Budget Committee - September 09, 2026   9/9/2026

St Paul, City Council,

Here.

Six present, one absent, being Council Member Bowie.

It's so funny because we often talk about that.

Yeah, here we are.

But today we have an exciting budget presentation presented by the St. Paul Police Department, if you couldn't tell.

Thank you guys for taking the time to come in today and we appreciate all the work that you guys did leading up to it and the pre-meetings and getting your slides over to us and incorporating some of the council members feedback when we asked for that to be added so appreciate the time that you guys put through.

Welcome Chief Henry.

I'll pause because I think I saw a hand go up.

So Council Member Kim.

and then a five-year average sort of minus metro surge what does this sort of like normal line item look like over time so as a follow-up would appreciate the data but if you can speak a little bit to how do you got to that 17% reduction what what did you use what did you change

The lion's share of that was mutual aid in and around events that took place in the city of Minneapolis and what that caused is a repercussion for our city and for the fact that we at some points had to help them out.

Council Member Jost.

So I'm just trying to understand just the full picture of what our overtime, our actual overtime looks like and financially where we're at.

What was the next part of your question?

Because it's my understanding we also use the money from the sworn FTEs we budget for but that are not filled to pay for overtime.

So there's just some of those things and we've explored that with both the city and the county about should they have a night court like some bigger jurisdictions do so that we're not paying overtime for that but there are pieces in there that sometimes fall I guess less in our control as opposed to completely out of our control.

No.

That's correct.

And that's the biggest percentage of our overtime.

And for all, just for folks that are watching from home, this is Miss Bunch from the Fiscal Administrator.

Right, I understand that.

So is this all of the overtime, including the overtime that was paid for by the money that would be allocated towards the total count of sworn officers we had for this year?

And I guess if not, then what was that money used for?

But no, so that gap between the unfunded salaries that are open and then the overtime is how we pay for those shifts.

So that's what I'm trying to get a clear picture of, is how much money did we actually

I don't think so because I

I guess how many officers did we actually have in the budget for this year versus how many we budgeted for?

and then we also have people that we're not counting the people that are actually in the academy until they're realized as an actual working patrol officer so those numbers can fluctuate a little bit but it's not a fixed number of what we're down below I mean 616 is the budgeted number but it's we've never actually even been close to that number we've never even been above 600 since I was the chief

is that money that money is used for overtime and I just want to make sure we're understanding that because in other budgets when we look at positions that are unfilled and we choose to cut them because they're not filled they're not going to be filled and we've done that we're looking at a five million dollar gap than if we were to do something like that and I'm not saying that's what we should do but I just want to make sure we have the full picture of the actual cost of what this looks like to operate the police department and it doesn't feel like I'm at least I'm not getting that from

I'm not sure I'm answering your question in the right way but

and that's the question.

very important for us to understand that to be able to move forward with the budget.

That trend is thankfully starting to come back and our onboarding programs with our PEOs and our CLOs and our cadet programs are helping with that, but you got to spend the money to get them.

Thanks, Chair, and I appreciate that conversation and I think the other question that is underneath all of this is what would be our overtime spending if we were fully staffed?

Are we getting reimbursed for the full cost in 2025 and 2026 of these expenses?

Thank you.

But it's money that we go to these places that

Historically have not been funded, but we get reimbursed from the from the 5k runs So that's what it's meant by unfunded reimbursed building So just to clarify We don't put anything in our budget for that overtime expense But we do bring in the full cost of that over time from the events that we are staffing Yeah, but to be just to make sure council president that you understand this that all the effort that goes into planning the event is

They get the lowest estimate or if we end up below their estimate they get that new below the estimate number.

Or just, I'm wondering what's accounting for the $22,000 increase?

Councilmember Coleman

So for those, the lead-up costs that we don't get reimbursed for, do we track the costs that are spent on that prep work that we are not reimbursed for?

We have it and we actually started I think in the beginning of last year we actually show it on the bill and then we show it as a credit so that they realize that they don't that they're not paying for the whole thing because there's you know obviously this has been a big area of contention for folks and how much money these events cost you know if we could do this with straight time employees we would love it but we don't have the numbers of people to pull that off and the good news is that the number of events that are happening in the city has gone up so it's increasing every year which is very positive

As a follow-up, it would be, I think, really helpful to understand what that total amount is and then what fraction of it we are being reimbursed for when we're only being reimbursed for the day of staffing costs so we can kind of understand what is the net impact to the department budget.

We can do that.

Thank you.

Chair Bui.

even the billing for the events that sounds like it's within the department and not handled directly by OFS so I just wanted to know you know what are some of the comparisons between from like the switch that was made from going from off-duty to now the security permitting and your your own discretion

It does come with the fact that events are more expensive and we have to pay overtime to staff them, but I do think it's the smarter position for the city to be in.

Alright, we're going to keep going.

We can flip to the next slide.

just kind of really sickening to see that something that was so celebrated and community but also amongst the family was taken so just want to acknowledge the photo that is there before you move forward.

They contract with a private tower and if you ever had your car towed by a private tower, our fees are still way lower than anywhere else.

So, Chair Jones.

So what does this, I guess if you could just walk me through or say more about what those items, those cuts actually mean.

They would just be next up on the list to be reinstated as a sergeant.

And Chief Henry, can you just touch on the second piece of that, which was around are we budgeting with the $2 million deduction or reduction in the attrition, are we going to end up paying for that anyway with overtime usage?

I think, Chair,

So I hope that this year and the coming years that we can partner together to figure out what that solution looks like.

It is 1054.

So I'll go to Chair Buie and Council Member Coleman.

Is that accurate?

That is correct.

Would it be possible as a follow-up to get to have some sense of the scale of what we're talking about about what remains unbudgeted for 2027 that we expect we will be spending?

Any questions on that?

will proceed to the end of this presentation and then we'll take questions towards the end.

Some of this you may recognize as seeing on previous slides when they were called out as individual line items.

Questions here?

Questions here?

Council Vice President.

I'm supportive of it and wanted to just name that for SPD and really all of our other departments if we don't have to necessarily wait for a budget cycle to be able to propose those changes I personally would be very supportive of having that happen throughout the year and so I'm wondering are there additional fees that can be looked at and re-evaluated and brought forward for a proposal before the end of this year too within our police department for that?

And this one we thought was very, very fair and thankfully I think the office and the mayor agreed with us.

So has it always been special time, special funding for the academies or is it in the general fund?

So we were very, very happy when we saw this.

And Chief Henry, just to get some clarity, how many academies are you budgeting for for fiscal year 2027?

We're not budgeted for full two, but we're hoping to have two.

So not just one or none of them?

You have a bunch of stuff in here that it's not paying we're like we didn't pick it this way this is the way it's been forever and we'd love to see a change we're all on board with it.

So I actually would like to have a follow up on that, just because I don't quite think that's accurate.

Okay, so there was budgeted amounts coming from a special fund in both years.

It just wasn't coming from the general fund and now this is a general fund expense.

The mayor's office had it, gave it to us for academies, but we didn't.

They were budgeted through special funds.

That's different, that's a little bit different.

It's just transitioning over to the general fund because the special fund is expiring.

They simply have to either, if there's no other special fund money, find savings in their general fund budget because there is no explicit line in the budget for Police Academy in the general fund.

Thank you for the question.

I'd like to see them in the low 90s percent.

Council President Naker and then I'll go over to Council Member Kim.

and secondly I'm curious how the parking enforcement officer additional funding that we put in has been going how those officers have been doing and whether there are going to be additional investments in I would say parking enforcement officers who also end up being more eyes on the street kind of the beat cop sort of thing that we are always hearing we need more of whether there's going to be additional investments there

is the same program that's checking the parks is also the one that does that also public works has a direct relationship with us and they get funding for that and so their goal was I know under Shawn Kershaw and hopefully that's gonna say the same now is that we use that funding as a feeder program so that they have access to those PEOs whenever they need them so if they need a street line with stuff or tickets written because they're you know doing mill overlay or whatever those are in there and so we think those are some of the efficiencies that we can create with that and get better products out of the end of it so spend less and get more

I think the general theme is as much as we can see reflected in the numbers now, the better informed we are as we're making these decisions.

There's actually more work.

I'd like to know what the actual cost of the non-fatal shooting unit

That is very easy to produce.

So I'll ask Council Member Kim to ask your question.

How does that number of actual police officers paid on payroll fluctuate for us given sort of the trends of the Department for Retirements and natural attrition?

Some go before then, some go after, but that's where those numbers are and we can pull those together for you.

Correct me if I'm wrong, please look into it, but I heard that recently and I either like it debunked or validated.

So I'll go to Councilmember Jost.

Wonderful.

I can stay for a few minutes.

Councilmember Cohen.

I'd just be curious to know what timeline you all are working on in terms of when policy changes, staffing changes, et cetera, might be announced, and what the process for sharing that information with the council and the public writ large will be.

Thank you, Chief Councilmember Bowie.

Or are we using solely grant funds to actually cover not only our drones, but all of our technology?

Just to refresh my memory about what part of the budget?

The unbudgeted costs around management, data management, fleet costs, licensing costs, any attachments to actually managing and operating the drones.

Thank you.

Understanding we aren't able to expect or project what those donations may look like, but I would like to see how it actually goes into the budget and how it's actually spent.

So it does not appear in the General Fund, but I thought it was a good opportunity just to point out how some of that works.

who have to absorb that cost to not not be able to get the car out because we're continuing to raise the fees for it so I was just share from my end I know that that was a brief conversation but I was curious to know just like what that actually is ending up being while being supportive and understanding that we want to cut up to the market but just with that in mind that

So everything exponentially grows out from there, but a big part of that money to run an academy, when you break it down into the subcategories, falls under equipment and supplies.

Are those costs also increasing significantly with that change that you alluded to today and just getting that follow-up on just here's the amount we spend for events?

They're paying for it in every dollar we spend but they're also paying for it in that maybe they would have had an investigator follow up with them a day sooner if we didn't have a whole unit devoted to this and so I want to make sure that they're getting the best service for them and I think that's a fair ask from our state.

Thank you all.