uh jennifer take the roll council member thorson here council member peterson here council member wong here council member cole here mayor furlong here gorman's present uh time motion to adopt the agenda so move your honor by council member peterson second say goodbye councilmember wong any discussion not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye opposed the agenda is adopted i'll turn it over to city manager frandl thank you mayor uh tonight we're going to be talking about the 2023 levy and budget workshop for the general fund back on july 5th 2022 the city council workshop represented the kickoff of the 2023 budget process in that workshop the city council had the opportunity to discuss and set the 2023 levy target and to identify their goals and objectives for the 2023 budget so items up for consideration will be including the 2022 budget and city-based property tax levy driving factors for 2023 preliminary valuation changes 2023 potential property tax impact hra and eda property tax levy and the budget calendar with that i will turn it over to director winik finance director winnick to work his magic so you said this is going to be entertaining tonight dude i don't know about entertaining i do have to start off by by saying that the last workshop at least for me was very inspirational and i was one of the best that i've had part of that was because really got to hear from all of the council members what the goals were for this year and for 2023 and then to look at levy targets um and really kind of for the city to kind of develop a focus um and so i did get excited with that and i took a little liberty um with some of the components um that i a little bit of plagiarism and so forth but i actually drafted up kind of a mission vision and some strategic priorities based upon what i had heard so i took all of the information that was presented and i've got a couple of uh slides that i'll show you with some of that information but yes it was actually very very um it was inspiring um and so i i give a lot of credit to the city council and to be honest with you you have never disappointed me and i love the dialogue and i love the direction and even yesterday afternoon i had the opportunity to have a council member give me a call and had some questions and and wanted some additional information so i did hand out a bit of additional information on the 2019 2020 2021 budgets versus actuals the actual information was already given to you but wanted to have the budget information there to kind of show you how we did in comparison to what we budget in in actual um and i think that that is very good information to have um and i thank that council member uh for uh bringing it to my attention um and so councilmember thurston thank you very much for for that um i think it does help give a little bit more picture of of where we um have budgeted and and all those actuals have come in and i'll touch base upon that a little bit later in the presentation i'll pull up my excel spreadsheet for that because it wasn't included in your workshop documents and then tonight we also have all of the department heads here you've also been given all of the line item information to where we're at with the general fund budget at this point in time and so if we have any questions for department heads or open dialogue i've been i've been kind of told that i only get about 25 minutes and we really want to have a interesting dialogue with city council and the department heads um and so we did take um a little bit of the direction well a lot of the direction um from our discussion last week when we talked about staffing and so at the very end we do have some proposals for some increase in staff and we'll show you what that has on as far as impact on the levy and then just open up for discussions i'll all field any discussions that we have about the powerpoint information and then anything on finance and then the other department heads are here to answer any other questions and i would welcome the department heads you want to sit up here you know run up at once no no no in fact it'd be nice if we could just move this away and then we could all sit and talk together but it's whatever you guys feel comfortable with at the brain trust right here so now you got them all at your table we we have them all this is this is fantastic um so the purpose of tonight's meeting is really to review the 2023 goals that were were discussed last week we'll kind of go through that kind of quickly uh draft of the mission vision strategic priorities 2023 levy target from the last workshop again we'll look at what those driving factors for the 2023 budget were then we'll review the 2023 preliminary levy of what has been put together at this point in time and then the preliminary general fund budget and then we will review some options for additional staff and then we'll open it up for discussion with the department heads so the goals a lot of the information you know was i took it from all of the post-it notes from all of the comments took the document that was developed in a workshop with the prior city manager and i kind of put them in in little groupings to kind of make it a little bit more logical you won't see that but um so it you know you know starts from you know you know promote the city i consider that branding you know it you know the backdrop in the council chambers um celebrating the north saint paul 135 years the snowman you can see that there's a lot of great information that's in here um and we talk a lot about you know to me there there were some some bigger themes there was to me kind of like three big themes that came across and one was was the the branding and the and the customer service to our residents and and and really um embracing the rich history of the city of north st paul and to me that's that first component is really what's what's happening in there and then there was a big discussion on investment investment in our infrastructure you know whether it's a student build housing redevelopments that are going on whether it's you know what's going to be happening on highway 36 and in century avenue or highway 120 the discussion of making this a walkable community where we have you know priorities of walking paths you know integrated into our street projects and so forth and you know and then you know there were some things of looking at um you know ordinances that you know relate to non-traditional vehicles and and then there was the reviewing of services and staffing resources and i think a big key to it was was to look at in investing in in staffing resources equitably so each department's needs are met and i and that was kind of a key when i got together with all of the department heads that resonated with me a lot and to me again a lot of credit goes to the city council because in the time that i've been here which is now over a year by the way i can say that with a big smile that we have done a fantastic job of addressing a need in our public safety and particularly the police force and we've added a number of positions and and phil will talk about that a little bit later but it's we are finally for the first time and you've almost been here a year that we are fully staffed um which is which is yeah um and and to protect our residents so the credit really goes to to this city council for that um again it inspired me i do believe in mission visions and strategic priorities i look at and moving forward in the budget process i really believe that once we've established you know an acceptance on a mission of vision and strategic priorities that everything that we budget should tie into those strategic priorities and when we look at those tough decisions and and i really believe that they're now and and they're going to continue in the years ahead that we really do need to be tying our asks and our needs and our wants to the strategic priority and how we move that needle and so i again there's plagiarism i'm not saying that it's all my creative thought um but i kind of just drafted up a couple of pieces some time in the future i would highly encourage that there's a workshop that is kind of dedicated to looking at a mission vision and strategic priorities really that the choice of words is really important um because in a small sentence or two can really capture a lot of meaning i'm not saying that this is perfect but this that really needs to be discussed with all of the the council members it's not just me plagiarizing and pulling stuff in my own head and putting it on paper but i just took a draft and i'm just going to read the mission and the vision and and the mission to me you know overall mission for the city is to improve the quality of life in north st paul through delivery of extraordinary public services in a responsive open sustainable and fiscally responsible manner by caring and competent professionals in the vision and i kind of have a coined little phrase as an extraordinary community to call home and the vision is creating a safe and welcoming community where we all work together to enhance the quality of our lives and we're proud to call our home and to me there's a lot of meaning behind the choice of some of those words that are in there and as we have a population that becomes more and more diverse as we have a population that will end up turning from more of an an older community to a younger community i think that's where we're going to see the amenities of the city becoming more and more important and this city has its own identity with a downtown district and the investments that have happened there with through the redevelopment have been just very impressive and need to continue and i think being here in this city also offers all of the amenities that the whole metro area provides and but what's totally impressive in my time being here is that we hang on to who we are and how we got to where we are whether it's the snowman whether it's the references and i don't want to make a promotion to to the new diner that's in town but to using a name that from the past um the same thing with the development of the centennial building itself and maybe there'll be something done even with the the lily lily development if that moves forward but the choice of names also is is incorporating the rich history of this of this city um and then i put together some strategic priorities the high the highlight of them is quality of life creating a safer community together investing in our community and innovative and high performing organization so from the last workshop again i thank you very much for all of your input and everybody participating it was excellent i asked the question about what everybody thought about the 2023 levy target so no names are putting here just council number one two three four five and i put in the highs and the lows and if i were to take an average of those highs and lows it would be the levy target would be in the range of 4.2 to 7.5 percent then i did a modified average for the levy target worth the low and the high and it comes to 5.25 to 6.87 percent so that is kind of where um in putting this documentation and making some changes to the budget documents where i was targeting to to bring this today's budget information within that range of the modified average levy target again the driving factors for 2023 we saw last two weeks ago in the first workshop where we have total personnel costs rising 5.4 percent um existing personnel that's also including a community development director and a new police officer there's a slight increase in the debt levy a reduction in local government aid metroid increase all of those increases that are that have been identified you know is approximately a half a million dollars or 8.5 percent again a reminder about you know inflation and i think that's actually been revised now month over uh i think in june over june of of the years at 9.1 percent so the preliminary levy of what we've put together right now at this point in time and again there's still a lot of work to be done is that we've developed a budget that comes in at 6.87 percent of a levy increase hra and eda are still being shown at their the state statute maximum that could be levied again there needs to be discussion both with hra and eda on what their plans are and justification for doing that as a levy increase so here's how the the general fund looks that from our 2022 budget our 2023 proposed budget at this point in time shows an increase of 477 000 or 6 percent and expenditures again increase the same amount so we have a balanced budget i did increase some revenues so we were at you know potential of an 8.5 percent increase i've got us at the 6.87 with some increases in some of the revenues and if we were to look at um the same revenue information is the same but if we look at departments um you know we're seeing um the increases that are on each department and the dollar value for those increases and probably the biggest increase that you're going to see from a dollar value is in the police and again that they're you know over half about half of that is is the new officer that was approved middle of this year but yet wasn't funded so it has to be funded in the in the 2023 budget and then created some took your direction from last workshop and said hey you know what are some of our staffing needs and when we got together all the department has got together and we kind of had a and we did actually have an excellent dialogue everybody put out their needs and as a collectively as a group we challenged one another and we came to agreement how we would prior prioritize those needs and also to to look at that we don't want to see a huge increase in the levy either and so that's something that we have to manage and so we put together these options so what the budget that has been presented at is being presented right now at this point in time and all of the line item detail is another attachment is 6.87 percent if we were to move that lga reduction of 119 000 instead of from the general fund but to reduce it from the street maintenance fund that would reduce that levy impact from 6.87 to 4.82 percent in other words 2.05 percent is what that loss in revenue would be and then we looked at positions and the top priority that we put collectively from the department heads was to add a full-time fire inspector that would raise it up to 6.73 but in doing so we could reduce a part-time code compliance position and we could also reduce money in the initial duty shift that is currently being funded so by adding that position making the reductions in the code compliance and the initial duty shift we would then be at a 5.51 percent levy and then the second need that we looked at for additional staffing was in the public works department for street maintenance water utility and so forth and that was to add a public works maintenance worker it would be split general fund at 64 000 in enterprise funds would have 52 000 and that would increase the levy 1.1 percent bringing our levy to 6.61 those are not included at this point in time those are options for you to look at and discuss and then a note that in the 2024 budget we would be looking at the potential of adding additional staff one in the finance department an accountant and in the police department a police investigator and that was what collectively we had looked at and prioritized and if city council were to be in agreement with adding or making these changes the levy would would be 6.61 and looking at it from a bigger holistic point of view is that it's actually adding four positions so that's 6.61 percent is adding that community development director's position it's adding the police officer it's adding a full-time fire inspector and it's adding a public works maintenance worker and so with that i will answer any questions regarding this part of the material and then open it up for questions um regarding the whole budget altogether any direction that you would or any other you know information that you want to see or any other questions for particularly for each one of my fellow department heads i think in the past we've had the department heads kind of explain you know like jason asking for a full-time inspector you know what are the needs now you know why why do we need a full-time inspector and we have that opportunity is that going to be a different talk or is that tonight we certainly can do that i i wanted us to kind of have a discussion about this information first of all if there's you know it you know is it clear as mud any questions there was all the line item information was presented there may be some discussions there there may be additional information that's being requested one of which and i'll pull it up real quickly before we get to this other part and it was to look at the the information in the line item detail that shows um the 2019 2020 2021 actuals and so it's taking the budget information um so you can see how the budget how the actuals did versus the budget um there's there's a very interesting um we see a very interesting piece here that um for each one of the years 2019 all the way through you know with the actuals through 2021 you're seeing that revenues have outperformed what we budget the large part of that with the exception of the year 2020 is really due um to permitting um permitting um in 2019 was 330 000 over what was budgeted in 2021 it was another it was 326. um in 2020 the bigger driving force of 457 and intergovernmental was you know the first coronavirus funds that were received from the federal government so what's what's driving that bottom line of having a increase in our fund balance from 2019 was 524 202413 last year was 824 is really the revenue side if you look at the expenditure side in 2019 we spent almost 120 000 more than what we had budgeted in 2020 we spent 107 almost 108 000 more than what we had budgeted and then last year we were actually under under two by two hundred fourteen thousand dollars a hundred of which we've already taken away from in the 2022 budget um and and to refresh your memory that's where there was a contracting lawn service contract for approximately a hundred thousand dollars that we took away and instead public works staff is providing that service much with the seasonal help so really the driving factor is really on the revenue side and definitely can take a look at i did increase some of the revenues already but definitely can take a look at it's very hard to estimate permits um a lot of the increases that we saw here um you know is due to the redevelopment that took place in the in the city will it continue you know it's kind of a guesstimate definitely could you know increase some of those have no objection in in doing so but they need to be i think more on the conservative side we're sitting pretty well again as a reminder where fund balance is in the general fund we're at 44 percent we just made a fund balance change of trying to have a minimum of 40 percent so we do have a little bit of room so if uh looking at those options of staffing if we're not comfortable at a 6.61 percent and and we are in agreement with the additional staff if we still want to reduce that that levy and and and be closer to let's say um six five and a half i think we could adjust our revenue um projections and still be i think relatively safe that we would be able to achieve those and if we didn't achieve those we still have that room in the in the fund balance that if we were to go negative in the 2023 um on the revenue side but again it's a risk that you end up taking and you certainly don't want to compound that impact moving into the 2024 budget so if there's no specific questions with any of this material how did it do in my time doing good did you get the timer went up we will we will we'll first hear from our uh fire chief jason mellinger to talk about the additional full-time fire inspector and then the reduction in the part-time code compliance and the reduction in the initial duty shift and hear his thoughts and reasoning to why he's put together this request jason drop that can you hear me oh i have to hold it all right uh that's our second karaoke right night here and console chambers um first off just want to say thank you for having me mayor and council and being able to be here with everybody and additionally say uh thank you to brian and dan for being a part of this process and the way it's gone thus far i haven't been a part of a lot of these but this year um definitely focused a lot of good communication very good conversations and like dan said as department heads we've spent a lot of time together having a good dialogue on everything so i appreciate what dan's put together and what brian has been doing so i guess this is my pitch for the position i'm not a good salesman i'm more of a straight to the point type facts person so i'll kind of talk a little bit what's going on within the fire department area and what i see as our needs are so what it comes down to really is i'm looking for redundancy that can support uh our current fire inspector and myself and in the positions that we have and to provide better services in areas of the fire inspection and code compliance administration our daytime fire and ems response and just having that consistency with having more than one one position in there currently we are from what i see we're deficient in providing a good product that we previously had in prior years with having three full-time positions the chief the deputy chief inspector and fire inspector and two part-time code compliance positions during this time as i said working and talking with dan and brian on the budget the potential of the the budget a little bit more i'll re review our changes there but within this the last year the difficulty of maintaining part-time code compliance so we have a current part-time co-compliance person that will be leaving us to a full-time position in the bls unit in in st paul and we did post that position internally to our staff and it was open for a couple weeks and we were unable to fill that and uh conversations at at the time we were just going to leave it as be as we worked through this this budget for 2023 so as i said working with dan and reviewing wanting to adjust and provide better service while being fiducially responsible instead of just proposing an increase a hundred percent to the position through the uh levy we talked about what i can do with that part-time code compliance position instead of staffing that one rolling that into this fire inspector position and then also making some adjustments on what we have as our initial duty shift uh on the weekends for coverage as well to help fund the position uh the fire second fire inspector position will also assist with current the inspector from being uh overloaded at this point who is unable to slow down and trying to create a better uh work-life balance for him since 2014 we've lost four full-time fire inspectors in that position basically over the last eight years to same or similar positions uh that left because they had better pay and a smaller work circle smaller workload we could have taken steps to to keep them but we're unable to uh and every time we lose a position um it's we're starting over from ground zero and i have to to build up from there which makes it difficult for us specific areas that i want to improve on within our inspections which equal better maintained properties are going to be the fire code and life safety code and property maintenance for rental properties so providing um more than one person that's managing so right now i have one fire inspector and i'm also assisting with those inspections as well as as needed which requires me to look away from my administrative duties and keeping me from looking at things at the top and providing inspection duties it's been some time since we've reviewed our commercial properties and inspected those and updated our contacts and our pre-plans as it relates when we respond to fire calls and having the correct information in there it's been since at least 2014 when myself and the previous fire inspector at that time were able to do it and again because of turnover and lack of staff we've just been unable to keep up with everything the additional increase of dhs inspections department of human services so those are the group homes whether they're commercial and or residential and daycare facilities again commercial and or residential is an area that continues to grow and be a part of that now that i have brent state certified as a dhs inspector i no longer have to go out there and do those and he's able to help out but still be a part of those i want to get back into our safe haven program we we stop do the covid but haven't unable to get back in there just because of the added workload and that was a great program for our our property owners in town not any rental property or anything along that line but for our property owners for us to do inspections and meet with the owners and update their safety devices whether it be smoke detectors carbon monoxide detectors and just go over things with them at their home a lot of the rental properties because of kovid again we were unable to do the interior inspection so a lot of things were being inspected from the exterior only so after two years of this and now we're having to play catch up on on everything so as we begin in within the last couple of months here starting with our single family home rentals uh we're definitely seeing or brent is seeing uh an increased lack of maintenance throughout a lot of the homes along with the property owners that that haven't been in there so we're addressing those needs but knowing that we need to be able to stay on on top of these to to keep things right uh although we're utilizing uh opengov it's increasing the productivity which is an excellent tool but it also requires a lot of monitoring for us to keep up and and keep it moving for the people that are are using it along and uh we're doing a good job of utilizing it for our inspections and communications it's the primary tool that we are using um and and right now it's twofold again myself and and brent utilizing opengov for communication and inspections which is good but uh i believe you know this is something that could be handled between the fire inspectors the troubled and difficult properties require constant and consistent management to make better and some of the difficulties that we see with having part-time staff is only being here 20 to 24 hours a week if they're unable to be here and answer questions it's going to fall back on myself or brent and then you know trying to get back into the role of digging into the the issue of what's going on and being able to to handle it so having a full-time person that's going to be able to keep up with those communications and and properties along with dealing with legal counsel on those as well the full-time schedule will also help with the workload and keep communication with all of us together and just a better overall approach one of the areas that our part-time code compliance staff deals with is zoning inspections as it relates to driveways the fences chicken bees etc and doing those inspections as well and again everything's coming through on opengov which is great however when an inspection request comes in and we don't have part-time staff to do it then it has to get pushed off to either brent or myself to make sure that we're getting those done and obviously continue with a better community outreach we're seeing a lot more of this definitely monday through friday just with the programs that are going on locally through the schools whether they're wanting us to come out to their schools or facilities or them come here to to be with us and take a look at the facilities and talk to them we also have to update some files we have old hard copies from when we did uh our inspections through the rental licensing uh program uh that were scanned in through lation laserfiche and we're also in the need of updating those as we go through the new open gov system and providing that information and getting that in there as as well it will also provide consistent daytime staffing for fire and ems response and not necessarily knowing um you know monday through friday through daytime when most people are at work who's going to be able to respond to the staff that that truck the full-time employee will have better over time they'll have better knowledge and skills and abilities and an opportunity to conduct more training as as well just from the lack of have being here less as a part-time employee and overall be able to assist me with some of the administrative duties that that i used to do as a deputy chief fire inspector with just reviewing incident reports percentage reports for our part-time firefighter response payroll input etc along that line so that's kind of the basis of that in a nutshell i mean the way i kind of talk to the department as our group the department heads as a group you know is what do we do if we don't get that position and really it comes down to having the conversation with with staff on how we're able to move forward what we're able to do not do what we need to curb because really what i'm concerned about is seeing the trend in losing uh former fire inspectors to other departments uh with the growth of other departments around us and knowing the future growth of what they're going to be doing that those opportunities are going to be there again so i'm trying to create um you know a culture within our department where they're going to want to stay and and be happy and not be overwhelmed and that's a that's a big part of it for all of us here not not just in the fire service but as you've heard from phil and the police so i open it up to any questions you have for me and see what i have for you as answers jason do you have uh the amount of rental properties that we actually yeah i mean rental properties you got the group homes you got uh i think other type of homes in the community and i'm assuming that takes a lot of time to so i'll just start first i guess with the dhs inspections so as it relates to group homes and or daycare so if somebody is opening up a new facility whether it's in your home or in a commercial building they fill out the paperwork with the county or the state and they're required to have the local ah the fire department do a fire inspection and you have to be a certified fire inspector and licensed through the state to be able to do those and those are one-time inspections in in the beginning to make sure that they meet the standard set forth so on the residential side of group homes i think many are formed and then also go so we don't keep track of we haven't kept track been able to keep track of what how many have left as far as residential but as far as the commercial ones we're seeing as you can see more and more with towards mcknight plaza polar plaza downtown at k j these are larger facilities that we're inspecting and being a part of so those are one-time inspections we do are able to recoup a minimal fee of fifty dollars uh for those inspections that um is passed on to the city but those are fairly uh on the lower end i would say from group homes in the city we have roughly anywhere from 18 to 20 group homes that are we've done inspections for and are currently operating and it just seems to be more of the trend lately as as you can tell with hospitals closing and not being able to care for them as much there's it's spreading out to the communities as far as the rental properties at the end of 2021 the data that we had at the time was single family we had 97 22 duplex 45 multi-family that include four plexes along with the buildings that have 18 units in them as well so even though it's it's 45 buildings some of those could have anywhere from four units to 18 18 units that would be inspected as well so you don't the rental property is single-family it's just a one-time inspection no for single-family so the license is the licensing period for single-family rentals is is begins july 1st and runs through june 30th and we um every year they apply for the license and we review it we do inspections or prior to covid we were doing the inspections every other year so right now because we missed two years because of covet we're not we're off schedule and we're we're making sure that we're getting into everything um this next year or as best as we're able to do to get in there so annually each unit is or each property it has to apply for a license and that goes for all rental properties across the board whether they're single-family duplex or multi-family a large complex this just comes to mind and i'm going to chief group homes do we have problems with group homes at all i mean for officers responding not significantly not no not not a regular problem okay i just hear in other cities that can be a potential problem is the uh calls to group homes yeah i definitely experienced that in my time at ramsey county with some of the group homes in the contract cities but we thankfully haven't good okay that's good that's good to know yeah uh any other questions for jason councilmember thurston oh just some comments i mean so you know kind of hearing that there's some issues when dealing with cold compliance and and uh you know zoning inspection inspections because we have part-time staff and then if they're not available then it's being you know the burden's getting pushed on to full-time staff have we looked at possibly contracting that out to other serving we we used to have an in-house billing inspector we've contracted that out to minspec does a company like minspec offer those services to where you know it's just we shift to there i don't know if that's something we've looked at or if they offer those services or if they don't if there's other agencies excuse me i know lionel falcon heights doesn't exist anymore but when they did i think they contracted with saint paul fire to do inspections because st paul has much larger department and and staff dedicated that or just the whole idea of why is the fire department doing you know cold compliance in the first place why why are we sending members of our volunteer department who are filling this part-time role to go you know write letters about long grass and and things so maybe you know if we're talking about creating a community development director position maybe we shift those responsibilities out of the fire department and into that department and and look at either contracting it that way through that department and that department head would oversee that or looking at part part-time or maybe even potentially full-time staff and just dealing with those cold compliance issues and inspections and zoning inspections that kind of don't fall into the traditional fire department realm which then would free up your time to commit to doing the the rental inspections their fire fire related inspections i don't know if that's something that we've looked at but i guess you know absent of a full-time city manager i mean that's probably someone who would be making that evaluation i know those are probably big changes but i just those just some comments that while you're talking i was jotting down so that's kind of all i have yeah council thurson and as far as i know i'm not aware of any conversations but i i could be well absent from any of those previously as well uh to the um as far as contacting minspec or others about uh providing those services i would only assume maybe there were conversations about that when we were first going to minspeck and obviously seeing that as a way to reduce costs i'm just assuming we kept it in-house and as a way to provide you know services and being able to provide additional response through the fire department but i agree traditionally those are not some things that are are done by fire departments you can look around the metro area some do them some some do not and it's i i guess it's decisions made by city managers it's always been that way hasn't it i mean since i've been on the council it's only for quite some time i know when i joined code compliance uh full-time in 2005 it was being done in fire well before that um you know part-time uh well before that uh within the fire department the fire inspections and code compliance um i can you know d martino was was one of the guys that was a co code compliance guy and jack oj was fire inspections and they were both part time within the fire department and that was definitely before 2000s do you have like the stats on lawn with you know what are those cold compliance issues uh so i brought uh back with the 2021 co-compliance um the the top list of what they dealt with last year so they had 172 total and i'll just hit the top ones parking on unapproved services was the highest one to yard maintenance trash and debris tall grass and weeds tree and bush issues and inoperable vehicles and snow and ice removal so those were basically the top concerns that cold compliance had dealt with i painted cars and is that part of pardon me abandoned cars do we have no use if we do that's that's usually phil's realm to to deal with abandoned vehicles which he was talking about earlier today that a lot of abandoned cars stolen yeah we're we're absolutely seeing a lot more of that stolen vehicles being uh dumped in our city so we're uh we're involved in a lot of that talking one or two we're talking five uh yeah i mean one a week at least yeah we're we're so we're involved with other agencies and and where these stones are coming out of and and working every angle of investigation to to try to uh do what we can to prevent that from nor saint paul being a dumping grounds for stolen cars but we're working council member peterson no i'm just i'm trying to take it all in i know i think it's important for code enforcement to keep things neat and tidy and to keep on top of it i know if you don't have the staff and you can't really keep on that's all i have but council member is cool jason thank you for for walking through um the needs and the reasons and the rationales uh greatly appreciate it i followed everything which is good for me um and i appreciate the fact that you've while asking for additional head count you've you've offered up a couple potential saving points to help fund that um i guess are you digging too deep are you i i i've through looking at this i understand that you've definitely prioritized the full-time fire inspector and completely understand the need for that but in getting to that goal are you underselling yourself at one or both of the other two points to get there like i said before i'm not a good salesman and i tend to take workload on and and bury myself pretty deep um but after talking to dan recently he's helped me through some of those issues and i'm i believe that's a this is a really good step for us because although on the cusp of it we see a full-time fire inspector um that can be added to the position uh monday through friday 8 to 4 30. but you have to understand our department uh operates as a part-time paid on call as well and that even includes me so after hours myself and brent are a part of the department and response and how we handle things and my goal would would be to have this third position to remain similar to that so i'm hoping in the areas of building up core services to the city that that will in fact help out i i am making a cut to by by cutting the part-time code compliance officer because it would still be under what we were in 2018 or 2019 um but again that's um just a an an offer that to show that there is a need for a full-time position and and what i'm willing to do to get there thank you yeah that's it that's number one yeah thank you for your presentation i had a similar question about attrition if you were to reduce something are you missing out on compensating for another area that is much needed another question that i'm curious about what is the timeline in which um you know the inspectors you know when once they get um some sort of request what is the turnaround time for that or what is expectation as far as uh of to conduct an inspection of a property yes right so i've said this before to a couple of department heads um right now um i have a a a great uh worker in in our current fire inspector captain brent fixon he's a hard worker and he digs in and and he goes right after it so we are getting he's communicating with our inspection requests immediately and setting up inspections within two to three days and and making sure that we're getting out there and and getting the process started uh for it so typically the way it goes is once the request comes in for the the properties on a single family anyway you know we'll get it scheduled he'll get out there do the inspection with the property owner and go through and do the report and give them the 30 days to make the necessary repairs and then get back to him and schedule another inspection but the larger multi-family properties i make him schedule at least three days on three calendar days during the work week that will include potentially two days doing inspections because if you're going through say a large complex like street view that has 12 buildings with 18 units in the common areas and boiling rooms and all that it's going to take a long time to walk through and then put your notes together and then put together the reports and get everything documented and uploaded and and sent to the correct people so those typically take longer uh right now we have our uh inspections set up so that we're doing single-family homes during the summertime so their licensing begins july 1st this allows us to deal with exterior property issues that we see on homes such as chipping and peeling paint for instance and just exterior issues that we wouldn't be able to deal with in the wintertime so the multi-family licensing period begins uh january 1st we typically don't see those same exterior problems because they're typically commercial buildings that are brick and don't have the same necessities as far as exteriors so by doing that it allows us to focus on certain areas uh properties throughout the year and spreading out the inspections throughout the year thank you [Music] another question i have is it from what you're describing there sounds like a large backlog due to the pandemic so for instance if a full-time inspector were to be you know approved how long do you think it would take to kind of catch up and then is there still sufficient amount of work for that individual to continue i do believe there's going to be uh sufficient work for that individual i believe there's work that we're not able to get to right right now that there are things that i could be doing better as a chief in providing looking to better operate the the department instead of being down here in the weeds working sometimes as an inspector or code compliance officer over the two years of of covid we were still doing licensing we were still looking at these properties just from the exterior so it did make it a little less time consuming and and easier to deal with and now that um we're getting inside with the property owners even the property owners are surprised because they haven't they've been afraid to go in them as well so they haven't been in them and they're realizing more or less the workload's going to be on them as the repair piece of it for them to take care of for us it would just be being able to provide a consistent workload across the board instead of having a part-time person deal with some things and having two full-time people take on the duties and being able to allow me to relinquish some of those duties where they should be with a fire ext inspector instead of with myself that makes sense thank you jason you mentioned when you do an inspection i was kind of curious when you said chip paint or whatever so do you tell them they have to fix those and if they don't fix it they get a citation and they they don't have a license they don't get a license so typically and it would have to be fairly severe but those are areas that that we address definitely and the exterior property we have a property maintenance code book that the city adopted along with the the fire code and that's just the same so it's making sure that the the the home uh garage any additional accessory units are are in good condition and we make the the property owners deal with those issues and that's just a one-time inspection no it's every two years every two years that's right every two years we we go out there and do an inspection got it got it and then uh talk about opengov does that has that increased your do you think the amount of i think it's made it it's allowed us to have better communication and uh quicker and easier so we used to mail out hundreds of packets that were full of 20 pieces of paper and all of that was done by hand and now this is our first year in working through the renewal portion of the initial licensing process through opengr opengov and it has worked out quite a bit so it makes it easier on the end user because once they complete the application their information is in there so they don't have to fill it out every year whereas previously they got a piece of paper that they had to fill out by hand and then mail back to us with the check and everything's done online and the communication is is instant as you can tell and it's been any issues that we've had which there haven't been many we've been able to deal with carry on and improve things and definitely the multi-family property owners are extremely happy about this because if they had 12 buildings then they had 12 uh hand pieces of reports that they had to fill out and with open gov they don't have to do that how many chicken and bees do we have i do have that so i know when we last we're going to have like hundreds of them and i think it's so in 2021 we did 12 inspections uh for uh b or the chickens and there was one beekeeping license i haven't i didn't pull numbers for thus far this year on on that but i know there have been a handful and it is one area that again we we have what's in our code and uh we make sure that they're building it and putting it in place as is required by the cold so they'll go out and meet with the property owner and talk to them about it look at it measure it make sure now once it's done and operating we don't have a procedure in place to go back annually or anything like that to make sure that they're not adding more chickens than they're supposed to but if somebody were to give us a concern or a complaint i'm sure we would look into it have you had complaints i have not had a complaint come across as it relates to somebody having a legal we've had complaints about people having some roosters running around which is not allowed so that's a whole different issue but the legal the ones that have applied and have had are doing it the correct way as far as i know i haven't had any complaints good it's good to hear i got one more comment and i just want to say that code compliance to me is the image of our city and it's very important that we do have code compliance and that we're up to because i think that's one of the biggest complaints that i get is code compliance and uh it does affect you know neighbors and neighborhoods and you know so i commend you and what you have done in the past uh but i think it's very important that we do and i'll go on to say with code compliance i mean just like anything else um a lot of times if if we deal with a property owner and let them know that there's a problem the good property owners you know will understand and realize it and you know fix that problem it's it's these really bad properties that we spend a lot of time on and we have a handful of them that we deal with consistently and they require consistent time and legal counsel and it takes a lot of time to get these bad ones under control good anything else for yeah is it possible to take you know have a like a snapshot of of all the types of compliance calls you get or inspections through opengov yeah definitely i mean the expert back there yes thank you carrie yeah thank you all right thank you very much uh once once again this is just excellent conversation which now requires me to ask a question to of jason um picking up on some of the dialogue in particular council member thorson and council member cole um and so looking at the possibility of in the future if i'm just going to call it community development or to take over code compliance and so code compliance was no longer a requirement underneath the underneath you would you still need that full-time fire inspector i would say yes from the standpoint of now if if you're going to reduce yeah code compliance to the standpoint of taking uh i'm sorry the zoning inspections and code compliance from the standpoint of of fire inspections itself and rental properties commercial properties we have a a lot of work to be done uh to help improve uh where we're at and bring our our systems uh up-to-date our pre-plannings um there's a lot of work that needs to be done and maintained and continued to do consistently in years ahead okay and then i have two more questions depending on your your response this is one of two part-time code compliance officers that we currently have in the budget if again those responsibilities were not underneath you could you do all of the fire inspection and the work that you're mandated to do with the loss of this position and the other code compliance individual yes with one so if i had two full-time fire inspectors correct yes and and so now i'm going to play off of council member calls with the responses that were just given are we being the question that's going to come back to everybody here is are we being short-sighted in eliminating that part-time code compliance and at least having the funding available in the 2023 budget not filling it at this point in time and waiting for a city manager to come on board opening up the potential opportunity that councilmember thorson had brought up of of removing that function from jason's underneath the the fire chiefs and we open up the opportunity of then looking at whether it's a contracted out or we go out and actually fill that fill that one position and if it's determined to contract out then through attrition you would end up removing the other part-time position but at least the funding would be in place well i think that's it's a it's a number kind of a numbers game is what we're playing you know so if we go to a uh contract we still have an expense we don't know what that exactly but this this ends up becoming a placeholder for that expense whether it's contracted or whether we fill that position if we remove it and and this and again that the question that council member calls it if we remove that we have a hole in 2023 which doesn't allow us the flexibility to look to what was suggested by councilmember thorson and and i think that there is there is some validity into looking into that and we're just not currently at the structure to be able to do that at this point in time but hopefully that's going to be coming soon and i think that'd be a whole discussion of itself because if once you go to the contract you kind of you kind of lose identity too in regards to how you deal with your p i'm and i'm hearing things on on the other side code inspection that we do lose some some sort of identity uh working with these with working with uh know the residents and i agree with that but if we remove it out of this if there's so if we accept the adding of the full-time fire inspector and we accept the two reductions we're moving we're removing a pot of money that could be used for whether it's contracted or in our staff and and i personally agree with with you as far as the in-house staff but we don't have that if we remove this we don't have that opportunity coming into the 2023 and and i think that is a very legitimate um suggestion that was brought up um and just it's i i like listening it formulates other ideas and so i'm posing it back based upon the responses that jason had given um that do we hold that in and if if you are in agreement with adding the fire inspector we would remove the initial duty shift but we would leave in place the part-time code compliance councilmember just to pro i mean i'm not trying to say let's eliminate portions of the fire i'm just appraised the question is because you know as someone who's on the fire department knows people that do this uh let's just pose this question it's rhetorical no one needs to say it how many people in this room have cleaned the toilet in this building since you've worked here probably none because we hire someone to do it but if we wanted to save money we could ask each department to clean your own bathrooms and to clean your own areas to clean your own sections of the building cold compliance to me is one of those things that no one really likes to do no one likes to have to write up a letter hey clean your yard you know mow your grass it's complaint driven most of the time but we just acknowledge it's a concern it's a main concern so if we don't have sufficient staffing and the staff we do have it gets pushed off and it's not a priority why aren't we exploring other options to deliver it and you know to me if it's min spec or if it's in-house it's not i don't think it really matters if it's someone with a badge coming up and we could create a cold north saint paul cold compliance badge they can wear i mean it's the fact is the important thing is that it's done and it would be nice if there was more proactive cold enforcement rather than this complaint driven um but you know obviously he's highlighted why we we can't do that and so that's why i bring that up maybe we look at doing something a little different than we have in the past and you know just having a discussion about it so and and council member thurston what i'm saying is i'm in full agreement with what you just said to me cutting this cutting the 41 000 eliminates some of that opportunity that could come out of the discussion that we move in the the future it could be that it it it remains in the fire it could be that it moves over and it could be that as contract as service could be that it's in-house but if we remove that 41 000 we remove those possibilities and so i would like to leave it my suggestion would be based on this conversation to leave it in and it opens up i think additional opportunities which will be further discussed at the point in time into the future but i think we're at the point where we could leave it in and we could always take it out in the future absolutely uh but leaving it in you know so jason i asked you so uh what councilmember thorsten said are we you know we're uh complaint based would this open it up more to just going out general code compliance which i don't think we do as much right now so we are we do try to be proactive i will say he is correct insane we do deal majority of what we deal with is complaint based uh that is for sure but i i also advise our all our entire team whether it's our part-time code compliance and and brent is when you're out there and you're going through the communities and you you see things that don't look like they they fit in or there's a problem to uh address those you know take it up so they are are doing some it's it's not driving down the road with tunnel vision and not looking at anything else but as things come up to it to address those but definitely the majority of what we deal with is is complaint based and i would say you know by even adding that in it the marketing piece too for education you know and i think we lack that also is getting the word out there what is you know your compliance you know what are new residents coming in yeah they don't understand a lot of times correct where if you correct that you may eliminate a lot of and i think we have the tools and the technology now to be able to do some of the stuff much easier than we previously did i know a long time ago we put together flyers and mailers and those types of things to go to go out but there's along with that and the technology that we have there's easy ways of getting that information out because i think that to me is is a very important part of what you guys do over there is to educate people in regards to it doesn't have to be a you know a ticket it's more of an education piece usually that's that's what it comes down to they maybe just didn't realize or or no i mean we still had people in june that hadn't molded their grass and they said it was because nomo may and even though we didn't follow that and it was june right it's it's just it's a learning piece and educating them right right dan were you looking for guidance from council i will be because i'm happy to give you my opinion but i didn't know if you're looking for guys as to whether we are we are quickly running upon the time so i'm gonna i've got this feeling that i think the fire is kind of the topic tonight yeah okay yeah so so two guys back so so i'm gonna i'm gonna start out with um you know we're at the 6.87 percent um which is in that average modified average target range that was given last workshop um if we were to look at and we'll just we'll stop it right at the after the the fire grouping here um if we were to add a fire and spread inspector um and only reduce the initial initial duty shift um and that's also including um taking the lga reduction at this point in time from the street maintenance fund and not the general fund we would be at approximately um six a little over six percent um what is the sense or the feeling on of of that say that again taking that so if we take the the two top parts with the suggestion of reducing the lga in other words the reduction isn't coming from the general fund it's coming from street maintenance and then we add a full-time inspector and we only reduce the initial duty shift amount our levy at this at by making those changes would be a little over six percent um so are we in agreement first of all with shifting the loss of lga revenue not from the general fund but shifting the loss from and reducing it from the street maintenance fund and i think i think that's a numbers game that we're kind of playing yep yeah that's i mean i'm fine with that okay and that's what because part part of it is all predicated on that because if we don't make that reduction we're quickly starting to get up to seven eight and if we add other positions we will be approaching a double digit and i certainly don't think that that was in the range overall of what the the city council's intentions were so yes it is a numbers game but it has to be one that we're all comfortable with right so i'm hearing um that we're comfortable with that if there's any disagreement please um let me know good okay not hearing any i'll i'll i'm i'm taking the direction that we'll make that change so we're at a 4.82 percent now do i hear um based upon the dialogue um in questioning um in in presentation by jason um we would add a full-time fire inspector so we're not voting right now so we're just kind of making just kind of i would say you know keep that in the keep that in there yeah i would be in favor of keeping a full-time other councilmember peterson would be in favor of that um yeah i i would be i would be even in favor of that as well as um at least keeping the 41 thousand dollars for the code compliance in the budget for now always something can be pulled out later but absolutely um yeah okay does that seem to be kind of the consensus at this point in time again we're not voting but no no no this is this is this is just really helping us trying to develop our next round of of you know that we're going to come back with to you know you know hone in on that target um to where we're at um so after the this change right here we're at we're approximately six percent in the next workshop we will talk about the addition of a public works maintenance worker is there any other information regarding the general fund that you want to see coming to the next workshop the plan moving forward is in the [Music] second meeting in august well actually it's the only meeting in august that will be being conducted we will be doing a lot of dialogue on the capital improvement program and if time permits we'll be looking at enterprise funds and fund balances that may end up getting pushed out or we may end up wanting to have a another scheduled special session to have some of those other dialogues i think you know having a special just a budget session is is good too yeah we've done that in the past absolutely absolutely so focusing on just general fund are there some other additional information that you would like to see this has been a fantastic dialogue tonight i think it really gives us you know that we're on the right path we're on the right path and i think uh the public works will be on the hot seat at the next uh next year absolutely all your money i will be keeping i will be keeping my dialogue really short so he has a lot more time yeah no i think you're going in the right direction here yep it'd be helpful for future one future conversations to have maybe more data um as well in terms of numbers around you know the need of things if that makes sense you're looking more from a statistical standpoint absolutely okay and i think i think that you always had kind of the a year-end summary of the amount of calls that you had for you know what are they it it it opens our eyes to you know what's going on out there don't start singing karaoke no i won't uh i agree it it was uh february or march when i did the year in the summary so quite some time ago it could have been included that obviously i have those numbers in front of me but i'm sure um it would have been more helpful for you as well so yeah thank you we we will provide that information to you and then also we'll have some statistical information regarding the request on the public works side um and and some of the the reasoning um to why he's got that request moving forward good jason i just want to say i want to appreciate your staff because like you said you know like councilman thorson said quote enforcement is different than firefighting and you guys come up with you have to deal with a lot of different scenarios and you are the image of our city so i thank you very much for that let's go see the manager that's all we had for topics on the workshop for this evening okay so if we don't have any other questions for department heads that are here and i appreciate you two coming here but i i think it's important that we hear the whole the whole story so i appreciate coming here tonight i'm assuming that we're going to hear from you at the next time so i don't know if you want to schedule them uh because i think it does take a little bit longer especially for uh budget for the for the year especially if they're asking for for certain things so with that uh motion to adjourn so moved moved by council member one second second by council member cole any discussion not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed we are gerund and we got about three minutes you