know I already let Sarah and Mark know that I can't attend you let know that you could not I will be flying out in the morning so I should not well I can go as long as somebody should go from the county I believe okay and I really would like to but I had prior commments so commiss pop I'll I'll go too commissioner Heinen and we will we will so inform uh Sarah of that okay and uh really this last just a reminder week from Friday is that tour of the St Cloud Industrial Products facility I know we don't usually have things on Friday I just wanted to mention I know Amanda sent out a specific invitation that just recently and I just want to make sure everyone had that you know I I already told Amanda Fridays are kind of tough so you know maybe not everyone could be there but I just want to remind you about that we'll have a lot more cows to talk about at your December 17th mean like goal setting mean with st CLA airport uh and your your next uh meetings with GLT and congr I spoke with Evan earlier today and he was not ready to commit to a meeting date not knowing where Pete was going to be at with estimates and so on okay so he was not ready you may recall there was discussion about the board meeting with Excel Energy and he was going to get dates from Excel and we'll have those for you on December 17th just get that scheduled so a lot more crowds to talk about that day okay and just so the board's aware Chris correct me if I'm wrong but we will more than likely have a ditch Authority meeting on the 17th yes so we we don't have any new cows oh I take that back we want to ask you then to just do a motion on the the Foley one so thank you so move second thank okay we got a motion on the fley committee of the whole um Waste Water waste water uh ground breaking or what is it appreciation appreciation yeah we got a motion and second all in favor I I oppose same sign motion carries the cows are set