Budget Committee October 10, 2023   10/10/2023

Discussion

• • SPEAKER_08
  • 00:00:09
    Good morning.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:00:09
    My name is Emily Koski.
  • 00:00:11
    I'm the chair of the Budget Committee.
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    I'm going to call to order our regular committee meeting for Tuesday, October 10th.
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    At this time, I'll ask the clerk to call the roll to verify your presence at the quorum.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 00:00:20
    Councilmember Payne.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 00:00:21
    Present.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 00:00:22
    Wonsley is absent.
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    Rainville.
  • 00:00:24
    Present.
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    Vita.
  • 00:00:25
    Present.
  • 00:00:26
    Ellison.
  • 00:00:28
    Absent.
  • 00:00:29
    Osmond.
  • 00:00:30
    Absent.
  • 00:00:31
    Goodman.
  • 00:00:32
    Absent.
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    President Jenkins.
  • 00:00:34
    Absent.
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    Chavez.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:00:38
    is the public works and civil rights departments.
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    We will begin with a presentation from the public works department.
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    Here to present is Director Margaret Anderson Kelleher.
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    Welcome.
• • Margaret Anderson KelliherDirector of Public Works
  • 00:01:11
    Excited to be here today.
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    We have all of our directors here as well in the audience.
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    And bear with me.
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    It's a little bit longer presentation, I think, with the size of the department.
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    So first, we'll begin with just a quick overview.
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    I'm going to speed through the beginning slides fairly quickly.
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    The Department of Public Works has a little over a thousand employees right now.
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    and you can see our divisions here on the screen.
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    I'm not going to go through them one by one.
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    I know many of you are familiar with our division directors who are in the room with us.
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    Two deputies, Deputy Brett Jelly and Deputy Brian Dodds, also the city engineer.
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    Our priority objectives include aligning our utility investments and strategies to protect public health,
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    and the environment as well as mitigate climate change.
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    We also are aligning our investments and strategies to attract both BIPOC and female employees and aligning public works investments and strategies to be able to be in line with both our transportation equity framework and the transportation action plan.
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    A couple highlights of this.
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    We recently were awarded a federal grant for our North Transfer Station, which will be like the South Transfer Station, expanding services to residents on the north side and in Northeast Minneapolis, as well as we have been able to effectively use our ARPA funding to expand our training program.
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    Achievements and Risks.
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    So, achievements in 2022 and 2023 include our response to a record setting year of snow.
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    The parking options that we were able to provide at the end of the season for residents, free parking in our city owned ramps, working with MnDOT for very low cost parking in the ABC ramps downtown,
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    and that led to actually some developers following as well and allowing for parking in the ramps.
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    As you know, we often say, what is the enemy of good street plowing?
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    It is parked cars on the street.
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    And so being able to find new ways to give residents services but also have as good a plow as we can get.
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    We also had our parking team work on hybrid parking models, some new models with shared parking cards.
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    We also had in Mr. Elwood's division, a couple of projects awarded through the APWA, which is our Association for Public Works, awards for projects of the year, both Hennepin Downtown and the 10th Avenue Bridge.
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    I want to highlight the Waste Characterization Study.
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    700 homes were randomly selected to look at how recycling, trash, and composting is going and we have important lessons we've learned out of that that will lead to even better messaging.
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    I want to say even better messaging because we know that the Solid Waste and Recycling Guide that comes out is one of the most awaited things that Minneapolis residents receive.
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    We also have effectively used our ARPA funding for litter pickup in cultural districts, including in April of 22, adding 69 additional litter collection vessels in the cultural districts.
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    And in June 22, beginning pan and broom service in those areas within a 20-foot radius of
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    the collection containers of all 433 collection containers.
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    So working towards that goal of Clean City.
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    And then another highlight is, of course, the creation and the adoption by the Council of the Racial Equity for Transportation framework that happened last year.
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    And then finally, the completion of the Fridley drinking water plant upgrades, $50 million.
• • Linea Palmisano
  • 00:05:46
    What are our risks?
• • Margaret Anderson KelliherDirector of Public Works
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    We have risks that some other departments face as well.
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    And certainly inflationary impacts on labor materials as well as utility costs really are stressing the public works budget.
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    What does it all mean when this is happening?
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    It means we have less money to complete projects with because of that inflationary pressure.
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    and I want to point out that on staffing, we want to thank you all for supporting as we have gotten back to the pre-pandemic levels of staffing, but we are still kind of treading water in this area and it does show up in different areas and I'm sure we can talk about that.
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    The other thing is supply chain.
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    We still find delays in supply chain issues for both projects, including lighting projects and the fleet.
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    So the question is also asked, what have we learned?
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    So a couple things that we have implemented this year is additional reviews for grant applications, particularly the large federal grants through IIJA.
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    We have a new system of reviewing those grants with the hope of being even more successful than we've already been.
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    And then the ability for us to continue to do new things, try new things,
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    I think a really good example of that is the continued response on snow and snowstorm response.
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    All right, I'm going to go fast on this, but overall, our public works operating fund in 2023 was $414 million.
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    That is increasing to $437 million, the operating funds alone.
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    That's a 5.5% increase, $23 million.
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    Half of that increase is actually in our enterprise funds, which I'll talk about at the end of the presentation.
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    And that is one of the things that we see there is this direct relationship to inflationary costs and what's happening, everything from materials to staffing.
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    So the everyone's been asked about what is happening on staffing right now.
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    So I want to share that in this case, our current vacancy rate is at about 15%, which is slightly higher.
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    than has been typical for public works.
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    We are continuing the hiring process.
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    We have in the hiring process right now are 28 new employees.
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    This spring we had a class of 47 new employees come through the hiring process.
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    We've also been able to, with your help, fund intern, temporary, and seasonal positions, which are very helpful to us.
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    And we have 134 outside trades working within Public Works.
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    So I think I'll just keep moving, because we do have a lot, and I'm happy to take your questions.
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    So to our goals.
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    We have nine budget programs overall for general fund programs for enterprise funds and one internal service fund.
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    That internal service fund is the fleet.
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    So next I'll get into both how the ARPA dollars both the rollover that we were able to utilize and are utilizing, but then how that
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    will impact our budget going forward.
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    The 2024 plan, which does not include ARPA dollars, federal dollars, and in 20, the federal ARPA dollars, I should say, we do have other federal dollars coming in, and the 2024 mayor recommendations, new proposals or updated allocations.
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    So I'll start with our smallest division first.
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    That is administration.
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    And in administration, we have finance, personnel, safety training, and field support like dispatch is included in this area.
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    I'm not going to read the slide to you, but I do want to point out that we are making steady progress towards diversifying our workforce.
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    You can see this over time.
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    starting with the blue bar, the series one bar and going forward.
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    The bar one is actually 2018 and then the end bar is 2023.
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    So we had almost a 10% increase in diversity in our public works employees.
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    Next we'll move to transportation planning, design and engineering.
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    This area includes all of Transportation Planning, Ms. Hager's division, as well as Transportation Engineering and Design operating dollars, so that's Mr. Elroy's operating dollars, as well as Transportation Engineering Design's lab.
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    And here you will see, our goals here are planning, designing, and engineering a system that really brings that sustainable and responsive to the needs of all residents, visitors, and businesses in the city.
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    In this division includes the Vision Zero work.
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    It also includes much of the climate change work through design and
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    new and different design, the ability to rectify, I would say, the wrongs that have been done through the transportation system, paying attention, more attention to areas of the city that have not had equitable distribution of transportation dollars and planning dollars, but also how we work with other agencies to make sure
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    that they are paying attention as well for those areas that have had a disproportionate impact by the built environment, particularly the transportation system.
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    So I will keep moving because there's a second slide for this one.
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    We really are looking at how do we reduce greenhouse gas emissions, particularly through transportation.
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    Moving people out of their single occupancy car
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    into a variety of different options.
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    Working with our partners at Metro Transit for a better transit system, making sure that we have options for safe walking, safe rolling, safe biking in the city so that people can make that choice to move those shorter trips into those modes.
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    Of course, eliminating severe and fatal crashes, and that's what the bar graph shows you.
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    is that although we do see a little bit of a tick down here, this year is number 11 on this slide, 12 is an average over time.
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    We still have work to do on severe and fatal crashes.
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    Of course, one of the important parts is we have applied for the Safe Streets for All grant through IIJA.
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    We're optimistic.
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    We're going to start hearing soon first about the planning money.
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    than about the implementation money.
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    The other thing is, you know, this is a constant thing, making sure that our budget is aligning and the accuracy and capital budgeting requests and the financial management of those programs in this area.
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    Going to keep going, so we have a slight increase here.
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    Going to move on to transportation, maintenance, and repair.
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    I just want us to pause on the pothole complaints here for a second that are on the screen.
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    So, nearly 9,000 recorded pothole complaints in this year to 311.
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    You can see that from 2020, 2021, and 2022, you would have to combine all those to get
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    close to what we have had this year.
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    I want to thank our crews.
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    I want to thank our residents for being able to get through this period of time.
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    Our crews have been out there working hard.
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    We are now to the point where we are under, we have only 49, well I should say 50 open complaints because I know I
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    ported a new pothole last night on 311.
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    So, but we, I think that's quite remarkable that we are down to that level.
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    So obviously continuing to be on top of this and working forward on it.
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    In transportation maintenance and repair also includes things like our water quality work with street sweeping, which we're going to be starting street sweep here,
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    I think we actually have started.
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    We also know how important it is, other things that work together with surface water and sewer, and I'll talk a little bit about that when we get to that division.
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    But this is also sidewalks, ramps, our ADA work, as well as trails and plazas maintenance, special service district work, and bridge and street maintenance repair.
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    So here we do have a recommended increase by the mayor, $1.47 million for one-time snow site and equipment.
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    And this is important as we move forward.
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    We need a safe place and an appropriate place to store snow when we're moving snow out of areas that we have to remove it in because it just doesn't work to keep it there.
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    It also is important
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    I really hope we're not getting 93 inches of snow this year, but it became very clear that we need a better, more permanent option to store our snow.
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    There's also 1.6 million for the internal allocation model increase in this area, so that is all of the wonderful things that our colleagues in the city help us with and supply us with IT, all sorts of other things, workers comp increases,
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    those come into that 1.6 million.
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    And then we still have one more million dollars that is five FTE add back ends that would get us to the pre-pandemic level and the mayor did recommend that this year.
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    So I'm going to talk about these new proposals or the budget recommendations a little bit more in detail.
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    So the permanent snow storage site is important to be able to remove snow in a timely manner and reduce our snow hauling costs.
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    If we didn't have a site within the city, we might have to move that
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    outside of the city, more greenhouse gases, trucking, all of those things.
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    This will help us purchase or do site improvements to a permanent city snow storage site.
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    And then I think it's, you might ask where are these sites that we're already removing from, certainly transit corridors,
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    densely populated parts of the city where there just is not room to store the snow on the street in the boulevard.
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    And I can break this down for you if you have questions about what that buys us in terms of the permanent snow site.
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    The mayor's also recommended some one-time funds for capital equipment for us.
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    The top is what we would call a pothole tacking machine, very important.
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    and this would be two of these machines that allow for our work to be more effective in pothole work.
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    And then more than a couple of skid steers, you can see the condition of this 1996 skid steer down below.
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    We have a few of these that are in this condition and being able to replace them.
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    They are an important part of our equipment fleet.
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    And so there we have $300,000 slated for skid steer replacement.
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    And then finally commercial walk behind snow blowers for sidewalk snow and ice on bridges in particular.
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    These are much heavier duty machines than you would normally be able to go buy at the local hardware store.
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    And these are a very important lasting investment for us.
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    I'm going to move on to Transportation Operations and Mobility and share with you here.
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    This is both our and many of you have toured the Transportation Operations Center.
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    Alan Klugman as the director of this area.
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    And this also includes parking as well as our lighting work.
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    And so here, I want to sharing that there is a $4 million increase in the parking fund returning from COVID in our budget here, and $730,000 for the climate legacy
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    initiative of the mayors and of yours to make sure that we're funding the portion to be able to install the vehicle charging around the city.
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    And then we do have some ARPA funds that are still rolling forward here.
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    Last budget cycle, you were very generous in helping us fund the lighting backlog at $450,000.
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    We have spent $145,000 of that.
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    That allowed us an extra crew to address the lighting backlog as well as the work that is continuing to go on on bringing that backlog down.
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    The next I just want to show you the next slide.
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    In 2021, our service level agreement of being able to repair a light within an outage within three months, and a wreck of a light so that would be a vehicle crash with a light or lighting standard was 4.5 months, 4.5 months.
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    In 2021, we were at 65% being able to meet that service level standard.
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    We have gone back to 91%.
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    And our backlog right now is about 330 lights, we've seen a resurgence, maybe a speed up of wire theft right now.
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    So many of the lights that we are finding today that are reported to 311
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    have to go through a process to really be rebuilt internally because there has been wire theft still.
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    So I share that with you because I think our team is very proud that we've been able to get the backlog down and also begin the repairs on those seven systems across the city that were totally defunct.
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    We continue that work and next year the last part of that work will happen going forward.
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    So the climate legacy initiative, the EV charging infrastructure, 730,000 of this is one time and then there is ongoing in 2025 that would need to happen to make
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    to see the impacts that we want to see.
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    And so this is procurement and maintenance and those costs for these EV chargers.
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    And like I said, this is right now handled by Joe Lauren, who is also handling all of those streetlight requests.
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    So having another person to be able to handle procurement,
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    maintenance, installation and overseeing this area is very important.
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    The picture is right out here in front of City Hall, of course, the example of a public EV charging station in Minneapolis.
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    The next item is lighting for George Floyd Square.
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    This is one time money
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    $110,000.
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    The important part here is we have heard many things from the community at 38th and Chicago.
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    And one of the things we repeatedly hear is about the need for better pedestrian lighting.
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    And so this would allow us to work with the community to both have materials and install that better lighting at 38th and Chicago.
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    And of course, we know that this area was
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    severely impacted by the murder of George Floyd.
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    It is the site of where George Floyd was murdered and has had a lot of stress on it, both its built environment and of course the social capital of this area.
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    But I think lighting is one of the things that we hear from the community that would be very helpful and the mayor has recommended this funding.
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    So next I'm going to turn to the Internal Service Funds and Utility Funds.
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    Fleet is our Internal Service Fund.
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    Chris Royston is our Director of Fleet and Chris is in the room with us today.
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    This is an important area because it both houses the entire fleet except for our garbage trucks which is
  • 00:24:30
    have then taken care of in solid waste and recycling, so also under public works.
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    And it is also where we are greening the fleet, the city fleet.
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    And important to note that the green fleet process is on the slide here.
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    We are reducing our number of hybrid vehicles as we increase the number of fully electric vehicles.
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    and that trend should continue to
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    supply chain issues.
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    And so we've had some very serious supply chain issues in fleet, sometimes in parts, but mainly in procuring those vehicles.
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    So we have a reduction in those hybrid Ford escapes, they're at the end of their lifecycle.
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    Ford is not going to produce our hybrid squads for three years yet.
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    So we're turning to some other vehicles in that time.
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    108 squads will be replaced that currently have internal combustion engines with internal combustion engines with the like because of this delay and being able to get the vehicles from Ford.
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    We will continue to work on this but there is not everybody who has a fleet is still facing challenges with the fleet.
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    Solid Waste and Recycling here.
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    Our clean city is our job number one of solid waste and recycling.
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    Carrying that out, our crews are out there.
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    Again, I have to say in public works, most of our workforce never stopped working during COVID and continues to work today.
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    And this is hard work.
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    These are hard jobs.
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    but people take great care in these jobs.
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    Mr. Herberholtz is in the room who is the director of this area.
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    This supports a clean and livable city and also contributes to a safe city to have good solid waste, composting, all of those services.
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    We have continued, and you can see the green line there, we are reducing the amount of solid waste
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    Minneapolis residents are producing and that's a good thing.
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    We need that to happen.
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    People are doing more recycling every single year.
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    You can see the little spike was the COVID year.
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    People did produce more volume at home.
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    But the other part of this is what we see is as our compost program has gone adopted by many, many of our residents,
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    People who are composting, one of the things the Waste Characterization Study taught us or showed us, people who compost are better at everything else in terms of recycling, reducing the amount of things they're putting in their solid waste bin, looking for avenues to recycle using the websites or ways to connect with people for reuse as well.
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    Sanitary sewer.
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    Many of you have watched us as we are working hard to make sure our system is up to date.
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    This is the effective transport of wastewater.
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    And of course, the Met Council is our critical partner here.
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    And so our cost increases a million dollars is coming from the increased fees from the Met Council.
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    in terms of being able to dispose of wastewater.
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    And the second increase here is for the televising of our piping system to make sure it is in good repair.
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    So combined in this area, and this of course is Director Angie Kraft's area, is our stormwater management system.
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    And here we have a important goal of greening our infrastructure to be able to help us mitigate stormwater runoff.
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    This is very important in terms of climate.
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    impacts.
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    As we see heavier rains, faster amounts of rain coming down, having more green infrastructure will help us be able to have less flooded streets and will not overwhelm the system.
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    And so we are meeting or exceeding the federal and state local stormwater.
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    Our goal is to exceed the stormwater regulatory retirements with the work we're doing.
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    The picture here is right outside City Hall of the green infrastructure that's been installed.
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    Partnering with that this year,
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    is the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board recommendation.
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    We have worked very closely with our partners at MPRB to come up with a plan.
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    And that plan begins with a new amount of $501,000 to be able to do what we would say is the first
  • 00:30:09
    thing that has
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    And what I can tell you is this will be the this money, this $500,000 will be ongoing money to the park board.
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    But my strong guess is there will be more coming after we do this study to help understand what we need to be doing.
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    The picture here is the litter boom at Lake Hiawatha that was installed that we are testing right now to see how it will work because this is an important issue of how runoff comes into our waterways.
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    Next, Water Treatment Distribution.
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    Director Annika Bankston's in the room.
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    And here you will see that these are on the chart the miles of water main that has been renewed in the city.
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    The far one, and I can just see that I think it's dropped off the year.
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    So that's why I'm telling you that the far number seven is 2022, 13.7 miles.
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    You can see we're making steady progress on this.
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    This is important work.
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    The 36-inch water main that broke a while back would be in this area.
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    So, just to point out that this is one of the utility funds where cost increases are significant.
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    $1.6 million in the chemicals that are needed to treat our water, to have it be the best water in Minnesota by basically a playoff at the state fair, a taste-off.
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    and Minneapolis Water One.
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    Also at the State Water Conference, we won again as the best water.
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    So we just need to get the word out.
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    We have the best water probably in the country and really encourage people to use the water out of the tap where possible.
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    And then we have about $600,000 in that allocation model.
  • 00:32:37
    Again, IT, other costs that are coming in and then finally $460,000 in natural gas costs.
  • 00:32:46
    So this is where other utilities have an impact on our budget.
  • 00:32:52
    going to move over here so you can see we always like to show you we do a prediction out of what utility fees are going to be at.
  • 00:33:02
    Overall increase for all utilities, water, sanitary, sewer, stormwater,
  • 00:33:09
    The park board increased fee as well as solid waste and recycling will amount to about $6.06.
  • 00:33:19
    That's a 5.2% increase in what people will be paying.
  • 00:33:28
    And I certainly could talk a little more about that.
  • 00:33:32
    We've been asked to also outline administrative FTE ads.
  • 00:33:37
    So to be clear, these are not administrators.
  • 00:33:40
    This is our ability to work within our budget to move administratively someone into something like a public work service worker job in transportation, maintenance, and repair, which helps us maintain our level of service.
  • 00:33:59
    or Transportation Operation Mobility, the store center coordinator, moving that administratively in our budget.
  • 00:34:09
    You can see Transportation, Planning, Design and Engineering had an increase of two engineering techs that helped Capital Bridge Inspection support roadway design and then Water Treatment Distribution, two plumber welders administratively transferred in that area.
  • 00:34:29
    So we try to do this wisely to be able to keep our service levels up and that I think is the you know in the public works budget the purpose of the administrative transfer is to be able to keep that service level high.
  • 00:34:48
    Madam Chair, I'm at the end of my presentation.
  • 00:34:52
    I just want to point out that Deputy Director Brett Jelly helped incredibly with this presentation, as well as Vicki Troswick, who's our finance manager who works every day to day with us, making sure we're on track.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:35:11
    Thank you so much, Director, for this very thorough presentation.
  • 00:35:15
    I appreciate it.
  • 00:35:16
    We do have a few questions in queue.
  • 00:35:18
    First one, Councilmember Payne.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 00:35:20
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
  • 00:35:21
    Yeah, my question is about fleet services and greening the fleet.
  • 00:35:26
    We know that EVs are pretty much the future of at least passenger vehicles.
  • 00:35:32
    We also know that some of these larger commercial vehicles are not a great fit for that.
  • 00:35:36
    but I'm curious if there's been any forethought into some of these more micro mobility solutions like pedal assist cargo bikes.
  • 00:35:45
    I've seen those be used in maybe some European cities for maybe some lighter duty tasks and I'm just curious about that bigger strategy around how we're converting our fleet and whether or not there's a role for some of those micro mobility solutions.
• • Margaret Anderson KelliherDirector of Public Works
  • 00:36:01
    So Madam Chair, Council Member Payne, we have been investing in electric bikes in public works for our employees to use during work time.
  • 00:36:12
    And I don't know if we have a cargo bike yet, but we definitely, transportation planning and programming has been using these electric bikes to get to sites.
  • 00:36:24
    other divisions can check them out and use them especially to go check out a site.
  • 00:36:32
    I know that Deputy Director Dodds has led many cross division teams out to look at projects using these.
  • 00:36:41
    I think the idea of using, and I've seen these lately as well, there are some, you know, we've seen UPS using a hybrid electric bike that has some storage capacity on it.
  • 00:36:57
    For some of our things, that's just not going to work.
  • 00:36:59
    But for other things, it may be a good solution, especially in a more dense area like downtown.
  • 00:37:06
    And so I think continuing to explore that and see what we can do.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 00:37:11
    That's great to hear.
  • 00:37:12
    And then my other question is around our transportation action plan.
  • 00:37:16
    We all know that to be an unfunded mandate.
  • 00:37:20
    What would you envision the future of that is when it comes to actually making funding commitments?
• • Margaret Anderson KelliherDirector of Public Works
  • 00:37:25
    Yeah, I'm gonna just go back.
  • 00:37:27
    I think I think I'm going back.
  • 00:37:33
    Am I going in the right direction here, Brett?
  • 00:37:37
    There we go.
  • 00:37:40
    So, Madam Chair and Council Member Payne
  • 00:37:46
    You and I both were not here when the TPP was designed and conceived of and adopted by the council and the mayor.
  • 00:37:56
    But I will say I know that that was purposefully not a fiscally constrained plan.
  • 00:38:04
    And one of our goals in this next year is to start to put more fine detail on what it will take to accomplish
  • 00:38:15
    the Transportation Action Plan and to see where you know we can make it in a relatively relative ease within our budget and where it's going to be a very big lift.
  • 00:38:28
    So we are beginning that work fairly.
  • 00:38:31
    We heard questions about that in the Public Works Committee and we are beginning that process to be able to do that analysis.
  • 00:38:40
    So thank you for that question.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 00:38:42
    Yeah, and I just want to commend
  • 00:38:45
    Chair Johnson for Public Works is no longer participating but also Vice Chair Koski when we did our work plan I'd like to see us maybe kind of continue that process and include the transportation action plan and that work planning for our committee so looking forward to that work.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:39:05
    All right, thank you.
  • 00:39:06
    Councilmember Chavez.
• • Jason Chavez
  • 00:39:08
    Thank you Chair Koski, Director.
  • 00:39:10
    I was trying to see more information about traffic calming.
  • 00:39:14
    I was wondering if you know how much money is the mayor proposing for traffic calming this year?
  • 00:39:19
    How many projects are going to be projected to be funded through that traffic calming?
  • 00:39:24
    And if there is any budgetary changes, and then what can we see?
  • 00:39:28
    How much staff?
  • 00:39:29
    Just want to get more information on that component.
• • Margaret Anderson KelliherDirector of Public Works
  • 00:39:34
    Thank you Madam Chair and Councilmember Chavez.
  • 00:39:38
    So I believe and I might need to have Director Klugman come up but we'll see if I can do this.
  • 00:39:46
    Right now we have set aside and you have helped us set aside within our own budget $150,000 a year for neighborhood traffic calming.
  • 00:39:59
    Additionally, on top of that, we have been able to utilize some more one time funds.
  • 00:40:04
    So I think the amount of work being done this year is $450,000 worth of neighborhood traffic calming work.
  • 00:40:15
    A lot of that work is happening right now.
  • 00:40:18
    It often happens in the fall.
  • 00:40:20
    Two things about this.
  • 00:40:21
    So ongoing, we have the $150,000 to continue to work on neighborhood traffic calming.
  • 00:40:28
    We do have overwhelming numbers of requests.
  • 00:40:33
    We are looking since the process is relatively new of how we are scoring projects.
  • 00:40:41
    We are also going to be reviewing that because I think we would all agree that what has sometimes helped a project score well is something we don't want to have happen in the city, and that's a severe or fatal crash.
  • 00:40:57
    we need to prevent severe and fatal crashes.
  • 00:41:01
    So having some other ways to maybe add additional data into the selection of neighborhood traffic calming projects.
  • 00:41:10
    The Safe Streets for All grant through the IIJA would be a very important addition to traffic calming across the city.
  • 00:41:22
    Not always neighborhood traffic calming, certainly on our arterials, but the ability to then have funds to move money into different ways of doing the traffic calming would be important.
  • 00:41:39
    It is an area of need, and so you know, I think the mayor sees that this is an area of need.
  • 00:41:47
    There is not a direct recommendation other than our current budgeted amount.
• • Jason Chavez
  • 00:41:52
    Thank you so much.
  • 00:41:53
    I think that's really important for us to understand There was I think over 700 applications in 2023.
  • 00:42:00
    Maybe a little bit around 16 projects maybe funded Maybe have my numbers wrong, but maybe 16 17
• • Margaret Anderson KelliherDirector of Public Works
  • 00:42:09
    Director, I think there is some updated information that might be helpful to bring forward.
  • 00:42:14
    So Madam Chair and Council Member Chavez, we're going to be able to complete 40 projects this year, which is good.
  • 00:42:20
    I mean, that's a good start off of the 700.
  • 00:42:23
    We have had more applications come in.
  • 00:42:25
    They're being reviewed right now.
  • 00:42:27
    that are not duplicative of those 700 and I think it's also fair to just for the public to know not all 700 of the submitted projects would qualify for
  • 00:42:40
    neighborhood traffic calming.
  • 00:42:41
    There's sometimes other things that could happen for a community to review the street, look at the intersection that don't quite rise up to a mini roundabout or a raised cross or things like that.
• • Jason Chavez
  • 00:42:58
    Perfect.
  • 00:42:58
    I think if we can get access to the updated numbers, maybe we'll send to PWI or a different committee.
  • 00:43:03
    I think that would be super helpful for us to know.
  • 00:43:05
    I for sure am super interested in what this council can do to support your staff and making sure we can get more of these projects done citywide.
  • 00:43:16
    It's something that many of our residents want to see get done.
  • 00:43:19
    It's I think going back to basic city services that we all want to make sure that our residents can walk, bike, roll and make sure that
  • 00:43:27
    we can prevent many accidents from happening and this is one way of doing that so I know that there's a lot of interest in this body to make sure that if it's a staffing issue if it's a budgetary ask if it's
  • 00:43:38
    Council Member Rainville
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:44:08
    Thank you, Madam Chair, Director, good morning.
  • 00:44:11
    It's a beautiful day in Minneapolis.
  • 00:44:15
    I just wanted to compliment a couple of your employees.
  • 00:44:18
    So Joe Lauren has been very helpful in the lighting projects in the Third Ward and I really appreciate that.
  • 00:44:25
    I'm getting very positive feedback from the neighbors about his work.
  • 00:44:29
    And I also wanted to compliment Alan Klugman.
  • 00:44:32
    He's been very responsive to some
  • 00:44:35
    horrible pedestrian safety issues in the North Loop.
  • 00:44:37
    And again, I know I see Alan's here.
  • 00:44:40
    Alan, thank you so much.
  • 00:44:42
    And I do have only about 13 questions for you.
  • 00:44:47
    So perhaps we could have a private conversation and maybe even meet in person sometime.
• • Margaret Anderson KelliherDirector of Public Works
  • 00:44:53
    Madam Chair, Council Member Rainville, we always welcome meeting with council members, council members' staff, both in terms of problem-solving issues that are very specific, but also the larger policy questions and budget questions we deal with, so we'd appreciate that.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:45:11
    And thank you.
  • 00:45:11
    To respect your time, I'll make an appointment.
• • Linea Palmisano
  • 00:45:16
    Thank you.
  • 00:45:16
    Thank you, Vice President Palmisano.
  • 00:45:19
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
  • 00:45:21
    To the points made by Councilmember Chavez and Rainville, on slide 12, I might have just been trying to look at it and listen to you at the same time, but on slide 12, could you explain what the series
  • 00:45:39
    are here, and I assume we should presume that the horizontal bar are the last 12 years, with number 12 being this year to date?
• • Margaret Anderson KelliherDirector of Public Works
  • 00:45:50
    So, Madam Chair, Council Member Palmisano, the dates did not translate here.
  • 00:45:56
    So starting in one, I think you can see the one, is that correct?
  • 00:46:02
    Yeah.
  • 00:46:02
    Okay, that is 2012.
  • 00:46:05
    and then moving forward.
  • 00:46:07
    So the second to last bar 11 is actually 2022.
  • 00:46:12
    And then right now in 23 as we're tracking fatal crashes are on pace to be a bit lower than that bar bar 1122.
  • 00:46:28
    But I do have to say last year in both November and December,
  • 00:46:34
    They were very, very challenging months last year.
  • 00:46:38
    So bar 12 is an average over those years from 2012 to 2022, 10 years averaging out to see what's happening.
  • 00:46:50
    And so to be very clear, the blue are pedestrian fatal crashes.
  • 00:46:58
    Green are bicycle fatal crashes.
  • 00:47:03
    Orange are motorcycle, scooter, meaning motorized scooter, something that someone would license and ride in the city.
  • 00:47:13
    Crashes, fatal crashes.
  • 00:47:15
    The purple bar are exclusively automobile, car, truck crashes that are fatal.
• • Linea Palmisano
  • 00:47:25
    Thank you.
  • 00:47:27
    Yeah, this is a hard slide to look at and examine and I appreciate that we do and that we look at all the different factors and things that we can impact here, even though it seems like our results become a little bit uneven.
  • 00:47:46
    it is really important and it goes to the point of how could we do more of those projects where people submit all this information to you about these traffic calming projects.
  • 00:47:56
    And I've seen some of these submissions coming from my own community and they are robust, right?
  • 00:48:03
    They are giving you their best project idea.
  • 00:48:10
    So thank you.
  • 00:48:11
    comment or question that I had, this one's actually more of a comment, was the transportation action plan in action is often realized on our brand new streets.
  • 00:48:27
    In the case, I got a brand new street last year in Bryant Avenue and when we talk about faster rains and weather events in our city that come
  • 00:48:44
    It is so important that we start to talk about and understand that, for example, that one Bryant Avenue project adds 330,000 gallons of stormwater capacity and that benefits everybody beyond the people, the residents that live on that street.
  • 00:49:04
    is a street improvement.
  • 00:49:05
    That improves our water bodies, improves the water going into our lakes and creeks and on down the line through the watershed.
  • 00:49:13
    Additionally, this one particular road project added one and a half acres of pervious surface back into our public right-of-way.
  • 00:49:24
    And that's pretty significant, too.
  • 00:49:28
    There was a photo of the green stormwater infrastructure right outside City Hall in one of the slides.
  • 00:49:35
    It's not important to go back to, but it's important to see that that's what we're aiming at.
  • 00:49:40
    Right now,
  • 00:49:42
    some of our more recent street reconstructions we've been working on it and in particular you mentioned Angie Kraft she's been working on it and trying to get it right I think some of this is about education of the people that this is the the property right outside in front of their home and they can help to establish it or weed it accordingly and and some of this is going to take efforts on
  • 00:50:07
    the community's part as well as I know that I've had conversations with Public Works team in terms of what we could do on the contracted part out to get these better established.
  • 00:50:18
    And so I think that we've seen some progress on it over time and we're getting better at that.
  • 00:50:25
    It will sure help when they all look as beautiful as they do outside City Hall.
  • 00:50:30
    So thank you for that effort.
• • Margaret Anderson KelliherDirector of Public Works
  • 00:50:32
    Madam Chair, Council Member Palmesano, I did bring this slide back up.
  • 00:50:37
    purposefully, slide 16.
  • 00:50:40
    This is actually a daycare group crossing Bryant Avenue in its new configuration.
  • 00:50:47
    And you can see that the distance for these young residents and participants in active transportation is much different than what we would see at a traditional semi-form.
  • 00:51:05
    and just want to share that you know another way I mean we get neighborhood traffic calming requests and that's important but as we do our reconstructions in alignment with the transportation action plan and the climate action plan we can provide the built environment to look different and so thank you for saying that about Bryant Avenue
  • 00:51:30
    I think the important part on stormwater is we're asking a lot of both the square footage of the right away and of the people who live on that right away and work on that right away.
  • 00:51:44
    And so we continue to work to get that balance to be the right balance.
  • 00:51:49
    So thank you.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:51:52
    Thank you, Director.
  • 00:51:53
    I put myself in queue for a couple questions.
  • 00:51:57
    First one I had was on page six.
  • 00:51:59
    This is just kind of your overall budget here, and you have us going back to, I believe, 20, comparing to 2021.
  • 00:52:06
    I'm just curious to know if we go pre-pandemic to 2019, and it's okay if you don't have this right now, but how close are we getting to bringing you back to a budget that's closer to pre-pandemic levels?
  • 00:52:20
    And I understand I'm looking at this at a
  • 00:52:22
    full department level.
• • Margaret Anderson KelliherDirector of Public Works
  • 00:52:27
    Madam Chair, I'm just seeing if I can phone a friend.
  • 00:52:31
    Madam Chair, we are actually now at with this budget.
  • 00:52:36
    We are at a restoration level.
  • 00:52:39
    Great thank you.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:52:39
    That's super helpful and then just just I think you may be touching this, but I just wanted to make sure I understood correctly.
  • 00:52:46
    So on the admin slide you moved from.
  • 00:52:51
    Let's see here.
  • 00:52:52
    4.3 million was the current budget and then now to 3.3.
  • 00:52:57
    Was this where you described with the ARPA funding or is that that's why we're seeing that decrease there?
• • Margaret Anderson KelliherDirector of Public Works
  • 00:53:03
    Madam Chair, that is why you're seeing that decrease when the
  • 00:53:09
    So in 2024, the administrative budget will see a decrease in some rental costs and related IT costs of $250,000 and a decrease because of the ARPA dollars going away of $800,000 being removed.
  • 00:53:29
    So that's the reason that that budget drops.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:53:31
    Thank you.
  • 00:53:32
    Yeah, and then same with Fleet, you know, it went from 37, approximately 37 million to then it was planned for 41 million for 2024, but then down to 38.
  • 00:53:42
    Could you just describe maybe what the where or you know, what makes up that shift?
• • Margaret Anderson KelliherDirector of Public Works
  • 00:53:51
    So, Madam Chair, I believe that there was a duplication error in this budget that has now been remedied in the recommended mayor's budget.
  • 00:54:05
    The increase is 1.5 for the fleet acquisition plan, but then there had been a duplication that finance had found that we have removed.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:54:19
    Great, thank you so much.
  • 00:54:21
    Those are the questions I have and then I just want to say thank you so much for this presentation and to your entire team.
  • 00:54:27
    I have worked with I think every one of your directors individually on some type of project throughout this term and it's just been a pleasure to work with them and so helpful and I think many of our
  • 00:54:42
    311 requests, many of the requests and questions that come to us from residents do involve your team and just how quickly you're able to get back to us, how flexible and nimble your team has been and open-minded to think outside the box.
  • 00:54:59
    and being really solution oriented has been really, really helpful for I feel like my residents and I think that that has been expressed by others here too.
  • 00:55:11
    So thank you so much for this presentation and appreciate that you guys are all here today.
  • 00:55:17
    So thank you so much.
• • Margaret Anderson KelliherDirector of Public Works
  • 00:55:19
    Madam Chair, thank you very much.
  • 00:55:20
    We have one of the best teams in the whole city.
  • 00:55:23
    The thousand plus employees that work for Public Works.
  • 00:55:27
    come to work every day, ready to get things done for the residents, visitors, and people who work in the city.
  • 00:55:32
    And I'm very, very honored to lead them.
  • 00:55:35
    Thanks.
  • 00:55:36
    Thank you.
• • Emily Koski
  • 00:55:39
    Next, I just first want to recognize Council Member Goodman has joined us, Council Member Ellison did, but I think he stepped out again.
  • 00:55:44
    But we now have a presentation from our Civil Rights Department, and I invite Director Alberta Gillespie to give that presentation.
  • 00:55:53
    Welcome.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 00:55:57
    Good morning Thank You chair Koski and good morning council members.
  • 00:56:07
    I have the pleasure of presenting the Recommended budget for the civil rights department.
  • 00:56:13
    I'm gonna see if I can make this clicker work properly of course not There we go so you'll see our department overview, which is our organizational chart and
  • 00:56:26
    The mission of the Civil Rights Department is that we enforce laws that protect and advance people's human and civil rights, and so I think it's pretty straightforward.
  • 00:56:36
    I also have listed here the ordinances that allow us to do that.
  • 00:56:40
    Our priorities and objectives is that we still are focused on elevation, education, and engagement.
  • 00:56:48
    and for us as a department, one of the things we're really focused on is filling vacancies.
  • 00:56:52
    So we've been working with human resources to fill some of the vacancies in our department, which I'm sure you've heard this from other departments as well.
  • 00:57:00
    We're still trying to get back up to where we need to be from pre-pandemic.
  • 00:57:07
    The other thing that's really important is that improving our complaint investigation timelines for all of our enforcement divisions
  • 00:57:14
    That's really important to us because it's important to the public and the folks who live and work in this city.
  • 00:57:21
    A big priority for us is increasing our internal and external engagement.
  • 00:57:30
    So some of the achievements for the Civil Rights Department, we have been able to fill a lot of those vacancies.
  • 00:57:36
    We now have all of our division director positions filled, which is exciting.
  • 00:57:42
    We also have been able to work with LSAT, our Labor Standards and Enforcement Division, to launch
  • 00:57:50
    a pilot project that Councilor Cherakoski has been in her office very instrumental in making happen and been the lead on so it's a pioneering effort and our Standards and Enforcement Division Director will speak a little bit more about that.
  • 00:58:05
    We also were able to establish the Community Commission on Police Oversight.
  • 00:58:09
    That was a huge undertaking.
  • 00:58:12
    And so that work is moving forward as well.
  • 00:58:15
    And then we continue to work to make sure that we're meeting the terms of the settlement agreement, the court enforceable agreement with MDHR.
  • 00:58:23
    And then, of course, we've been able to elevate our engagement, outreach, and community partnerships.
  • 00:58:28
    These achievements, the division directors are going to come before you and talk a little bit more about some of the achievements for the last couple of years, actually.
  • 00:58:38
    So I haven't been there two years yet, just a little shorter two years, so.
  • 00:58:44
    The risk is that we've done such a good job working with human resources and recruiting people, we are expecting to outgrow our space in the next four months.
  • 00:58:53
    So we had three people that actually started today.
  • 00:58:57
    So, excited about that.
  • 00:58:58
    and then the other is workloads for employees is making sure that we can have workloads that are sustainable particularly with the MDHR agreement there's a lot more work that's required to meet that to meet those terms and then we're not sure and this is specifically for OPCR we're not necessarily sure what will be required by DOJ so it's just really making sure that we can balance those workloads the other thing that continues to be
  • 00:59:24
    One of our risks is COVID-19, so I don't know if other departments have experienced this, but we do still have people who are contracting COVID-19, which means there's time off.
  • 00:59:34
    That impacts our investigation timeline, so that's still something that we are trying to manage.
  • 00:59:43
    Currently, for 2023, we have 4.25 FTEs.
  • 00:59:49
    It says nine vacancies, but when we did this, we didn't count the people who actually started today, so we're up to, we're down to six vacancies.
  • 00:59:56
    So we're really excited that we're staffing up.
  • 01:00:02
    We're going to have our program updates and I'm really excited as I said that our division directors work really hard to keep the Civil Rights Department moving forward.
  • 01:00:11
    So each one of them are going to come before you and talk about their specific division, what they've accomplished, and what's next.
  • 01:00:20
    But I'll start with the
  • 01:00:22
    administration and policy piece.
  • 01:00:25
    And so it just hit some of those highlights.
  • 01:00:27
    So we're excited.
  • 01:00:29
    We're really excited.
  • 01:00:31
    There are some highlights in terms of helping with setting up and standing up of the Community Commission on Police Oversight.
  • 01:00:39
    That was a department-wide effort.
  • 01:00:42
    We had not expected to get 150 applications.
  • 01:00:45
    And so in order to manage that, that took a lot of work from other departments.
  • 01:00:50
    were able to do that with the help of administration.
  • 01:00:53
    The other thing that I'm really excited about is that about a week ago we received news that we had been awarded a grant, we have to bring it before the council, to fight hate crimes.
  • 01:01:07
    And so the council had given a legislative directive that we'd look into
  • 01:01:11
    Hate Crimes and how we address hate crimes.
  • 01:01:14
    We decided as a department to take that a step further and to actually apply for grant funding so that we could actually actively address hate crimes.
  • 01:01:23
    And that whole grant process happened within the administration department, I mean, division within our department.
  • 01:01:29
    And so we were awarded $400,000 to address hate crimes for the next four years.
  • 01:01:34
    So it's $100,000 per year.
  • 01:01:36
    So very excited about that.
  • 01:01:38
    And you'll hear more about that.
  • 01:01:39
    because we have to be coming for the council again.
  • 01:01:42
    get approval to accept that money.
  • 01:01:45
    The other thing is that because we have the changes that are happening with OPCR, we've directed a lot of staff to detail them to assist OPCR with making the changes that they need to make in order to meet the settlement agreement.
  • 01:01:59
    As you know, it's a huge undertaking, so it's requiring additional resources.
  • 01:02:03
    So a lot of the staff time is dedicated to managing the CCPO, as well as making sure that we're meeting the timelines.
  • 01:02:11
    And then our other focus has really been on branding, marketing, and communication strategies.
  • 01:02:18
    We talked about engagement and elevation.
  • 01:02:20
    How is it that we are actively going out and building partnerships with the community and sharing information with community, helping them to understand what it is that we do internally and externally.
  • 01:02:31
    This has been our effort.
  • 01:02:38
    So our division directors are going to come up and speak more about what they've accomplished this year, and then I'll come back up and close out our presentation.
  • 01:02:47
    We'll start with contract compliance, and that's Director Johnny Burns.
  • 01:02:54
    Welcome.
• • SPEAKER_00
  • 01:02:55
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
  • 01:02:57
    I want to talk to you a little bit about contract compliance.
  • 01:03:00
    I won't take up too much of your time, probably five minutes, 45 seconds, something around there.
  • 01:03:05
    We'll try to keep it to that.
  • 01:03:07
    I'll talk to you about what our overall responsibilities are, then I'll walk you through what we're currently doing, and then I'll talk to you about what the future is for contract compliance.
  • 01:03:17
    I want to acknowledge the staff first.
  • 01:03:20
    Let's see, Dan Peterson, Leslie Wohey, Hassan Mohamed, Aidan Doon, Keleen Perez-Garcia, Olivia Awude, Hannah Franklin, and Anna Gonzalez.
  • 01:03:36
    So contract compliance is responsible really for making sure that our construction and development projects are safe and secure for workers and small businesses.
  • 01:03:47
    We manage the city's small and underutilized business program.
  • 01:03:52
    We ensure contractors don't discriminate on city of Minneapolis contracts.
  • 01:03:56
    This includes our city funded contracts and our federally funded contracts.
  • 01:04:01
    We make sure that workers are classified and paid appropriately on all of our projects.
  • 01:04:06
    and we do this through an active monitoring system.
  • 01:04:08
    So a lot of places wait until the project's over, we monitor the projects while they're active.
  • 01:04:13
    We hold the contractors accountable to the rules.
  • 01:04:16
    We have four city ordinances that we manage and at least three other federal regulations that we manage.
  • 01:04:23
    And we also are part of the Minnesota Unified Certification Program that certifies small businesses in our SUBP program.
  • 01:04:39
    I'll talk to you about our current construction program and what we're monitoring.
  • 01:04:44
    As you can see there, we're monitoring a lot of contracts.
  • 01:04:48
    We monitor over 200 contracts, over 1,200 subcontracts and about $1.2 billion worth of work.
  • 01:04:57
    This includes projects that have only goals or projects that have prevailing wages.
  • 01:05:02
    State projects with state projects with state funding only
  • 01:05:05
    we're still required to gather information and then the state monitors and reviews those, but my staff still has to gather that information.
  • 01:05:14
    We monitor prevailing wage on projects over $175,000 and under $175,000 we rely on individuals for complaint.
  • 01:05:24
    Now how do we manage all of this work?
  • 01:05:26
    We also did 26 certifications last year, or this year I should say, which is equal to last year already, so that's
  • 01:05:35
    Kudos to the staff for that.
  • 01:05:36
    We've also approved 166 affirmative action plans, which again helps us to ensure our contractors are non-discriminatory on projects.
  • 01:05:46
    And we have, what we've done is created these processes to streamline the work.
  • 01:05:50
    So the work should keep the staff busy but not overwhelmed.
  • 01:05:54
    And that means we have to sometimes not do, to the probably extent that I want to do compliance on projects, but still making sure that we meet the intent of the
  • 01:06:04
    ordinance or any regulations that we monitor.
  • 01:06:07
    We also do project site visits and interview workers to ensure that they're paid and treated fairly on the construction projects.
  • 01:06:16
    We also did eight investigations here.
  • 01:06:19
    I would say eight contracts, the major investigations for 58 different workers totaling about $117,000 in back wages for workers.
  • 01:06:28
    And this is related to either misclassification
  • 01:06:33
    and maybe not as going as far as wage theft, at least we haven't prosecuted anybody for wage theft, but $117,000.
  • 01:06:41
    We had one worker get about $6,000 after taxes for wages that they were due on a project.
  • 01:06:51
    If we found any discrimination on our site visits, we will work with Director McConaughey, make sure that her team knows and interviews the workers and talks to them about any discriminatory practices.
  • 01:07:02
    Director Gillespie talked about new staff.
  • 01:07:05
    We have a staff person starting next week to help us with these development projects.
  • 01:07:09
    As you can see, there's 50 development projects happening right now.
  • 01:07:13
    Those are the mostly city with federally funded projects, and we have another 20 coming up.
  • 01:07:20
    And those contracts didn't have anywhere from 25 to 75 subcontractors on them, which makes the work, especially getting payrolls pretty, pretty tough.
  • 01:07:30
    And when we do those investigations for
  • 01:07:33
    misclassification or worker underpayments.
  • 01:07:36
    It takes the time away from the staff to manage the other projects.
  • 01:07:41
    So we're getting a full-time wage investigator to investigate wage theft on development projects.
  • 01:07:48
    So we're excited about that.
  • 01:07:50
    More subcontract or more contract data.
  • 01:07:56
    This is the breakdown of current contracts.
  • 01:07:58
    So contracts that are active right now, some are carried over from
  • 01:08:02
    The future of contract compliance
  • 01:08:31
    really focus on outreach and community engagement.
  • 01:08:35
    We're getting better at conducting outreach.
  • 01:08:37
    We went to Black Business Week.
  • 01:08:38
    I went last year, too, but we went to the Sabathne event, the 56th Brewing event, and we helped with some of the planning with CPED and Zo deal over there.
  • 01:08:49
    She did a good job.
  • 01:08:51
    We're also part of the Ramsey County Hennepin County Labor Advisory Council, looking at wages, wage theft, looking at those events.
  • 01:09:00
    We attended SABOC this year, as well as the Pride event, and we will be attending the TACWO tour on October 21st.
  • 01:09:08
    If you're not going, please go.
  • 01:09:11
    We'll talk about what we're doing and help different workers with wait staff for information about our division.
  • 01:09:21
    And we're trying to piggyback on what Director Walsh is doing with outreach.
  • 01:09:24
    He does a really good job in outreach.
  • 01:09:28
    And some of the things that are
  • 01:09:30
    Challenging for us coming up is the challenges to affirmative action.
  • 01:09:34
    As you know, the Harvard case has kind of some lasting issues with any program that's race-based.
  • 01:09:43
    There's also another case out of Tennessee, the ultimate case that directly talked about challenges to presumption of disadvantage for women and minority in certain groups.
  • 01:09:58
    but we've started to get ahead of that already working with Director Gillespie with the City Attorney's Office, also with some of our partners across the United States who have similar programs and what they're doing.
  • 01:10:10
    We've also started the process to, I think the RFP for the disparity study just went out so we needed the disparity study to have these programs.
  • 01:10:22
    So the disparity study last year cost about
  • 01:10:25
    1.4 million dollars.
  • 01:10:26
    The city's portion of that, not last year, 2017, I'm sorry.
  • 01:10:30
    The city's portion was about 148,000.
  • 01:10:32
    The more entities we get involved, the less our costs will be.
  • 01:10:37
    But as you know, that study being about almost 10 years now, it's going to be a lot more than 1.4 million.
  • 01:10:46
    We have the State of Minnesota, Met Council, Airports Commission, Minnesota State, the Mosquito Control District, the City of Minneapolis, City of St. Paul, and the Housing Authority and maybe Hennepin County.
  • 01:11:00
    It sounds like Rochester may get involved also.
  • 01:11:02
    So we're working, like I said, with the city's attorney's office and our partners to try to understand what we need to do to make these programs efficient and meet the intent of the
  • 01:11:15
    Good morning.
  • 01:11:19
    Welcome.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 01:11:34
    Thank you.
  • 01:11:35
    Chair Koski, Council members, thanks so much for having us.
  • 01:11:38
    My name is Kayla Macanandiera and I'm the Director of the Complaint Investigations Division within the Civil Rights Department.
  • 01:11:44
    I'm excited to tell you a little bit about our work and some of the successes of the last couple of years particularly.
  • 01:11:49
    So we're tasked with enforcing the Minneapolis Civil Rights Ordinance and how we do that is by receiving and investigating complaints of discrimination.
  • 01:11:59
    So we have jurisdiction under the ordinance to investigate discrimination based on protected class.
  • 01:12:05
    How I generally explain protected class is it's an element of your identity that you cannot or should not be asked to change.
  • 01:12:11
    So think things like race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, and the like.
  • 01:12:16
    They're all enumerated in the ordinance itself.
  • 01:12:19
    And then we have jurisdiction to investigate discrimination in a variety of different areas.
  • 01:12:23
    So the areas we see most often are employment and housing, discrimination that's taking place in employment or housing.
  • 01:12:30
    We also have jurisdiction over discrimination taking place in public services.
  • 01:12:35
    So that would be any interactions with city employees, including the police.
  • 01:12:40
    as well as public accommodations.
  • 01:12:42
    So that's any business that you might be interacting with whether a restaurant, a store, a gym where you face discrimination as well as education and a variety of other areas also listed in the ordinance.
  • 01:12:55
    As you can imagine investigating these kinds of cases is a pretty complex process and something that I won't get into in too much detail here.
  • 01:13:02
    but we really are focused as a part of Director Gillespie's initiative to really elevate engage and educate around this work is making our process as accessible as possible so both to just general members of the public who might be interested in what we do but especially to folks that need to access our services our services are not something that might be familiar to folks something that they've been a part of before and we really want to make sure that they they understand our process feel like they can
  • 01:13:30
    they can work with us and submit those complaints and see a positive outcome and see that those are processing through in an effective way.
  • 01:13:38
    To that end, I'm not going to show it today, but I do have it linked to this presentation so folks could access it later.
  • 01:13:45
    We developed two different videos.
  • 01:13:47
    One is a shorter form overview of our process.
  • 01:13:50
    It's a little over a minute long and then a slightly longer form version that's about five minutes long that really goes into
  • 01:13:57
    If you are submitting a complaint of discrimination, where does it go from there and kind of step by step through our process?
  • 01:14:03
    These have been really important tools since we created them about a year ago, using them in trainings and presentations, but also sharing them with the folks that are interacting with our process to make them hopefully feel that much more accessible and understandable.
  • 01:14:15
    We also have them available in a variety of languages, which we found to be really helpful when we're working with folks whose English might not be their first language and making it that much more accessible and understandable for folks.
  • 01:14:26
    So we're excited
  • 01:14:27
    about that, obviously encourage any dissemination of those videos to folks that you all might interact with as well that would find them helpful and beneficial.
  • 01:14:36
    Moving to just some highlights from the division from especially the last two years, one thing we're really proud of is our monetary settlement numbers.
  • 01:14:45
    So when we have a charge of discrimination, we often offer mediation at multiple points in the process.
  • 01:14:51
    and what mediation does is it brings the parties together, the person who filed a complaint of discrimination and then whoever is the alleged discriminator, whatever entity that is, a landlord, an employer, come together and attempt to reach some sort of positive resolution to that particular charge of discrimination.
  • 01:15:09
    If they're able to do that, that very often includes some sort of monetary amount that is paid to the person who filed a charge of discrimination to compensate them for their experience, attempt to make them whole,
  • 01:15:20
    and to move on positively from that particular situation and so these monetary numbers come from that as well as conciliation which is similar to mediation but it happens further along in our process after we make a decision that there's probable cause discrimination occurred and again we bring the parties together with a third party neutral
  • 01:15:38
    who mediates an attempt to reach a positive resolution, which very often includes some sort of monetary amount being paid out.
  • 01:15:45
    So we're really excited in 2022.
  • 01:15:48
    We were able to secure more than $500,000 on behalf of victims of discrimination, which is the highest in the division's history.
  • 01:15:56
    So we're excited about that.
  • 01:15:58
    And this year, as of right now, we're at more than $200,000.
  • 01:16:01
    So I'm not sure if we'll hit that same record number or surpass it.
  • 01:16:05
    I certainly hope we do.
  • 01:16:07
    but only time will tell but we're on track to have another very successful year with really successful mediations and conciliations that really are providing for pretty significant positive results for folks that have unfortunately experienced discrimination.
  • 01:16:23
    I'll also note that we do all this with a fairly small but mighty team of currently three investigators and two intake officers and we have one investigator position that we're currently filling who all work very hard to get to these positive results and I'm very appreciative for all of their work.
  • 01:16:41
    Along those same lines, I will also highlight really improved case timelines and really positive case timeline outcomes, particularly this year.
  • 01:16:51
    So we set a goal last year to complete investigations in under 150 days.
  • 01:16:56
    And as of 2023, as of right now, on average investigations are completed within 116 days.
  • 01:17:04
    And when we break down the numbers even further,
  • 01:17:06
    75% of our cases are completed in 140 days or less.
  • 01:17:10
    So we are largely meeting that deadline that we put for ourselves and feeling positively about that.
  • 01:17:17
    I will add that we're seeing case increases.
  • 01:17:20
    for a variety of reasons.
  • 01:17:22
    We have a work share agreement with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which is the federal agency that investigates employment discrimination.
  • 01:17:30
    And we have really seen an uptick of cases that they were referring to us kind of going back to the pre-pandemic levels that we were used to seeing, but that we hadn't been seeing the last couple of years.
  • 01:17:40
    So we've seen a significant increase in employment cases in that particular arena.
  • 01:17:46
    We're also seeing an increase in public service cases, particularly police related discrimination claims that are being filed.
  • 01:17:53
    And then we're also looking into a possible work share agreement with HUD.
  • 01:17:58
    of housing discrimination that is occurring within the city of Minneapolis.
  • 01:18:07
    So we do expect those increases to continue.
  • 01:18:11
    And then I want to highlight our work with the Civil Rights Commission.
  • 01:18:14
    So as many of you know, we support the Civil Rights Commission which is a group of
  • 01:18:18
    21 volunteer residents of the city of Minneapolis appointed by you all or the mayor's office who work really hard and do really great work.
  • 01:18:27
    We really enjoy partnering with them as a key community partner, but also they serve a very important part of our actually case process.
  • 01:18:35
    So the Civil Rights Commission has jurisdiction to review appeals.
  • 01:18:40
    So if we make a no probable cause decision that there is no probable cause that that discrimination occurred,
  • 01:18:46
    the folks who have filed that complaint can appeal that decision and a panel of three commissioners review those appeals and makes decisions but they also have jurisdiction to hold public hearings so that's in cases where we found probable cause that discrimination occurred we attempted conciliation so we tried to reach a positive settlement agreement to close out the case
  • 01:19:08
    but that was unsuccessful for any number of reasons.
  • 01:19:11
    Then it moves into public hearing which is actually a mini trial for lack of a better term regarding the case and regarding the alleged discrimination also in front of the Civil Rights Commission.
  • 01:19:22
    We hadn't had a public hearing in many years long before my time and any of the folks that work within my division but we were able this year to have a very successful
  • 01:19:33
    public hearing take place before the commission and we really worked very closely in collaboration with the commission members to make sure that that was a success and we look forward to continue working with them moving forward.
  • 01:19:46
    And then I just want to highlight one particular kind of piece of our ordinance and really an effort from our division right now, which is around source of income discrimination in housing.
  • 01:19:56
    You all may have seen there was a press release that went out around this last Thursday, so fairly recently.
  • 01:20:02
    But there is a newly enforceable provision within the Civil Rights Ordinance that prohibits discrimination against folks who use public assistance, rent subsidies,
  • 01:20:11
    to pay for their housing and very specifically this includes folks that have housing choice vouchers or section 8.
  • 01:20:18
    As some of you might remember this actually was passed into ordinance in 2017 and then became enforceable in 2018 but the city was very promptly sued and there was an injunction so we couldn't actually
  • 01:20:31
    enforced this particular portion of the ordinance for about five years.
  • 01:20:35
    So as of just at the end of last year in December, that injunction was lifted and we could again enforce this particular provision of the ordinance which we're really, really excited about and really spending a lot of time working on that because this is something that we had heard about for many years, something that we continued to hear about when we couldn't enforce this ordinance that especially folks with housing choice vouchers or Section 8 really were having trouble securing housing in the City of Minneapolis.
  • 01:21:00
    and being told that they just couldn't even apply to housing.
  • 01:21:04
    So this is something that's really important.
  • 01:21:05
    We've been focusing again on the education engagement and elevation of this particular provision of the ordinance.
  • 01:21:11
    And we've done that through a variety of different channels.
  • 01:21:14
    So we've done some internal and external learning sessions around this particular part of the ordinance.
  • 01:21:19
    We've held a couple within the enterprise with folks across the enterprise that interact most, particularly with renters and with property owners who might be touched by this ordinance and then external learning sessions.
  • 01:21:32
    We've done a couple with the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority.
  • 01:21:35
    who administer the Housing Choice Voucher Program.
  • 01:21:37
    So as you can imagine, that's a really important partner for us to have, so working with them.
  • 01:21:42
    But we also have a couple of sessions that are coming up here that I just want to highlight that are going to be open to the public and we would really like folks to attend.
  • 01:21:52
    The first will be Tuesday, August 24th at Sabathne Community Center.
  • 01:21:56
    and the second will be Monday November 13th at UROC and they'll both be from 2 to 7 p.m. and they're kind of a drop-in come in we'll do presentations learning sessions around this ordinance throughout the day as well as have other resources around the Civil Rights Department's work
  • 01:22:13
    as a whole available to community members.
  • 01:22:15
    So please push that out as is relevant to your constituents.
  • 01:22:21
    We've also developed some materials that we are able to disseminate as well.
  • 01:22:26
    So as you can see from this slide, we have flyers.
  • 01:22:29
    This is the one that's focused particularly towards renters, but we also have a flyer that's more geared towards property owners as well to educate folks about this.
  • 01:22:37
    We also have a new
  • 01:22:39
    website or a new web page as a part of our website that has all of this information as well.
  • 01:22:45
    And we have started seeing that getting the word out is working.
  • 01:22:48
    We're hoping that that's going to continue to increase over time, but we've been receiving these complaints.
  • 01:22:53
    We've been able to reach some positive outcomes.
  • 01:22:55
    So we're excited about that and hope that that moves in the right direction of folks knowing about this particular provision of the ordinance but also if people are experiencing this type of discrimination, they're coming to us and we're able to run those cases through our process and reach positive outcomes for people.
  • 01:23:12
    and hopefully prevent this type of discrimination from continuing to occur across the city.
  • 01:23:18
    And then lastly, I'll just highlight that there's a really important racial equity impact to particularly this provision of the ordinance because 84% of housing choice voucher holders are BIPOC.
  • 01:23:29
    So that is who is impacted by
  • 01:23:32
    by discrimination against these folks.
  • 01:23:34
    And so it's really an important piece that we're able to play to start addressing that and prevent that moving forward.
  • 01:23:41
    And then lastly, along those same lines, just the really important racial equity impact of the division as a whole because this portion of the civil rights ordinance and the complaint investigations division, I think, really provides an important tool for redress for racial discrimination across the city in a variety of different areas that I highlighted previously.
  • 01:24:01
    So with that thank you so much and I'll look forward to any questions you have at the end.
  • 01:24:06
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 01:24:15
    So the OPCR director is out sick today and not here, but he previously presented to this committee as a part of the MDHR settlement agreement team, so you had that presentation, but I will highlight that we're excited.
  • 01:24:31
    One of the highlights is we have an OPCR director, so he's been on for about eight months now,
  • 01:24:36
    He's also realigning the division so that it can be more effective.
  • 01:24:40
    As you know, there's a significant backlog in investigations right now in that particular division.
  • 01:24:48
    So how do we structure so that we can make sure that like the other divisions, we are reducing those timelines.
  • 01:24:54
    that's one of the key things that is happening.
  • 01:24:57
    Also establishing again the community commission on police oversight and making sure that that commission is successful is one of the primary focuses and priorities for that particular division and so we've dedicated a lot of resources to that.
  • 01:25:13
    So and this current commission has received more training than any of the other
  • 01:25:18
    This is really important and it's one of the things
  • 01:25:29
    you'll hear me keep saying and now it's the division directors are saying elevation education and engagement we recently had an opportunity to present about on our partnership with the unity community mediation team and so connecting with them and all the organizations that are a part of that about how can we partner to make sure that community members are receiving information in a way that's accessible around police accountability as well as some other things and so I will go on to the next director now
• • Emily Koski
  • 01:26:06
    Welcome.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 01:26:07
    Thank you.
  • 01:26:08
    Good morning and thank you, Madam Chair.
  • 01:26:10
    and to our council members.
  • 01:26:12
    My name is Sherlonda Clark and I am the Director of Equity and Engagement for the Civil Rights Department here in the city.
  • 01:26:19
    It is my pleasure to be here this morning.
  • 01:26:22
    A little bit about our division is really what I do and why I'm super excited about my job is I get to elevate the work that my esteemed colleagues are doing.
  • 01:26:34
    I just totally believe in and committed to the mission of the Civil Rights Department
  • 01:26:40
    and it's wonderful to be the person to act as a liaison for our department on issues of equity, engagement opportunities with my colleagues across the city, other partner organizations and of course with our community.
  • 01:26:54
    One of the things that I specialize in and we specialize in as a division is overseeing the inward facing policies here and processes concerning the equity work within the department.
  • 01:27:07
    We also work very closely with community stakeholders to what I call co-create a more equitable Minneapolis.
  • 01:27:15
    Some of the things that my division is doing that I would like to highlight, most of you are probably very familiar with the Urban Scholars Program.
  • 01:27:24
    We are leading the History Makers at Home event, so one of the pivotal events that takes place during Black History Month.
  • 01:27:34
    We were
  • 01:27:35
    Co-planning with Zo on a couple different things during Black Business Week, including doing business with the city, which is something we specialize in with Director Burns.
  • 01:27:47
    In addition to that, I actually went and promoted it on KMOJ.
  • 01:27:52
    So it was fun to work with our colleagues in neighborhood community relations on that.
  • 01:27:57
    I am working closely with Director McCona DiEira on our source of income listening sessions with the community and really taking that as an opportunity to bring forth all the things that we do within the Department of Civil Rights to the community so they don't necessarily have to come to us.
  • 01:28:14
    We will also go to them.
  • 01:28:17
    For me, I am right now a division of one and looking to increase that by several more people.
  • 01:28:25
    I am hopeful that I will be able to offer out a position this week and I have two other FTEs that those positions are posted and will be closing today.
  • 01:28:37
    So I am looking forward to having a full staff and all the dynamic things that we will be able to do on behalf of the department and on the city.
  • 01:28:47
    For me, I am a visual person, so for my next slide, I always say a photo is worth a thousand words.
  • 01:28:54
    These are some of the things, and I always say you never know when people won't take your word for it, so I have photographic evidence of some of the things that we have been doing.
  • 01:29:04
    In the first photograph, you will notice we are with Attorney General Ellison here.
  • 01:29:11
    This is an event that was in North Minneapolis.
  • 01:29:15
    It took place during
  • 01:29:16
    Black Business Week.
  • 01:29:17
    Next to that, we are out at a Pride event, or at the Minneapolis Pride.
  • 01:29:24
    As Director Gillespie mentioned, we will be working and leading that hate crime response campaign I actually presented at the Community Connections Conference.
  • 01:29:36
    We made that an interactive
  • 01:29:38
    session so that folks could give us their feedback on what does it mean to think about the theme Love Lives Here.
  • 01:29:46
    What does that look like?
  • 01:29:47
    What does that feel like?
  • 01:29:49
    And how do we bring that forward?
  • 01:29:51
    And so that was the focus of that session.
  • 01:29:53
    If you go down to me in the purple dress, that is Black Business Week.
  • 01:29:58
    That was the kickoff event.
  • 01:30:01
    Next to that is us at Doing Business with the City, some of the folks.
  • 01:30:06
    My favorite might be the bottom photo.
  • 01:30:09
    This is Council President Jenkins.
  • 01:30:12
    She is speaking at the recognition ceremony for the Urban Scholars Program.
  • 01:30:16
    That's me getting my Southern Baptist on, like shouting her out with my thumbs up there.
  • 01:30:22
    On the far right, the top photo, just want to highlight, again, this is the recognition ceremony for urban scholars, but want to highlight all the different partners that were there.
  • 01:30:34
    So we had scholars placed in about 15 different departments across the city.
  • 01:30:40
    We also had three different partners, Minnesota Parks and Rec, Hennepin County,
  • 01:30:46
    and the Minneapolis Housing Authority.
  • 01:30:49
    So just some of our partners, we actually are looking to expand that for next year.
  • 01:30:54
    You will see in that bottom photo just one of the groups of students who were presenting on what they learned this summer, all of that good stuff.
  • 01:31:04
    And if you're confused about the wrap snacks, part of what
  • 01:31:08
    I want to do is to raise engagement and I believe that starts at home so within our office we actually now I have established a fun once a month thing called Try It Tuesdays where we bring in different things
  • 01:31:23
    we have a different theme each month just so you know for the wrap snacks the little baby sour cream and cheddar and the amigos honey in barbecuing were the favorites of that group so just to just to let you know a little bit about that in addition to doing some things within the civil rights department have been had the pleasure of serving on the immigration team and so
  • 01:31:48
    working closely with Michelle in her office on establishing, there's some interest in establishing an employee relations group, ERB, for folks who identify as immigrants and refugees, so working on the language around that.
  • 01:32:05
    In addition, you probably, I believe, CPED released it last Thursday.
  • 01:32:10
    They actually have produced a series of videos around projects that they have done throughout the city of Minneapolis.
  • 01:32:19
    And yours truly is the narrator for those videos.
  • 01:32:22
    So it's just been wonderful to be a representative of the department, to be here in the city.
  • 01:32:28
    And I thank you for your time.
• • Emily Koski
  • 01:32:33
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 01:32:37
    Welcome, Director Committee members, Chair Koski, my name is Brian Walsh.
  • 01:32:46
    I'm Director of Labor Standards Enforcement Division.
  • 01:32:50
    I will very briefly hit a few, just a few quick highlights from the last year plus, last year and a half, and then move forward to the mayor's recommended budget for next year.
  • 01:33:01
    So the Labor Standards Enforcement Division investigates reported violations of labor standards and demands back payment of wages for affected workers.
  • 01:33:11
    We do that with a small team of three investigators, an admin plus myself.
  • 01:33:17
    The labor standards, of course, in the city include the Sick and Safe Time Ordinance, minimum wage, and wage theft prevention.
  • 01:33:24
    In 2022, we closed 146 investigations resulting in 66 settlements affecting over 4,000 workers and collected over $570,000 for those workers.
  • 01:33:42
    Then in 2023, to date, at least through quarter three, we have closed 139 investigations resulting in 43 settlements affecting over 1,400 workers and collecting over $430,000.
  • 01:33:58
    In 2022, our co-enforcement partners, including SATUL, ROC and the New Justice Project,
  • 01:34:08
    These are just a couple of the highlights of their work, reaching over 12,000 workers through in-person and online organizing.
  • 01:34:19
    I think importantly, over 400 workers attended trainings conducted by our partners.
  • 01:34:23
    78 of those attendees became trainers themselves, who then trained other workers, who then trained other workers, and on and on.
  • 01:34:31
    Also important to note that these co-enforcement partners enforce labor laws just like my team in civil rights, but they are able to do so with more and different tools.
  • 01:34:43
    Last thing I want to highlight
  • 01:34:45
    is ongoing work, of course, with our Workplace Advisory Committee that include representatives of organized labor, small business, large business, and workers, and in addition to other community partners.
  • 01:35:01
    One of the focuses of this last year has been looking at drafting, and we have drafted language to align our Sick and Safe Time ordinance with the new state statute to ensure that it is
  • 01:35:14
    consistent as possible across jurisdictions for both workers and businesses alike.
  • 01:35:21
    Also, met many times with the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry to help them understand the substantive meaning of the fine print in that NUSIC and Safe Time statute.
  • 01:35:31
    And again, make sure that it's aligned as much as possible with existing law in the city.
  • 01:35:38
    Turning to the mayor's recommended budget,
  • 01:35:41
    includes one FTE, which would be an investigator in our Labor Standards Enforcement Division.
  • 01:35:47
    This investment can be expected to return a roughly equal amount directly to workers through our complaint investigations.
  • 01:35:57
    This is important because just to sort of illustrate the extent of the problem, a recent Rutgers study found 32,000 workers across just the metro area paid less than minimum wage.
  • 01:36:11
    amounts averaging $2,700 per worker per year.
  • 01:36:19
    Black and Latino workers are roughly one to two times more likely to be paid less than the minimum wage.
  • 01:36:29
    The last thing I want to highlight is we'll be moving into the second year of an ARPA funded small business pilot.
  • 01:36:37
    That has been incredibly helpful in helping us understand what labor law compliance looks like and how it functions within particularly really small businesses.
  • 01:36:50
    and finding really precisely where that function is sometimes missed.
  • 01:36:57
    It's already really informing how we think about and how we do our outreach and small business technical assistance.
  • 01:37:07
    With that, I think we will stand for questions.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 01:37:17
    Thank you, Directors.
  • 01:37:19
    I just quickly want to just highlight a couple of things about the actual budget where you see the administration budget that it's a decrease.
  • 01:37:29
    That is due to a decrease in IT charges.
  • 01:37:33
    So the IT charges went from $516,000 to $175,000 and also the rent model
  • 01:37:41
    decreased from $305,000 to $47,000.
  • 01:37:44
    So that's what you see where it looks like we have less money.
  • 01:37:50
    I was like, what's happening here?
  • 01:37:52
    Well, that's what's happening.
  • 01:37:53
    And also for CID, there really is no additional FTEs there, and so the increase is really just regular personnel cost as well as for CCD, it's the same thing there.
  • 01:38:06
    There's another reduction
  • 01:38:09
    on that IT model that you'll see reflected in the CCD budget for 2024 and of about $77,000.
  • 01:38:19
    So those are the changes that you'll see.
  • 01:38:23
    OPCR, the mayor is also recommending three additional FTEs so that we can meet the requirements of MDHR.
  • 01:38:32
    That's where that primary increase comes from there.
  • 01:38:35
    And then the 2023 budget for the Civil Rights Department was $7,792,548.
  • 01:38:40
    For 2024, $7,040,774, which is about a difference of $751,000.
  • 01:38:55
    And with that, we will stand for questions.
  • 01:38:57
    I just want to say I know Public Works said they have a great staff and they do.
  • 01:39:01
    We're mighty, we're small but mighty.
  • 01:39:04
    I couldn't ask for a better staff and the impact that they have and the dedication is unparalleled, so thank you.
• • Emily Koski
  • 01:39:12
    Thank you so much.
  • 01:39:14
    I do have a few people in queue.
  • 01:39:16
    First up, we have Vice President Palmisano.
• • Linea Palmisano
  • 01:39:19
    Thank you Madam Chair.
  • 01:39:20
    Just briefly, I wanted to thank you for giving us all of the details about complaint investigation.
  • 01:39:27
    That was through Michaela.
  • 01:39:28
    I would butcher her last name if I tried it.
  • 01:39:31
    Thank you.
  • 01:39:33
    It's beautiful and I would just mangle it.
  • 01:39:36
    You know, I'm so glad that we have this as a service in our civil rights department.
  • 01:39:42
    As council members, everybody here on this dais and people who aren't able to make it today, we get pulled into everything in our community.
  • 01:39:50
    And it's sometimes hard to figure out how to help somebody navigate or you get stuck in between two people in a community.
  • 01:39:58
    And I think it's really important that
  • 01:40:01
    as elected people were not directly part of that remediation and that it's conducted objectively.
  • 01:40:09
    You know it really is a trusted process and it is so valuable and I just want to mention it because it is so valuable as a place to refer and give a warm handoff to this group.
  • 01:40:24
    These are difficult situations and I've used this complaint investigation process and I just want to thank you
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 01:40:30
    for running it
  • 01:40:43
    income discrimination, that we're leading, once again, because we led with sick and saved time.
  • 01:40:50
    So the city of Minneapolis is leading.
  • 01:40:51
    There are very few cities that are really pursuing this in the way that they should.
  • 01:40:57
    And so we're setting an example.
  • 01:41:00
    And thank you for that.
  • 01:41:01
    We try to make sure that our work is neutral and unbiased.
• • Emily Koski
  • 01:41:08
    Thank you.
  • 01:41:09
    Councilmember Payne, this is Q.
• • Elliott Payne
  • 01:41:12
    Thank you, Madam Chair, building on the theme of small and mighty.
  • 01:41:15
    I'd like you to be mightier, right?
  • 01:41:19
    And I'd like you to be bigger.
  • 01:41:21
    These are challenges that we know are larger than your department's capacity.
  • 01:41:26
    And I'm just wanting to maybe, it's not going to be necessarily an answer you're going to give me here on the dais, but there's a scale of challenges that your department is tackling that our budget does not reflect.
  • 01:41:42
    And so I think as we think about things like wage theft, some of these quieter, under the table problems that are actually massive and we know it's bigger than what is self-reported.
  • 01:41:57
    I just want to right size our efforts to what the challenge is.
  • 01:42:01
    And I'm just trying to think about ways that we can get there and maybe insights, not again for you to answer me right now, what is the dollar amount, but I want us to be committed to tackling these challenges and actually allocating resources that meet the scale of the challenge.
  • 01:42:18
    It's more of a statement than a question.
  • 01:42:20
    Unless you have a number off the top of your head that I would love to carry.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 01:42:24
    Chair Koski, Council Member Payne, I do not have a number, but I do appreciate the statement and because I think it reflects an understanding of the work that we do similar to what Council Member Weiss
  • 01:42:39
    President Palmisano just said.
  • 01:42:42
    So I do appreciate that.
  • 01:42:43
    I'm never going to say as a department head, we don't need more people.
  • 01:42:48
    But I will say that we are doing the most with what we have.
  • 01:42:53
    And so we have been really creative.
  • 01:42:54
    We are seeking funding from other sources.
  • 01:42:58
    But that is a discussion I welcome having with you and the other city council members.
• • Emily Koski
  • 01:43:06
    Thank you.
  • 01:43:06
    I put myself in queue, too.
  • 01:43:08
    I did have a question for Director Burns, if you don't mind.
  • 01:43:12
    I wouldn't mind going back to slide, I believe it's page 11, and it's regarding
  • 01:43:22
    your graph here.
  • 01:43:23
    So I was just curious if you could go into I see percentages is blank, but I'm just wondering, you know, is this in line with the goals that we've set out with?
  • 01:43:33
    And then just curious how these numbers have shifted in the past years.
• • SPEAKER_00
  • 01:43:38
    Madam Chair, City Council, we have not done comparisons yet because it's actually active right now.
  • 01:43:46
    And these are these numbers will increase over time or decrease in some areas, depending on if there's
  • 01:43:53
    Contractors moving in and out of contracts.
  • 01:43:55
    Some contractors get a contract and notify the contractor, hey, we can't do this work right now.
  • 01:44:01
    We try to get them to substitute for another small business, minority, women-owned business, but the contract's far enough allowed and the contracts are already dedicated, you know, it's too late at that point.
  • 01:44:13
    But compared to other years, I think we're
  • 01:44:17
    probably in line.
  • 01:44:18
    I have not compared with pre-COVID though.
  • 01:44:21
    I have not done any comparisons to that yet.
  • 01:44:24
    These numbers reflect, I mean, these numbers will probably go up, you know, the 15, 20% by the end of the year.
  • 01:44:34
    We typically, as a division, you know, I've only been here since June of last year and July of last year.
  • 01:44:40
    One of those is, it seemed like longer now, but this is my third go around at the city, of course.
  • 01:44:46
    We have not
  • 01:44:47
    Since I left 10 years ago, we have not done active projects.
  • 01:44:51
    We've always compared closeouts.
  • 01:44:54
    When the project's closed, what's the final numbers, what's the information?
  • 01:44:57
    I'm starting to look at what's active, what's going, how can we impact what's there now?
  • 01:45:03
    And so the shift in looking at old projects versus where we're active at, we have not done that comparison yet, but we can, and I can get you some information about that.
• • Emily Koski
  • 01:45:13
    Thank you.
  • 01:45:14
    Yeah, I do think that that would be helpful for us to understand, you know, where we're going here and kind of a baseline would be helpful.
• • SPEAKER_00
  • 01:45:21
    So OK, thank you.
• • Emily Koski
  • 01:45:23
    Thank you and then I just had more of a comment to to just think director Welsh.
  • 01:45:28
    You know we've been working on this small business pilot and you're right.
  • 01:45:32
    We have learned an incredible amount.
  • 01:45:34
    and put a tremendous on your plate, work on your plate.
  • 01:45:38
    And so just want to say thank you so much because it's been an honor to be able to work on that project with you.
  • 01:45:43
    So and don't think I'm seeing anybody else.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 01:45:47
    One more quick thing because I'm glad to bring up else that is that you'll see the change in the budget there and that it looks like a reduction, but that's really because of $875,000 of ARPA funding that is no longer a part of that budget so.
  • 01:46:02
    but the mayor is recommending an additional FTE.
• • Emily Koski
  • 01:46:08
    Great.
  • 01:46:09
    Thank you so much.
  • 01:46:10
    Well, I am not seeing any further questions from colleagues.
  • 01:46:16
    And so at this point, I'll direct the clerk to file those presentations.
  • 01:46:20
    Thank you so much for being here.
  • 01:46:22
    Our next Budget Committee meeting is scheduled for Thursday, October 12th at 10 a.m. That day, we are set to hear from the Racial Equity Inclusion and Belonging Department and the Performance Management and Innovation Department.
  • 01:46:33
    And with that, we've concluded all business to come before the committee today.
  • 01:46:36
    Without objection, we stand adjourned.