I think it's headed and we can explain all the questions.
Okay.
Well.
I don't know.
I talk to you.
I talk to you.
I talk to you.
I talk to you.
I talk to you.
I talk to you.
I talk to you.
I talk to you.
I talk to you.
I talk to you.
I talk to you.
I talk to you.
I talk to you.
I talk to you.
I talk to you.
I talk to you.
We're rolling down this tonight.
I think we can call the meeting to order.
Seven o'clock.
Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.
of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, a one nation
under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
We have some visitors this evening.
Okay, so tonight our first visitor would be Representative Keith Allen from the Minnesota
House.
He talked to me a couple of three weeks ago or so, and he would like to address the Council
on the legislative session.
Thank you, Keith.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Board, for giving me the opportunity to be able to speak real briefly.
I saw the Jeansville School is going to be speaking here tonight, so I don't want to
get in their way because they have some exciting things they've been doing there as well, and
it's been fun to be able to watch what they've been doing.
Anyway, I've just completed my freshman year at the Capitol.
A lot of stuff ended up happening this last year.
I had the opportunity to be able to serve on the bonding committee, which did a huge focus
on public infrastructure, and as you probably have heard, the City of Wasik is going to
be getting some upgrades to their wastewater treatment plant, which has been drastically
needed and impacts local communities specifically around some of the businesses that you end
up utilizing that and employing people in the local communities as well.
But there was a huge focus on wastewater treatment and water delivery systems, and as you dig
down into the entire state, it is not just that community, but it is hundreds of communities
throughout our state that are impacted by this.
It's been impressive to watch what Jeansville has done as a community, specifically around
what you've done as far as your infrastructure for wastewater and what you've done for water
and fresh water delivery systems here.
Talking to the City Administrator here has just been amazing what you've done, and really
shows as a great example of what other communities need to be looking at long-term as far as
they're working and trying to keep up with those systems as their communities are growing.
So hats off to you as a board for making those tough decisions many years ago.
It's incredibly impressive.
We also did some public safety investments as far as local safety infrastructure improvements
and initiatives, ended up doing some bipartisan housing packages that were aimed at increasing
housing production statewide.
Property tax relief, we were pushing exceptionally hard on that, didn't get everything through
that we were hoping to be able to get.
You also heard about the car tabs.
We were able to get some relief for one year.
Some of my colleagues were trying to push to quadruple them over what they were currently
at, and that was a non-starter for a lot of us up the Capitol.
We were able to, with the fraud that was happening in the state of Minnesota, we ended up getting
the, finally got the officer, the inspector general across the finish line, which was
something that was drastically needed.
It's going to be a nonpartisan watchdog that's going to go in and actually go through books,
find where there's fraud happening in the state of Minnesota, and actually have teeth
and law enforcement capability in order to be able to brick claw that money back, and
hopefully be able to stop that from getting out of control like we've seen.
Some of the other things that we were able to stop was there was an unrealized capital
gains tax, which would have impacted a lot of rural communities, specifically small business
owners, farming operations, and then there was also the climate super fund that was trying
to get passed, which would have gone back to a year before I graduated, 1995, and anybody
that would have used any kind of carbon source fuel, LP gasoline, diesel fuel, you name it,
it would have been a tax that would have been leveraged back against every single household
in the state of Minnesota to the tune of about $8,000 a year.
I don't think anybody can afford that, so especially with us in the rural communities,
the livestock that we raised, the crops that we produce, it would be a huge, huge impact
on everybody.
But with that, I'd like to thank you for your activity at the capital for making your voices
heard on a regular basis.
You guys have an amazing administrator, you have an amazing county commissioner, a set
of county commissioners that have been actively up at the capital, advocating on behalf of
everybody in our community, and I just can't thank you enough for what you do.
So with that, any questions?
I didn't do that good of a job, did I?
How did you like the new job?
I've been impressed with how things have went.
I was told coming into this not to expect too much as far as what we were going to be
able to do because it's a very unique situation.
Going back to the 1980s was the last time, early 80s was the last time we had dealt in
a scenario like this where the house chamber was completely tied.
I was amazed with the amount of work I was able to get accomplished, and the amount of
bills I was able to get through and under the governor's desks in a situation like
this.
A lot of it was, I don't know, probably my background of just trying to find some commonality on
particular issues to bring things across the board, and that was something I really worked
on.
I didn't want to burn any bridges.
I wasn't going to try to make any headlines or anything because, yeah, my data was raised
just to be workhorses, not show horses, and it's important to get up there and actually
get something accomplished.
Probably one of the biggest things I ended up getting done was there was a school bus
bill that was passed that there was a minor technicality where they were able to drive
around.
People were speeding through the stop arms on school buses because they weren't fully
extended out, and I was able to clarify the loss, so the moment the amber lights come
on, they'll get fined for it and take it in court and prosecute it like they should be.
Yeah, it was interesting, but I'm glad I was up there and I was there at the right moment,
so.
Interesting.
Any other questions for Keith?
Well, speaking of town, you're going to come back with another request for a local field
and use chat, and I'm hoping that you once again will support that effort along with
our other legislators.
It's pretty important for them to do this bill that we've never done in one thing coming
first.
It's a little bit of a government that we've not spread all of these text numbers, that
we've spread the cost over all of those things.
No, just to report on that.
There was a social district one that came up along with the local option sales tax.
Those two were one of the bigger ones, one of the big ones that I was pushing on.
We have some that believe all tax dollars should go to the capital and should be distributed
from the state side.
I don't necessarily believe that.
I'm the kind of individual that prefers local government to be able to make the decision
for themselves.
The closer the decisions are to the people, the more impact it truly has.
I've always thought that it's, you know, more of the power should be local than it should
be at the capital.
We're there to help with regulation and some of the bigger components that we function
as a state.
But realistically, I mean, we should be putting more power in terms of education back in our
school boards.
We should be putting more power as far as local projects and everything back in cities and
county commissioners' hands.
They're more accountable to the people than, they're just as accountable to the people
as I am.
And I think that's the way it should be looked at.
Local sales options, or the local sales option taxes a great example of it.
So hopefully with any luck, we'll get a chance to be able to do it because there was a lot
of communities throughout the state that were really banking on us getting that done.
And it was, we had one individual that was obstructing us on the tax committee that just,
she wasn't going to let it happen.
We're very much appreciated that our legislators went backwards and we felt very fortunate to
get in front of the full dependent on the health tax committee thanks to the influences of our
legislators.
So thank you very much for that work.
I'm going to ask you to do it again.
Happy to do it again too.
Anything else for Keith?
No.
Thanks for stopping.
And my condolences to your board too for losing your president this last year.
Thank you.
It was a sad thing to hear about.
And I can't imagine what you guys have had to go through as a board in order to be able
to try to work through that, losing a colleague unexpectedly, really does shake everybody
to their core.
And my condolences are to you guys along with the family and hopefully everything is going
more smoothly.
I appreciate that.
You can die by her a couple of weeks ago if you want to tell them what you gave.
Oh, yeah, I dropped off a letter, a letter to the family along with a flag that was flown
over the capital, an American flag that was flown over the capital as a thank you for his
service here.
Thank you.
With that, thank you again.
And my office is always there.
If there's anything that I can do, I'm just a phone call away and I'm more than happy
to sit down and do whatever I can to be able to help.
So that's what my office is there to do is to be able to work for you.
Thank you.
Next up, JWP schools.
I'm a little sideways there.
How's that?
Is that better?
Perfect.
Thanks, Lynn.
Thank you for having us here.
I'm Wendy Dyker.
I'm the business manager at JWP schools.
We wanted to, it worked out great to be here at the same night as Representative Allen to
talk about some more legislation that's really going to impact schools if it passes.
So I just wanted to give you a city leader some information about this proposed constitutional
amendment on the permanent school fund and help us kind of get information out to the
voters and help make sure that the voters find this ballot question that will be coming up
in November.
I did not know anything about this permanent school fund until I started working at a
school.
So on the next slide, I'll give you a little background on what it is and how it works.
The permanent school fund and permanent land trusts were set up in 1858 when the Minnesota
Constitution was written.
We've got a legacy of valuing education in Minnesota and it was set into our Constitution right
away that land, there were two parcels in every township that were set aside to generate
revenue for funding public education in perpetuity.
And the DNR manages those parcels and in the last 170-ish years some land has been swapped
around or sold off.
Today there's about 2.1 million acres primarily in the northern part of the state that is
in this land trust.
And then I found this is new for D. I presented at the county commissioners meeting a couple
weeks ago, but I found also there's about a million acres also that are called severed
rights acres, severed rights lands, and we have a little bit of that in Waseka County.
Basically that is the surface of the land, does not belong to the state, but any mineral
extractions or resource extractions from that land helps fund the trust.
So there's another million acres of that land as well.
So the DNR manages all that.
They generate revenue from those lands on mineral extractions, timber harvesting, land leases,
etc.
So that's been one of their big jobs in the last 170-ish years is to generate revenue on
the school land trust parcels.
Any revenue that's generated then goes to the state investment board and the state investment
board manages this trust fund and all these dollars.
They also manage some other trusts like our public employees retirement trust and the
teachers retirement trust.
So they do a lot of work on investing Minnesota dollars.
And in the Constitution are some very specific rules about how those distributions from the
endowment fund are sent to the Minnesota Department of Education.
Today, that fund for this permanent school fund, this endowment fund is valued at about
$3 billion right now.
So then once the Minnesota Department of Education gets that annual distribution, they look at
how many students are in Minnesota and they come up with a per pupil amount.
And then they allocate those dollars out, that distribution out to the school districts based
on how many students are in that district.
So Minnesota Department of Education in recent years has gotten about $58 million from that
endowment fund.
So that's kind of how this all works.
And a couple, several years ago, a couple issues were brought to the legislature.
One of them is that this fund's value has been growing substantially.
And it has far outpaced the distributions that have been going to the school districts.
And that the distributions can vary from year to year.
The market's great.
We get a lot of money.
The market's poor.
Don't get so much.
So it's been difficult for the Minnesota Department of Education to help the districts understand
how much we'd be able to get year to year and help us budget.
So in May 2024, the legislature put together a task force to kind of look at the past performance
of this endowment fund, look at what other states are doing, do some projections, and come up
with some recommendations on how to best calculate and distribute funds from this endowment fund
to help preserve it, but also see if there was a way to increase or level out or have
some better practices since funding vehicles and investment practices and things have changed
in 170 years.
So what could we do today?
That might be better.
So the task force has some recommendations.
There's a link on the bottom of this slide to the permanent school fund task force report.
It's about 86 pages long, and you'll get all the information on all the studies they did
and the work they did.
But all the work that they did, they brought three recommendations to the legislature in
January.
And the first two recommendations kind of go hand in hand.
The first part of the recommendation is to pull those directions and directives and instructions
on how this distribution happens out of the Constitution.
So they want to propose an amendment to the Constitution to make the language allow for
the legislature to make changes and look at how this fund is working and have them follow
best practices and make law that way rather than have this all so specific in the Constitution.
So that's kind of what the first two recommendations are.
And then the third recommendation is their recommendation on how these distributions ought to be
calculated.
So rather than taking just the interest and dividends from a particular year, the task force
recommends taking a look at the fund balance and the value over three years and taking an
average of that value and then taking a four and a half percent portion of that and distributing
that to the schools.
So it would really even out the dollars that we're getting.
And so year to year we could kind of have a better guess as to what the distribution would
be to the schools.
So that link there, if you really want to read it all, it's stimulating and interesting.
There's a lot of charts and graphs in it too.
So from that came some bills that we'll go into effect if this ballot question passes.
So one of the bills was to have this proposed amendment and have a ballot question.
And then if it's votes yes, there's some more bills that will go into place to help, you know,
once that language is out of Constitution, it would now be in law.
So the question is, you know, shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to increase the funding
going to school districts from the permanent school fund, which is a fund that supports
school districts without raising individual income or property taxes effective July 1,
2027.
So that will be a yes, no question on the ballot.
Historically, yes, no questions on ballots are skipped a fair amount of the time.
You know, people maybe don't have the information.
I'm not really sure what to vote on.
I'm not sure if they support it or not.
So we're really asking as a school district that, you know, as you're out talking to your constituents,
talking to coffee, talking to your family that they seek out some information.
There's a lot of information and resources, which I'll get to in a little bit too.
And have them look for this question on their ballot in November.
And, you know, Mark, yes or no, whether they would like to support it or not.
Again, this has no impact on any taxes.
There's no income tax or property tax change at all if they vote yes.
If they vote no, things would just stay the same as they are.
We'd continue to just get our distributions based on the Constitution.
If they vote yes, it would update and modernize the way the fund is handled.
So then that's kind of the big overview.
If we kind of look at what's that going to do around here,
I pulled together some of our neighboring districts.
Jamesville's on the second row there and the JWP district is on the second row.
But we've got our neighboring districts too to kind of show if we were to move to this new calculation
to the distribution how this could impact our districts.
That third column there, that's the final ADM 202324.
ADM stands for average dealing membership.
And so basically on any given day in 2324, you'd find that many students getting instructed in our districts.
So JWP ended up with 623.87 students on average on a given day in 2324.
And then in 2425, we received this 42,529 based on the number of students we had.
And that year, the per pupil amount was at $68.17.
So you can see what all of our districts received from this endowment fund in fiscal year 25.
So if we take those same numbers and say we had looked at what we had in 2324,
what we could have received in 25 with that new calculation,
that would have put us at about $96 per pupil calculation from that distribution with that 4.5%.
So JWP would have gotten about $59,892.
So that would have bumped us up $17,000, which doesn't sound like a ton when we're talking about a $10 million budget,
as our enrollments declining, things are costing more.
That $17,000 could really be helpful.
And all these districts, we're seeing that.
So if we're looking at today's numbers or 2324 numbers and this change to the calculation,
it would be about a 40% increase on the endowment fund distribution that the districts would be getting statewide,
which is helpful for all of our districts, of course.
A lot of districts are seeing enrollment declines.
So these numbers from 2324, you know, they'll fluctuate.
We're seeing it go down this year, 2526.
We are at about 608.
I think we're able to count 608 students.
So, you know, these numbers aren't going to be set in stone, of course.
This is just an illustration.
But, you know, as you think about how enrollment changes and how that calculation could change,
it's just kind of an illustration to see.
And again, you know, we'll just kind of drive this again.
There's no tax impact at all.
This is all money that's been set aside for the schools and is sitting in this fund.
And the legislation is just trying to find a way to help better utilize that for the schools.
So, the next slide has some resources for you.
If you want to dig into it or share these, the first one is a Minnesota permanent school
fund amendment landing page.
This page was put together by the Minnesota School Boards Association.
They're an organization that supports the school boards and school administrators with lobbying
and training and support.
Also, the Minnesota Association of School Administrators.
I'm not going to remember the name of it, but it's the Metropolitan School District.
There's an association that supports metropolitan schools.
And then the Minnesota Rural Educators Association.
That supports us out in greater Minnesota.
Those four organizations got together and put together this website.
So, there's a whole bunch of information, a lot more details that kind of gave you a high overview.
But if you really want to dig into some of it, that's on that website.
The next one is the permanent school fund presentation.
That is a 14 slide presentation by the task force that was presented to the legislature.
It was also presented to these different organizations and the Minnesota School Boards Association.
So, the task force kind of talked a little more in depth on what they did.
My one or two slides there, this kind of pulled out into 14 slides.
And then, of course, that 86 page report, if you want to see even more.
And then, if you're kind of nerding out about the land, like we do out in greater Minnesota,
I put the website for the school land trust from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
So, there's some maps out there where you can kind of see where the different parcels are
and what's happening on those parcels.
So, that's about all I have on that.
Do you have any questions on any of the information?
Otherwise, Jeremy and I are always very happy to take calls, take visits.
I was just going to make a point though.
If you skip the question, it's no vote.
I was going to ask that.
So, make sure you vote.
Yes, make sure you fill in a yes or a no.
Because what they'll do is they'll look at all the voters who voted that day
and the yeses need to have a majority to pass.
So, if there's, you know, 1,000 voters and one of them didn't even vote at all.
That's 20 noes and then, you know.
So, it's really, they take a look at the total number of voters and how many yeses
were on there.
So, yeah, skipping the question completely is effectively a no.
Yeah.
Souls are going to be people like campaigning, like signs, like a vote yes sign.
There may be.
There may be.
You know, as schools, school officials, we are here to give some information
and just share the information with you and give you some resources
so you can make your decision.
There may be some vote yes campaigns happening around the state or around the city.
We're not going to be doing that at the school of course, but you may see some of that.
Sure.
Yeah.
So, do I understand the recommendations were to remove it from the Constitution?
This does not remove it from the Constitution.
It changes the Constitution distribution numbers, correct?
Right.
So, it would remove those distribution instructions from the Constitution
and put those instructions into legislation, into a bill.
That's the same as removing it from the Constitution.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, that's what this ballot question is.
So, this recommendation is to remove it from the Constitution.
Right.
The task force recommendation is that.
Yeah.
In some bureaucrats and legislature.
Sort of.
Give them some more on flexibility.
I think that that wasn't presented quite well enough.
Okay.
Okay.
Changing constitutions are unhealthy.
I would rather see them change the Constitution numbers rather than removing it from the document
that's a hundred and some years old.
And even if that is the case, it still has to be amended because the numbers.
Right.
So, there would be an amendment.
Yeah.
There would have to be a different amendment.
The amendment now is to remove those.
Move that language.
I'm just giving you that.
Yep.
Yep.
Can I just ask a question?
Sure.
And just a clarification of what you were doing, Jim.
This.
And I do think the nuance of this conversation is important.
What part of this?
This question on the ballot.
What part of this does it?
Does it remove from the Constitution?
Because the Constitution is still doing to have the establishment of this permanent fund as part of that.
As part of that's not going to change.
Isn't that the management piece?
Because for a hundred and some years the formula has been untouchable.
Now the point I want will move from our Constitution into the hands of legislators.
So elected body people.
Not the Department of Education.
Right.
I think that nuance is important.
Because I think the word you use, bureaucrat, that makes you go boy out.
I mean we want people who have direct accountability to constituents, to people who pay those taxes.
So it wouldn't be the Department of Education.
It wouldn't be the Department of Natural Resources.
It would be a legislator and a subdivision of a legislature that would manage and distribute.
Correct?
The legislature would actually have a final vote on it.
This is probably, and I'm glad you're touching on this because this was one of the more exciting things we ended up getting through
and the act like winning the silence about what.
As we see sales happening within timber, my mineral extraction, that kind of thing,
these funds actually grow, it grows substantially bigger.
And this gets the legislature to be able to bump it up.
They're currently using it as a very, very conservative number.
But realistically, down the path, there could be a lot more money that's currently sitting in there.
You say the site that's happened, you know, some of the human sales and some of the other mineral extraction stuff that's happening
in the state, the timber sales and how they've managed land.
This was something that it was exciting to see it.
It's me, I've seen schools struggling in terms of dollars and what they're able to do here in the state.
This was like finding an extra dollar or anything.
I agree with you.
Four and a half to five percent is historically very conservative.
Even in negative downtime, four and a half to five percent is still sustainable long term.
So I don't argue with that.
I'm glad you clarified that the legislature, not a department, the governor would be managing this.
It'll be the legislative act.
Thank you very much.
And at no time, this money can go anywhere else except for the school district.
That's correct.
Correct.
Yep.
Yep.
Much more comfortable.
Any other questions?
Thank you very much.
Downfall with this is here again where if you don't vote, it's a no vote.
And I'm not in favor of that policy.
It should be the tally of the people that voted.
I voted on that question to look at.
Sure.
We should not allow it up to people that just ignored it.
Seeing the presidential elections where they just go in and fill out that part of the election form and never looked at the rest of it.
And it hurts a lot of good ideas and good projects.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I got the right guy.
Call the, call the secretary of state on that.
No.
You're not going to get it done this year.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yes.
And so the last slide has my email address and Jeremy's email address that you don't feel like stopping into our office.
You can always call or email us or shop us on the street.
Ask me what that link is again for the website and we'll be glad to help share the information and we hope that you'll help us to a city leaders.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Approval of the agenda.
All in favor.
All right.
All right.
All right.
Consent agenda.
All right.
You have minutes from the June 22nd meeting and then you have a couple of, you have a receivable report and then there's a couple of payables.
The only thing I want to point out with payables is that there are some expenses in here paying for the electric project outside of town.
And then we did have a couple, we have a couple leases for equipment.
So we have their semi annual payments in tonight's agenda.
That's all I got.
Motion to approve.
All in favor.
All right.
Public forum.
Do we have anybody here that would like to speak through public forum?
Go ahead, Mike.
Oh, you got to go up to the deal there.
That's the rule.
Mike Santel.
You guys all know me, I think.
I just wonder if you guys could apply some pressure to the railroad to get something done with the main street railroad crossing there.
That thing is rough as can be.
You're just talking about that.
We've been.
I don't know what it's.
I agree.
I just want to point that out and make sure that we can send them a letter or whatever.
I don't know what's on the county road.
Maybe you can help out with that too on that side.
It's.
I've already spoken to the county.
The county can ask fix it.
I understand that.
Yeah.
You can apply pressure to the railroad maybe.
Well, good luck with that.
If we ask them to fix it, they will ask us to pay for it.
And it goes upwards of $150, $250,000.
Okay.
We are reluctant to make any kind of official ask.
But there's a little blue sign there.
And it's got a phone number on it.
And everybody should call it only three times a day.
Teal Street is getting to be pretty bad too.
Yeah.
That's only for four years old, I think.
Those railroad ties are like eaten out and divoted.
Thank you.
Anybody else want to speak to public forum?
Last call.
Moving on.
Notices and communications.
Nothing.
Cultural reports.
Nothing.
Oh, I'm not supposed to talk.
That's mobile 3D.
So, for Jim, for any, does he wish to get on any boards?
Or are we just going to?
Where do you want me to serve?
We hadn't really talked about that prior to last week.
Whatever he came up with then, he just let me know.
Okay.
Right?
Oh, I'll probably just stay on the ones I'm on for right now.
It's only six months.
Yeah.
Right.
I have nothing to do.
Bark road or whatever other one I want.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jacob Lurkey won the?
What's that?
Jacob Lurkey won the thing for EDA.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Well, you're on that committee.
I'm here to help you.
You're on that committee.
You're on that committee.
That's all right.
No, I got a different committee I have to talk about.
EDA has awarded the business challenge grant of $20,000 to the Lurkey family for their
project on East Main Street.
So, I have not visited with them personally.
So, I'm sure they're excited about it.
And we've had a brief conversation with the colony about when we can do something like
that again.
Thank you.
So much.
The last planning commission was a joint meeting with EDA.
We had Ron Hamilton come in and talk to us.
It was a long and enlightening conversation.
I don't know if you really made any progress towards doing anything, but it was a good
conversation.
I missed the park road.
I was in the camp.
So, if you know what happened.
No.
I mean, we're just looking at some equipment.
Things like that.
You know.
Science for parks.
Nursing Hall.
They had a water main break a couple weeks ago.
They were currently running off a hydrant.
The Department of Health needed an engineering plan.
So, Mike says, what did you say?
You got some coal from the $20,000 coal.
They're under.
Under $20,000.
So, are we going to look at that next week at our meeting?
This week.
Is it this week?
I have a meeting this week.
So, we're going to talk about it this week.
Talk about how they're going to fix it or.
Workout as their hands in how the water supply comes in.
Somehow, I don't know exactly what they're looking for.
The fair marshals of all are located.
It's replacing the pipe, I think.
Well, how?
My engineering job.
It's our house process.
Thank you.
Interesting.
Just to me, you'd fix the old one and then figure out how we're going to move forward with renewing it.
That makes sense.
Gotcha.
Can this be internal for me or is it external?
Well, no.
Main that we got to go forward in.
I don't exactly where it comes in.
It comes in on the east side, I believe.
I'm not sure.
I'm not sure.
It's a little bit different also, even in there, I guess.
Just a second of the nursing home, not part of the road.
Right.
Yep.
Gotcha.
All right.
I'll let you know that too.
I met with the utility board prior to this.
Not a whole lot, obviously.
We talked about the project out there and progress on all that.
They are making progress, so that's good.
Everything else is pretty routine in nature.
We talked about the 2027 projects and I'll smoke it.
Golf board has not met lately.
Things are going really good out there, by the way.
Kevin makes its own when I chat with him.
Did they win in a morning?
Oh, yes.
Sorry.
It'll be in Clinton's thing too.
I mean the stuff on here.
Voted Mankato's best golf course, which is pretty cool.
Pretty good thing.
Yeah.
I mean for municipally owned golf course, that's cool.
I reached out to Jacob and Kevin and they put a lot of hard work into that.
And obviously Scott Allen did 25 years as well.
I heard that they are going to get a plaque from the free press.
That's why I heard too.
Okay.
That's my understanding.
Yeah.
That makes sense because I've seen them in businesses that.
Yeah.
Not we should hustle one off from.
I agree.
No.
It's a very nice honor.
Administrative report.
Yes.
In tonight's packet, you have the June bank reconciliation.
You have the CAF balance report dated last Friday.
They did announce here that Prairie Ridge was voted best of.
And Andy just mentioned that.
On July 1st, we did receive our first half property taxes of about 760,000.
So I photocopied the check and then the next page shows where those monies go, what different
funds they go into.
And I was just going to mention that we're supposed to have our first half local government
aid probably, well, hopefully this week, but it's supposed to be by the middle of July,
which is pretty much today.
We sent letters out to the properties on East Front Street, explaining the project that
we're going to be doing there in the summer.
And we'll reach out to the residents here pretty soon in the next few days to see if they
have any questions.
You also have the second quarter personnel expense report in front of you there.
In this couple of weeks, you'll have to leave conference and they had a bunch of these
on a table.
So I snagged a bunch.
It's just a good overview of the legislative session.
You want it?
Yeah, I don't know.
Yeah, it is.
And then last but not least, the coalitions weekly grief is in there and I'm going to let
you know next week.
They have their summer conference in new homes, so I'll be a new home next week for that
conference.
That's all I got.
Motion to approve administrative report.
Second.
All in favor?
Aye.
Looks like nothing from department heads.
We'll have golf here next meeting.
There you go.
Get more from Kevin at that time.
Staff reports.
Yes, under administration here, we have a few items to talk about.
First one, Caitlin Kratz, the community development director.
We had her performance review with her a week or so ago and she passed her learning period,
and what our personnel policy says is that when a person passes that, the city council
needs to make that motion to approve.
And once you make that motion, Caitlin will be considered a regular employee, no longer
probationer.
I'll make that motion to pull her off of the training and make her a full-time employee.
She knew it.
It's spectacular at the EDA meetings, and she's done a lot of great stuff around here
lately, so I've seen her working firsthand and doing a great job.
Motion and a second.
All in favor?
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Which will be part of West North Street and a little small area of South Scookam.
So tonight's resolution orders the firm to put together the feasibility report, and Jason
will present that to the city council at the First Meeting on August 10th.
So, let's do this as kind of the next step moving forward for a routine street utility
project.
Any commotionally approved that straighten you until the day improvements?
Second.
All in favor?
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
All in favor?
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
something, based on the November election we might, you know, get the invoice in January
so we do put a little money into the elections every year.
I'm going to ask the council tonight, staff, talking about these budgets, we are going
to propose a 3% cost of living, increased across the board for wages, and tonight at
this point, we are going to budget a 10% increase for all insurance, and as you know,
we always get those final insurance numbers, you know, usually around Thanksgiving or
so.
So we'll have more concrete numbers in a few months.
Anybody have any questions on these?
I will point out that we were able to finish June, you know, with your reconciliation.
So I entered all the year-to-date budgets in all the different line items.
He actually expenses this year, and everybody's really, really close to 50%, so everybody's
doing a great job.
Obviously, this is the preliminary number, so everybody's aware of that.
So if you're doing that cost of living, increased for everything, how much of a bump
does that for the council?
Zero.
I would like to ask for that number to get bumped a little bit.
Not anything obscene, but here's the deal.
You can't vote on giving yourself a raise.
It has to go effective, the next council, and it's in the city code, so we would have
to- I understand.
Yep.
I don't think it should be a topic that we bring up.
Okay.
Nothing extreme, you know, nothing at all.
Right.
We wanted to double-check every month, but I don't think it'd be too much to ask for
council to get an extra X amount, you know, something small.
So then the raise wouldn't go in here into effect until we were all gone.
It will all be the next January 1, right?
How does that work?
Because like with the legislature, it's the next legislative session.
It should be January 1, here, our budget.
Yeah.
But we have to amend the city code, and we have to, you know, go through those steps,
too.
So.
Yeah, we can start the ball on that.
I think we should start the ball.
I mean, I'm perfectly happy with what I'm doing and what I'm getting, but it might allow
more interest in wanting to come in if they just hurt that little absolutely.
There's another topic I wanted to bring up, I'll talk you up to the meeting.
Anything else on the portion of the general phone?
Ah, that's all I have.
Moving on.
Fire department, air packs.
Yes, we have two bids here and one is for new air packs, and then the second quote is
for the new cascade system, which we fill, said air packs.
So you have two quotes.
One is 174-665, that is for the air packs themselves.
The second sheet would be for the cascade system within the fire hall, a little over
57,000.
I know Andy was talking a little bit last week, and Mike, maybe, if you want, or I
can, or whatever, but if we explain Sourcewell a little bit.
I can try.
Okay.
Sourcewell, as we bought our last fire truck through that, it's a buying group set up
by the legislature that gets state bids, and I tried getting other bids from different
vendors, and once they found out we already had a Sourcewell bid, they said it's illegal
for us to bid on it.
I don't know if that's true or not, but that's what they, I tried two different vendors with
Gregor and Scott, and they said they wouldn't even bid on it, because they get themselves
in trouble, because they're going against basically a state bid.
Our department has been MSA since the day we started wearing packs, it's a brand we're
used to.
Keep in mind ours are 2004 models, which are three generations from what we're looking
at here.
Life expectancy is 10 to 15 years on these, we've got 22, 23 years on them, so 24 on some
of them.
They're just starting to show where.
I talked to Jim, you weren't here, but I talked to you guys two months ago, I think.
Let you know that we would be coming in brace for it, and I wasn't too far off in my guess.
These bids here, if you look at the 57,000 one, the storage cylinder tanks, we may, I'm
pretty sure we're going to take that off of there, and we're going to lease those tanks.
The price for leasing them is way less than what it would cost to buy them.
We currently lease the low-pressure ones, we just did the bill for that, it's like $130
a year, and they want almost two grand a piece for them, we need seven of them.
I can't imagine the high-pressure ones are going to be that much more expensive, so if
we can get them leased for $500 a year, over the next 20 years, and then every 10 years
they need to be hydro-tested, which is probably a thousand a piece, they get them hydro-tested
and if they're leased, they just swap them all, so I haven't got concrete numbers on
that leasing, but I'm pretty sure we can do better than buying them off here, so if you
look on the other ones, the other sheet here, we have the bottom there, it's used riddles,
we have 13 packs currently, which is a good number for us to have with a number of seats
on the truck, a number of members we have and all that, for backup teams and all that.
We have great hoses on each of our 13 packs, we're missing one right now, that's why we
have one used one, so we're reusing those, to buy those news, they're about $1,000 a
piece, so six foot piece of hoses with two fittings on it.
I believe these manufacturers were at the federal Senate hearings, trying to explain
why everything went up so high in prices, but I don't think they got it anywhere, but
any questions for me on this?
We do have the money in the capital of expenditures.
We do realize by doing this, we are putting our next tanker that would be next in the
rotation, that's going to be put back a year and a half to two years, we totally understand
that as we're going into this, we feel the packs are more, they use a lot more than that
second tanker.
Any questions for me?
Oh yes, all these tanks, they expire, our tanks are, a lot of them are coming to do
are, we've got some that aren't, but about half our tanks are, our actual bottles we
were in our back, they're a 15 year life on it, we have about half our tanks, and currently
we have a low pressure system, and the NFPA will not allow a low pressure system anymore,
we have to go to a high pressure system, they can't sell us a low pressure anymore, logic
behind that I have no idea, but other than manufacturers sit on that board and decide
what we, it's my personal opinion on that, always trying to add stuff so we have to keep
increasing the prices.
The money you have in reserve is also the money that would be used for fire trucks.
Yes, it's the same, anything over, I believe it's $5,000 we try and take out of there is
what Andrew wants on the schedule to any high dollar item where we set aside money
per year to, so we aren't having to borrow money, it will, it definitely will, and we
understand that, our second tanker is 92, I believe in, we don't use it very often, and
it still works, it's underpowered for what it is, but it's, for what we use it for, it
works, it's not ideal, but we can get by a couple more years with that, we believe.
And if we did roll both them trucks out with mutual aid the way it is now, there would
be another tanker, any time we're rolling tankers, we're not mutual aid coming anyway
with more tankers, so that tankers are less of the problem as they used to be, because
of mutual aid, you know, if I see it as a fire we're rolling towards them with our
tankers too, to help support them, so that, that helps in that area.
I guess what I'm looking for is an okay to purchase this with potentially minusing at
the $13,562.36, and that'll, that lease will be paid during our operating expenditure,
the lease payment will work, if we can get a decent deal on them.
I would move to the except the order proposal, and move forward, then I explain the source
well enough to everybody, how that works, you can buy more than just fire trucks, it's
virtually anything, you know, you want a greater heating air conditioning, all that stuff's
off, there's office paper, there's anything, thousands of stuff on that source well that
we should have more for it, I mean what good's the equipment, people running a campery.
I think we have them all back, and they're all on service for the last eight months or
so, we've had three or four, and getting service and trying, and getting harder to get parts
for it, they tell me, but.
So we had a motion and a second, all in favor, who's second?
He motioned that second.
Okay.
All in favor?
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.