00:00:14,070	It’s 5:15 on the September 9th, we’re in the Tom Baker room of the City County building. This will be the board of City Commissioners meeting, but first we’ll have invocation and pledge of Allegiance, Chaplain Wolfgram, please. Commissioners. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, uh, as we come upon the commemoration of yet another 9/11.

00:00:38,630	We are grateful for your presence in our lives for your protection and for the safety that we enjoy, especially in our community here in Bismarck really comes in early county area Um, can we pray your care and blessing for our city, for these leaders as they gather and for those who serve to uh.

00:00:54,630	our city as they protect and serve and also are there, um, with all of the situations that we face um. we pray your care and blessing for our nation that you would guard and protect us, that you would keep at bay those who seek our harm.

00:01:11,230	Again on these late summer days, we are grateful for the warmth of your love, uh, and the beauty of, of North Dakota. Grant us your piece as these people gather tonight that they would seek your good and gracious will and honor you with your decisions Uh, grant us your peace now. We pray through Christ our Lord. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag. of the United States of America.

00:01:34,170	and to the Republic for which it stands. nation uh visible with liberty and justice. Thank you, sir. Thank you for your service. Thank you. All right. Well, to call a meeting in order, we’ll call roll. Comm Risch, Comm Zenker. Comm Connelly here, Comm Cleary, here, Mayor Schmitz, here.

00:02:05,730	uh, this, at this time is public comment, but before we get started on that, in case there’s anyone here related to regular item. C3C, which was considered a request to hold a hearing of appeal for a zoning map amendment that was pulled by the applicant, so it is no longer on the agenda So with that noted, uh, this is public

00:02:27,530	comment. Anyone who wished to speak, uh, please come forward, restrict the items to the last Commission meeting agenda or anything that’s on this agenda that’s consent or is a nonpublic hearing item. Um, go ahead and sign in and state your name and which topic, please Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Commissioners, members of city administration.

00:03:19,370	Uh, thank you for giving me a brief opportunity to speak tonight. I’m here to provide a brief update on Bismarck Municipal Court. As we approach finalization of the 2026 budget.

00:03:38,630	So I’m referencing, is this related to the budget? I don’t, Kate, it’s a review of what the court has been doing and to, I want to make sure all the commissioners are on the same page, so I don’t violate any open meeting rules, but is it going to be, I’m just c lar ify ing is it going to be related to the budget because we’re going to have a public hearing

00:03:46,730	on that might be a better time to discuss that then. I’m not sure when, when would you like me to speak on it? When we will actually have the public hearing, and during that public hearing piece, um, this evening.

00:04:00,970	It’ll be this evening, just, I think it might fit better with that. OK, thank you. Yep. Again, this is public comment. Anyone wish to speak, please come forward. A second call for public comment A 3rd and final call for public comment. See nor hearing anyone, a public comment period is now closed. Commissioners, what are your wishes with regard to the consent agenda.

00:04:33,700	I’ll move we accept, consent agenda is presented. OK? Is there any discussion Here None will call roll Mr Zenker. Yes. Comm Connelly? Yes, Comm Cleary, Yes, Comm Risch, yes. Mayor Schmidt. Yes. Moving to regular item agenda 3A. Continue the public hearing on Ordinance 6635 and annexation of Part one part of lot 1, block 2 Northern Sky Edition, first relo.

00:05:01,870	Daniel, go ahead. Good evening, Mayor and Commissioners. So this item was on your agenda at the last meeting, but as a reminder, I’ll go over some of the background for this request.

00:05:15,370	Uh, this is Wilmet Development LLC requesting approval of an annexation of the eastern portion of Lot 1, block 2, Northern sky, 2nd edition, 1st Replat. Uh, this would be annexed into the city of Bismarck. It is in the northern part of our community, just on the west side of uh North Washington Street, north of Ash Coley Drive. Uh, if I can have the screen, there we go.

00:05:30,270	Uh, you can see it there on the screen. Uh, the location in yellow of the annexation proposed. uh, City staff do find that this proposed annexation would not adversely impact the public health, safety, and general welfare, and we do recommend approval of the annexation, as always, the staff report contains all of the details behind that and analysis.

00:05:49,370	Uh, the Planning and zoning Commission considered this request during their June 25th, 2025 regular meeting and recommended approval at that meeting. Uh, you did open the hearing for this during your last meeting, uh, in August.

00:06:03,230	uh, but at the request of the applicant, you continue that hearing and made that made that vote. So here we are today at the continued public hearing. Uh, I can answer any questions you may have, and I think a representative for applicant is here as well. OK.

00:06:19,500	Thank you, Daniel Again, this is a continuation, so is there anyone in which to speak or, or landon, I suspect you have some updates for us. Thank you, Mayor and Comm Lanna Naimler Swarzenegen Engineering representing well development on this.

00:06:36,430	Um, yeah, as, as Daniel mentioned with this, we did continue this from the last meeting and, uh, you know, just to mention again, regardless of tonight’s annexation request, there is of course a ticking clock on the annexation for this entire area that will be up in a few years. Um, tonight though, however, we are asking for another continuance to September 23rd. There’s still some last-minute financing between the developer and the, and the purchaser of the of the of the land, um, so we are asking for another continuance for, for two weeks. Commissioners any concern? No.

00:06:57,170	OK. So, I think we need an official motion to continue it. I’ll make a motion to continue the public hearing for ordinance 6635 till the next meeting scheduled in September 2nd. Any discussion? Hearing none will call roll Comm Connelly? Yes Comm Cleary? Yes. Comm Risch. Comm Zenker. Meer Schmitz, yes.

00:07:22,800	Next item is hold public hearing on Ordinance 6638, the 2026 city budget. um Demetri, are you gonna give any presentation Uh, good evening, Mayor Commissioners. I do not have a presentation tonight. Um, I’ll let you, uh, either comment or begin the public hearing, OK.

00:07:49,000	All right, this is a public hearing and anyone who wishes to speak on the 2026 city budget, please come forward. you’ve already signed in, so That was quick All right. Um, So I’ve been the city judge for just over the last year, and I just wanted to come and give, give the commission an update on how things have been going a year in review, as you

00:08:15,700	guys are making decisions on the budget, um, so I’m not sure if you all know or don’t know, but we have some unfunded legal mandates we’re facing, um, specifically the biggest one, we’ve had several legal mandates that were in transition with and and dealing with, but the biggest one is

00:08:32,330	becoming a court of record. So we’re in transition to become a court of record. This is a state-mandated change that significantly impact our operations, and we need proper staffing and technology upgrades to comply with the state requirement. Um, number 2 is caseload increases.

00:08:54,630	I do have a handout to provide to you, and I should add as well, and I will add, I have a couple of handouts to provide to you. One, is regarding our in our case increases over the last 5 years. Last year we had over 20 25% growth. and the year before we had over 40% growth.

00:09:18,270	And so we’re, we’re seeing the bottlenecking of those operational challenges with the recent growth that we’ve faced. Um, we’ve done a little bit of research to see what other cities are dealing with as far as growth as well, um, and so I have a handout, print out for you, um, with what, what other cities have had and did a five year, how many new cases

00:09:33,170	they’ve had in 5 years. So just to give you a little brief overview of that research that I’m about to provide you, um, Fargo has two part-time judges. West Fargo has one part-time judge. Fargo, in the last 5 years had 62,839 cases. West Fargo had 20,490 cases.

00:09:55,430	Grand Forks, which is similar in population, a little less population than Bismarck. They have one part-time judge. They had 35,000 cases in five years and Bismarck had 99,484,000 new cases. And so you can see that we are doing in Bismarck a caseload that is, um, very significantly disproportionate to our population sizes of our counterpart cities.

00:10:19,630	Um, I’m not saying that that’s a problem or an issue. It just creates some concern. Our staff has been handling it very well for the last several years, but we’re coming to a kind of a critical tipping point with operations and management in the court. um, just based on those stats.

00:10:34,500	So I wanted to Judge, can I ask a question related to those? Is there any demographics as to what the, you know, that’s a big difference in cases. What is the cause of that? Do we have any idea, cause that would be purely speculation. I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s because we have a more robust police department.

00:10:51,530	I don’t know if it’s because the commission has passed more laws and has brought in laws, um, so there’s, you know, we do have a, a significant increase in, um, prohibited camping citations.

00:11:14,530	We have significant increases in park violations in open container violations, um, and I can give the commission the specific, um, different charges that we see the increases in, but it’s across the board. It’s from traffic tickets, um, and those case numbers do not include parking at all. So the case numbers that I provided to you do not include parking increases.

00:11:31,100	They do not include, um, orders to show cause, which orders to show cause are hearings that we have for people failing to comply with conditions. So these are just new cases we might see that case 10 times in our courtroom if they owe a victim money for restitution, or if they owe the court fines or not complying with the condition of probation, we might see one case 10 times, and these are only new case

00:11:48,630	numbers, um, so we don’t have access to how many times we actually see people in the courtroom. We have our staff has done a great job to try to manage.

00:12:05,230	We’ve added additional hearings, um, to try to, um, work with the amount of warrants we’re right now averaging about issuing 450 warrants a month, so it’s a strain on the police department We’re working with them and we added a, uh, an additional hearing every week to try, so they don’t get bottled neck with warrants as well. So we’re trying to even it out and work with all the other departments.

00:12:18,600	Um, I also want to add that our revenue, um for Bismarck Municipal Court does exceed the expenditures. So I want to give, if I may approach, I’ll give each of you a handout, and then I’ll finish up my summary of what we’re doing to help. Please.

00:13:23,700	And Thank you And I also, there’s a note in there of what other municipalities are adding, um, and so I’m not asking to add, but I’m asking to maybe adjust, make adjustments, um, and really that’s your decision.

00:13:39,800	I have no control over, you know, what you, as a commission decide, but I do want to make sure that you have all of the information in that, all of you hear it at the same time. Um, so with the caseload increases there our caseloads are continuing to rise. Um, I provided you the handouts, but these caseloads are putting more and more pressure on our already limited resources that we’re working with.

00:13:56,730	Um, and we take pride in limiting our resources and using what we have. Um, we’ve been working with IT in the city of Bismarck. They’ve been a great department to work with.

00:14:15,630	They’ve been very helpful, um, in identifying efficiency improvements, upgrades, and we’re taking in all of their advice and information, but it was concluded from IT that, um, the improvements, um, are low bearing fruit in their words. So the improvements can’t impact in a significant way the, the very large, um, concerns which are the caseload and the unfunded mandate. Um, we are trying to remedy that.

00:14:34,170	We have some things that may be coming from Odyssey, which is options to pay tickets online. That was something I started working on last year. I was told it would be ready and rolled out this year.

00:14:49,170	Now I’m being told it’s going to be ready and rolled out maybe next, next year, um, the beginning of next year, so we’re hoping that will also provide, um, a little bit of cushion so that our, our staff can enjoy some of the trainings and things from HR because at this time we just can’t, um, enjoy any trainings or really have any time to do anything because we are trying to keep afloat.

00:15:07,270	Um, in July, we launched a courtroom collaboration with the community and local service providers. Um, the focus is to support community members dealing with mental health and substance issues, um, providers are now appearing in court when we have court sessions to directly connect with individuals in need of services.

00:15:27,530	The early feedback we’ve we’ve been receiving is very, very positive from both providers and, um, people in the community. Um, this is an effort, it’s, it’s more time on the front end, but we’re hoping that this will decrease some of the recidivism and caseloads that we’re seeing on the back end of these numbers.

00:15:43,270	Um, and we’ve had additional, many additional added and new duties, um, and respons i b il ities over this last year. So we’re adding duties to support other departments, um, adjusting our operations to meet the city needs.

00:15:59,170	Um, there’s too many really to list tonight, but, um, we’re, we’re trying to make an impact where we can And despite all these crushing caseloads and unfunded mandates, um, the strength of our court is really our staff. Uh, their dedication and morale is truly unmatched. They continue to deliver justice with professionalism under increasing pressure.

00:16:18,370	Um, so as you finalize the budget, I just ask that you consider the operational needs and the legal mandates ahead, the upcoming changes are not optional. They are, but they are an opportunity to modernize and better serve our community. Thank you for your time and continued support. Can I ask? Go ahead, Commissioners, go ahead first. Uh, I don’t care whoever. I didn’t see who raised her hand first. Mr.

00:16:37,630	Mayor, Your Honor, am I looking at this right? Um, we have, um, reduced your budget from 2025 by I don’t know,, $7000 or 2026 by $7000 from 2025. We’re bringing in about 1.3 million and we we’re funding the court at about 805,000. I, I, I, I think I’m looking at it right. Um-hum.

00:16:59,370	I’m not sure that, I guess that would, this is a document from Fiscal. So, um, I believe so is less than 2025 on this sheet. And I’m not sure why, why that is, or, um, I think it’s projections, but I’m not sure, you know, why our budget would be less, um Dmitri can probably help us with that.

00:17:19,870	OK. But, but, but you bring in about $1.3 million correct? Uh, that’s how I read it, yes. Right. And then we spend about 805,000 in operations. OK, thank you Mr. Connelly And a continuation with that part. I, I think your mic might be off.

00:17:42,100	Um, thanks, Comm, for noticing that, but, um, if you could add a context, Amanda, um in 2025, like the um combined jail fees. We budgeted a million dollars at significantly less this year. Um, can you share that information? Um, I can.

00:18:04,000	I was hoping not to because as a judge, we don’t like to look at, you know, what, what we’re spending on jail, but we, I inevitably we do look at that. Um, so there’s been some maybe rumors that I’m not sending people to jail, which is not true. Um, so just to get everybody on the same page with that.

00:18:19,070	What, what I what what I’m doing is looking to see if that person is on a hold for another county or another jurisdiction that’s already paying the bill, and I’m not doing a concurrent sentence, so I don’t know if you know what concurrent sentence is, but if somebody’s sitting in jail for 60 days, and I can only give a max of 30 days.

00:18:34,630	I’m not going to order a 30 day concurrent sentence and take the bill from some other jurisdiction and pay it for the city when they’re already sitting in 60 days. So it’s not that people are getting less time.

00:18:48,800	If that person deserves 630 days and they’re not on a 60 day jail sentence, then they’re gonna go set 30 days and Bismarck is going to pay for it. But if they’re already serving another time for another jurisdiction, or they’re sitting on a $50,000 cash bond for another jurisdiction.

00:19:07,070	Then I take those things into consideration, um, on who’s paying the bill and making sure that people are still having consistent sentences, so it’s not that people are just being led out to the streets. It’s that people are having consistent sentences, but the court is looking at, um, how to be most effective and efficient with our resources. Uh, one of our strategies is to hopefully push resources to the front end and to save recidivism and resource and expenses on the back end.

00:19:24,170	And that’s one of the fruits of saving resources on the back end is with the jail bill. And the part of that that I, I appreciate it is, is trying to uh reduce or save recidivism, because reoccurring costs aren’t good for the person trying to hopefully grow into a better life and, uh, all of the

00:19:44,800	people that support that structure. And I do want to add that part of this strategy does put a lot more pressure on the clerk’s staff, um, because as we’re working with these community service providers, we’re looking at probation conditions.

00:20:04,700	Can we solve this problem or issue with probation conditions? Does this person need peer support, a community program, somebody that can report back to the court and let them know. So a lot of our people that are coming through, we’re not giving them jail time right off off of the front end.

00:20:19,100	We’re giving them a chance to comply with probation conditions and go to treatment, uh, seek housing within a timeline, and if they don’t do that, they’re facing jail time. But if they do do those things, then problem solved for everyone and hopefully we cannot see them coming back through that revolving door Um, the problem is the clerks have to monitor those conditions of probation, and they, it’s an

00:20:36,170	extra step for them. It’s a lot more work for them, but I keep telling them, hopefully we’ll see it in the caseloads decreasing, eventually, um, and so hopefully we’ll see that work, that extra work we’re putting in now, um, in the years to come in the community and, and status.

00:20:52,700	So, um, that and I was going to tell you something else about kind of uploading. It does take more time in court. So Be court of record we’re going to have to spend a significant more time in court, um, because there’s more procedural, um, things to kind of discuss and open up on the court of record.

00:21:07,700	We have to make sure we’re recording properly and there’s some legal legalities to it, um, so that’s gonna take more time. Also, when we’re trying to figure out the root of the problem rather than just handing out a sentence, and we’re trying to figure out what’s the issue.

00:21:24,230	Is this an addiction issue? Is this a mental health issue? Is this a reoccurring problem and how do we address it? It does take more time in the court process, not a sig I mean, to me, not significantly because you see the savings on the prisoner care bills, um, and I think it’s worth it to have that extra time and extra

00:21:40,800	pressure on my on the court staff to be able to see those savings and using our resources efficiently and effectively. Um, and I think it’s a better outcome for the people we serve in the community trying to get to the root of problems rather than just paying to house a problem for 5 days or 10 days.

00:21:59,900	If that makes sense. I don’t, does that make sense? That explanation last thing with it, um, through these discussions, the municipal courts my portfolio, and through these discussions, some um topics that are bigger than municipal court that are actually statewide influence and things.

00:22:20,800	I’d never heard of before, um, we’re following up with meetings. She mentioned one of the programs called uh is a software called Odyssey, and we’re gonna continue working on that, um, when it comes to budgets, there’s a timeline and timing’s rarely on your side when you’re dealing with a lot of different topics.

00:22:38,900	So there’s going to be some um continued conversations even leading into the future years, but this is one way, um I do appreciate Amanda that you spoke because it is one way to inform all 5 people because we do live in a space of open meeting law, so I appreciate that I appreciate that. Thank you.

00:22:55,000	And I do, I mean, the Commission, I just wanted to bring it to your attention as well, because the commission will have to probably make decisions in the coming years of what to do with the judge position. It’s a halftime position, but I’m working full time.

00:23:08,730	So we’re gonna have to figure out what what this is gonna look like, especially if there’s continued case load. My solution right now was to add a add a position, uh a clerk position because we’re going to need another clerk in the courtroom to do the recording duties and right now we just don’t have that option at this point. I’m unsure of how we’re going to comply with the state mandate.

00:23:25,370	And so the commission’s gonna have to figure out and, and come up with some ideas of how we will comply with that state mandate. So, Comm Risch, and Comm Zenker. Mr. Mayor, Your Honor, yeah, I, I can’t understand how a part-time judge can have a 99,000 case. It just doesn’t seem possible.

00:23:42,970	That’s not, that’s not in 1 year 5 years... 000, yeah. Or, or even 20,000 cases. Yeah,, 55 years, so. Right, that’s correct. That’s 5 years. You’re right. I think last year we had about 23,000, but that doesn’t include parking.

00:24:00,170	But if we pass this, just as it is tonight are you going to be able to operate in 2026 with this budget? In my opinion, no OK, can we add to the budget tonight? I thought this was. It, it, it depends on what we do. There’s a lot of moving parts at the moment.

00:24:16,630	OK, OK Good, uh, Comm Zinker, did you have a question? I, cause I have a follow-up question for Judge and I thank you, Mayor. So I do have, I do have a question because in our packet, um, we, and at our previous um when we formally moved this uh to the budget approval basically um you have a municipal court deputy clerk, um, ask to the budget committee

00:24:40,800	that’s not funded. Yes, we asked for a deputy clerk. So the question would be, what, what was it from the portfolio holder and what was it in the budget committee as to why with if you’re showing us these stats tonight, and I’m sure you might have similar information at that time is why, what was

00:24:59,800	the decision not to fund it? I can speak to that. I mean, it certainly, obviously, there’s other members of the budget committee that can speak to it too. Uh, timeline wise, I think was our trouble.

00:25:17,500	Uh, we met originally with municipal court with Nicole, um, we were presented with the court of Records an unfunded mandate essentially from the state, but at that point in time, we didn’t have a full understanding of what that meant.

00:25:33,500	We did get some of those answers, um, via the state as to, because I think originally we were thinking it all need ed to be recorded and documented and able to be like sent out to whoever requests it and then some of that was backtrack it just needs to be recorded, um. that was the at the initial meeting, it was presented at least from my take on it.

00:25:52,330	It was presented as if we are going to have to do all of this recording and transcribing, etc. uh, we are gonna need an entire new staff member, but then the way that it reflected back when we got some of those answers. It was like didn’t seem like it was as heavy as a lift.

00:26:09,270	as we originally thought. Then after I think our preliminary uh budget, I, I might have my timeline wrong, Dmitry, but I think after we approved the preliminary budget meeting, we then met with the judge to discuss her concerns of this not being in there.

00:26:27,470	At that point, she explained further, that was my first look at some of these dollars, um, and then with that meeting, uh, in August, I believe, we had the conversations of how can we help? So she mentions IT because I, from my perspective, and I don’t want to speak for the whole budget committee.

00:26:46,270	We have a lot of FTE requests every year that we have to weigh the priorities of and the pros and cons of some of them get asked for year after year after year before we’re able to fill them, um.

00:27:01,630	and I think that when we were looking at this, we, we, she is still new in her role, um, and she’s still figuring things out. Every judge is going to do things differently. Staff has to adjust, um, and so I think that we at that meeting, we discussed IT coming in, doing a full overview of how things work, how they can help, are there efficiencies that can

00:27:19,730	help staff with, because I think what you’re doing is very helpful, but it does create almost more work for staff with the logistics of things. So I think what can you clarify what I’m doing with the back end of spending more time in court, more documenting, you know, like the logistics of checking

00:27:40,000	where the warrants are, that, and not just giving out warrants and stuff. All that’s good, but I think that like all of it takes adjustment for staff, right? And I think that at least the impression that I got was that we were going to try to see what IT could help with, try to see they’ve

00:27:56,630	implemented their own things and but some of that stuff is. they were implemented earlier this year. A lot of those things to streamline things take time.

00:28:17,100	We wanted to see how time can help those things, I guess, uh, when we met in August, we, I think, agreed to see what IT presents and then we would meet after IT gives us their information. We are meeting again, uh, but I think that it was more of from the budget committee’s standpoint, I would say it was a little bit of not having maybe all of the information as to how important this is. And then also just having to prioritize things, uh.

00:28:40,900	like, like the HR positions, uh, those have been very long overdue, uh, with the same staff and just the growth and so I think that it was more of a just trying to find the priorities and then with that saying, not to say that your position isn’t a priority.

00:29:02,730	I think that we just had less information on that position because it is a new ask. Some of these other FTEs that we are approving are things that we’ve talked about needing consecutively, uh, I also um, I mean, I think that we all understand that adding an FTE is a long-term expense.

00:29:23,000	Uh, we’re going to add this FTE and it’s never going to go away. So with that being said, I think the last conversation we had was how can we help internally, whether it’s IT or legal or police, can we get things to move better for the courts so that our first adjustment isn’t a new employee that we’re trying to, and I know that

00:29:45,970	you’ve been doing stuff on your own, but how can we also help from other departments That I think is where the conversation left off, but I do think some of this was timing. I don’t know if Igree with you.

00:29:57,730	I don’t know if our opinions would have changed if we would have had all of this information at our first budget meeting with you. um so I think that that is part of my struggle is that I think it fell at a certain spot in the priority list because some of that communi that like we didn’t have all of the answers

00:30:13,870	as to what what it was needed for with the state mandate, and it kind of came off at the first meeting that it was just needed because of the state mandate, not necessarily because of these numbers. So that is probably my take on it.

00:30:33,000	I’m welcome to have Dmitri or Jason speak because I don’t want to speak solely for the budget committee, but that, I, if you’re wondering why we didn’t fund it, I feel like it was that that that was the main reason that it was, we didn’t have this level of understanding as to why it was needed.

00:30:48,970	It was a little bit more surface level, um, at the start and then our timing wise, by the time we did get these numbers, we had already had our first approval of the preliminary budget, so it, um, so we’re still trying to work and I understand what the timing because we feel blindsided by this, the mandate as well, because it’s a huge

00:31:05,530	undertaking and, you know, we don’t have a lot of resources to be able to to do it. So, um, it, it, so we didn’t have years to prepare and plan for it, you know, it just, it was just mand ated and we kind of gave information as it became

00:31:18,000	available. Right. Yeah, by no means were you not giving us the information. I think that like we were told what we, what you guys thought it was and we were like, whoa, that’s a lot.

00:31:36,430	And then we asked questions and the answers that we got from state level, it seemed like it was potentially less time consuming than we originally thought it was gonna be, but now with your explanation plus the additional growth, it’s like, OK, is it achievable? I don’t know. And that’s part of why I’m here today is just to make sure everybody knows about the growth. I know I met with Mr.

00:31:52,000	Mayor during his podcast, um, and I talked about the growth and I talked about those numbers. So I was kind of, you know, thinking that everybody was aware of the growth of municipal court, and that was my wrongful assumption.

00:32:05,370	So, and that’s partly why I’m here today is to make sure that you guys have all of those case numbers and information. Comm Connelly. Thanks, Maryor Commissioners and Comm Zenker to, as far as the state or the unfunded mandate, turn your, turn your, sorry, uh, American Commissioners, Comm, anchor seems to be a habit tonight, um, as far as the, uh, unfunded mandate, I believe League of Cities and what they shared was, it was $1500 roughly of

00:32:34,170	software and not a lot of hours to make this transition, um, and that’s where some of the IT information I didn’t know and we ’ re walking into that space, but, um, in correlation to the timing that we have to have our budget in, it just, it’s a very uncomfortable space to go in.

00:32:51,270	So when Comm Risch asked you how you could, um, and you didn’t see how from their perspective I don’t wanna put words in your mouth, uh, that you don’t see how that’s conceivable.

00:33:10,070	At the same time, I appreciate the fact that you came up here and said you’re not asking for anything, merely making sure that we’re all aware of it because um it’ll be interesting as we learn in this process goes forward.

00:33:31,270	And, and my only request would be is next year make sure you come to that preliminary budget meeting as the leader of that department because I think your voice in the room immediately would have probably had more weight. To be honest. And I, I apologize for mis, missing that preliminary meeting, but when I’m supposed to be working 12 hours and I’m working 40 hours, you know, it’s so I had a conflict, but I did ask for a follow-up meeting for about 4 weeks until, before even that,

00:33:48,370	before your preliminary budget was approved. So I did request a meeting, a follow-up meeting I’m just asking I just want to clarify because that, that was in motion. Thank you we’ll be seeing what we’re considered. We got a lot to consider yet tonight. OK. Thank you, judge. This is public hearing on the budget ordinance for 2026.

00:34:10,870	Anyone who wished to speak, please come forward. A second call for public comment on the budget A 3rd and final call for public comment on the budget seeing or hearing no one else of public hearing portion is now closed.

00:34:45,100	Tim, um, Demetra, I think would be fair for one to get clarification on Comm Risch’s question about 2025 budget versus 2026 budget for a municipal court. There is a lower dollar amount in totality, so maybe you can address that. Um, thank you, Mayor Schmitz.

00:35:09,000	Um, Comm Risch, uh, the difference is due to this the salaryary savings that we’ve had with the change of, of, of judges and staff that have been here, I think one of the staff, um, I think Kathy was here for a very, very long time. Yeah OK. Comm, do you have questions of Dmitri or comments on the budget. Comm Zenker.

00:35:30,530	I, I just, um I’d like to go back to this topic because I do have a concern that we’re not going to fund that, that municipal court after hearing um um what the judge had to say I, I look at it twofold, right? When, when she was first elected, um, and we had to have that conversation about reducing her pain and making sure it fell in

00:35:50,600	line and the amount of hours that she’s, she’s supposed to work. Well, I can, I can tell you that the cost for municipal court clerk is, is going to be less expensive than paying a judge, whichever judge it is, Bismarck might not, Morton County, uh, doesn’t matter.

00:36:08,800	It’s gonna be less expensive than paying a judge a full-time wage. right? Or if we had to add, if we had to add a second judge. So I wonder if we shouldn’t have just a deeper conversation about adding that, that additional person to that, to that staff just to one take some of the workload off the

00:36:25,530	current, people that are there, any one of us in this room that owns a business understands what, what good quality staff does and what it does for your, for your business, and two, I mean, if we’re, if our caseloads are that much, um, and this person can take some of that off.

00:36:42,530	I’d rather hire this person now then another judge in 34 or 5 years or something. I just throw it out there for discussion because it’s, now is the time to do that. um even with technology changes, sometimes technology only is only as good as when it works.

00:37:00,000	And then it doesn’t always save time, but it just does makes things more efficient Comm Cleary, um, yeah, I mean, I can definitely think it’s worth discussing because I think that part of one of the reasons, like I said, that it was not one of the FTEs that we approved was some, some of it

00:37:16,430	had to do with how, how we may, how we got the information and like Comm Connelly said, we, we thought that this Court of Records was going to be this big lift and then League of Cities or the state kind of came back and was like, these are the things you should need.

00:37:30,430	We don’t know if that’s accurate. We, they might be underselling that. We might be, you know, they think that the not fun part of an unfunded mandate is that we have a lot to figure out with that, uh, and what, how that workload flows, um.

00:37:56,100	I think that I struggle with where we make adjustments because I do feel like a lot of the other FTEs that we approved and the other things that are on here are uh, equally as high of a priority, I guess. Uh, so I mean, I, we can certainly have that discussion.

00:38:14,470	So this leads into my point of discussion, which I think there’s people here who are, yes, thank you. Appreciate that. So I’ve evaluated a lot and looked at what is in the preliminary budget from compensation adjust adjustments and cost of living and what uh what I am seeing in the workforce that I’m dealing with in particular and what the state is doing and so whether

00:38:38,430	or not anybody agrees with me or not, um, we in the preliminary budgets of 5%, which I think was made up of 2% for cost of living and excuse me, 3% for cost of living and 2% for Marrittin other market rate adjustments.

00:38:59,630	Um the state is at 3% and that’s what they passed and that’s what they actually for two years in a row um, in, in my own business world, that’s where we’re seeing is about 3%. Maybe some adjustments for promotions.

00:39:23,700	So if we would go down the road of saying 4%, leaving 3% for cost of living and 1% for some of those market adjustments and compression adjustments and a promotions. It’s about $340,000 to the general fund alone. of potential budget change reduction which if I equate that back to the 3% cap on property taxes, it’s almost 1% of the property tax revenue change not quite like 9.95%. um i.e.

00:39:53,170	, that would be one place where we would find some additional dollars for the budget to be able to fund a position for one or two, just looking at what the budget is and being cognizant of what the fact is, is what, what the reality is in the world.

00:40:11,170	that we live in today So I throw that out there as further conversation around positions and compensation. and, and by the way our budget right now we’re going to use some of reserves anyway to fund a couple of the capital purchases that were already planned for a fire truck, for example, and some reserve, so we’re gonna have to move dollars out of our reserve fund to balance the

00:40:27,370	budget regardless. That I’m just looking at the administration. We got a new engagement officer. I’m not sure what that is. Um, would easily, without that, we could easily fund the um clerk. and then another communications officer.

00:40:50,630	We’ve got, so, so the communication, right? The communications officer is actually only half a position because it was already half funded by the administration, the other half was coming out of public health and that public health portion is going away. I’ve got an issue with the, um, or, or, or suggestion about the pay raise, and I don’t have any problem with the 3% and the 2% merit.

00:41:07,330	I mean, I think we should need to treat our public employees fairly, decently, pay them well, be competitive. But my concern about the pay increase is the percentage pay increase. We keep doing a percentage pay increase year after year after year.

00:41:23,800	And what happens is the people at the highest end of the spectrum get the most additional pay. And when they do that year after year after year, the gap between the lowest paid city employees and the highest paid city employees. continue to broaden. Morton County gave a flat pay increase to everybody, everyone, and everybody, county employee got the same amount of increase.

00:41:43,970	And I understand the percentage deals with the um cost of inflation, this, that and the other. But, um, what happens is if you’ve got a, a department head that is making 3 and 4 times as much as his lowest paid employee, his pay increases 3 and 4 times as much as the lowest paid employee.

00:42:01,630	So I’ve got a, a bit of compassion for the lowest paid city employees that we have. I had one, city manager say to me, you know, I got people working for me. They make half the amount of money I make. I don’t know how they make a go of it.

00:42:14,530	So, my suggestion is that we do the 3% as a flat 3% dollar amount for every employee and Dmitri’s a bright Guy. He can figure out how to make that work. And then the 2%, leave that as merit so the department heads can figure that out.

00:42:29,530	The end result will be that the people at the lowest end of the ladder, lowest paid employees will get a a better bump than they would have. And the people at the top will get a bit less of a bump than would would have.

00:42:44,270	And it will help reduce this um spread between the highest and lowest paid employees. So my recommendation is a flat 3% and a 2% merit. be a pool a pool that would then be divided by all the employees. That’s correct. An average, yeah. Correct. OK. 3% 3%. Pool. We’ll call it a pool. Well, I mean, to get to your even number.

00:43:09,530	To get to your number, you have to do that. Yeah Comm Clery. Um, I guess I just want to uh, I mean, continue to discuss some my concern with either of those options, I guess, not to say that they wouldn’t both work to solve some of our issues. Uh, is that when we talk salary increases, bonuses, etc.

00:43:37,730	a lot like this has been an ongoing discussion. I think 11 years ago we had a compression study done. We made some adjustments. I don’t, I’m not 100% sure about that because I was not here, but they weren’t necessarily followed for much longevity, uh, I think that Dmeer might be able to speak a little to that, but we also did another compression study two

00:43:57,070	years ago, um, and to Comm Risch’s point there is a huge gap between your highest paid and your lowest paid employee, but the way that we have the most compression issues is kind of that mid-range employee that has been working for the city for, say, 8 years, but because we have had to increase the

00:44:17,800	hiring rate. they are not sitting at media median or much higher than the rate that we bring a new person in at because of having to stay competitive when we’re hiring. And so I think that I don’t know if the flat pool rate. helps with that compression issue that we have.

00:44:38,170	If anything, I feel like it might make it more challenging. I I. I also struggle with like if we do that this year and then we switch back to a percentage rate and we’re alternating that kind of leaves a, a very interesting dynamic as the commission.

00:44:57,900	Obviously we’re not all 5 going to be always sitting at this table year after year. The faces at this table change, so what does that mean versus, I think when we look at what the compression study showed us and why we’re doing it the way that we’re doing it. it’s most effective if we stick to the plan that we created.

00:45:14,630	I think that the reason that we run into the compression issues in the first place is by taking step back from salary increases one year to fix an issue and then we’re not counteracting with the higher one next year.

00:45:34,800	My concern with some of that would also be that I would consider this budget year very high on like the maintenance side of things other than the committed funds like the police and the fire that you talked about, we don’t have a high dollar amount for fleet replacements this year. We don’t have a high dollar amount for like big projects.

00:45:51,470	We have the Hay Creek Llift Station and other like planned projects, but nothing astronomical and there are going to be years in the near future where the fleet replacement plan has a higher dollar amount and on years like that, you’re much more likely to see a pay decrease, and I just, I hate to take a step back on a year where it is

00:46:12,000	manageable if then next year we’re not gonna be able to counteract it at all, it, I just think that this compression plan existed for a reason and to not follow it after we went through the work of doing the study two years ago, I think is where I. struggle.

00:46:29,330	I understand that there is room to make an adjustment so that we could bring in this other position or find a better version of fighting compression, but I just, I worry that like we, we jumped through all the hoops to figure out how to make it work best, and then we’re not gonna listen to that study, uh, is, is a struggle for me, I guess I

00:46:46,730	would say. Comm Mr. Mayor, just to clarify, if we did a flat 3% or a pool 3%. The people at the top would get a little less. The people at the bottom would get substantially more.

00:47:00,730	The people in the middle are going to be about to, what they would have got as a playing 3% pay increase. And we’re not going to bind next year’s city commission or the year after, whatever they decide, they decide. So to, to one of the comments that, you know, I don’t think that whether it’s 4 or 5% with the 2% or 1% being for merit and promotion actually affects compression.

00:47:24,330	It actually gives the dollars available to address the compression, which I am told is about 1000 of what we need to fix whatever compression we have right now, at least that’s what I was told, uh, just this within the last week.

00:47:40,700	So I don’t think I think there’s enough room for that because that’s like $350,000 in the general fund only. um, and I’m just more respectful of the fact that if we put in salary increases, that is an ongoing cost that will be forever perpetual and that will create more stress on our budget next year when we may have more capital needs capital

00:48:03,170	replacement needs. So I, I’m trying to purely purely look at what’s fuuccially responsible and what the market is probably seeing in employee compensation and also knowing what our probably largest employer or one of our largest employers in the metro area is doing. and that’s 3%.

00:48:22,630	So we’d actually be more than that at 4. So that that’s, and then I do think we need to look at what we provide for accommodation, potentially to municipal court, whether it’s a we, we set for there but we still evaluate can we handle it with technology or not, but at least it gives, without having to come back with a

00:48:42,270	budget amendment for another FDE. Comm Zer right. And then, and, uh, Mary, thank you for saying that because that’s true. I mean, we could put it in the budget and then they still got to go through the process, so the budget committee makes sure it’s, uh, valid person or that needs to be filled and you can

00:48:59,270	save it in, and say, hey, and until we get what the true details are of the mandate coming down from the state. Maybe you don’t need it, but you’re right.

00:49:10,470	Next year at this time or April of next year, we don’t have to worry about, uh, hey, all right, we, we do, they come to us and say, hey, we do need this, you know, and then we got to make an amendment or something.

00:49:22,630	I think it’s always easier to plan for the worst, hope for the best type thing, and I, I think putting that, that, um, FTE in the budget is that exact analogy. OK, so. Other, other thoughts, we’re beating this, this is a, this is a big item. I’m like, honestly, this is the biggest piece of our budget is compensation. Oh, absolutely, and I, and I’m with Comm Zenker.

00:49:38,800	I think we should put it in the budget, and I’ve got 11 area where we can save a little bit of money to help fund it. Um, the fire department has a request in to replace their Ford Expedition. I went up and I drove the expedition. It’s got 62,000 miles, it’s 2012, excellent condition.

00:49:55,700	I think we should hang on to that for a little while longer. I personally have a 2012 expedition with 232,000 miles on it that I would drive to the coast so we could save ourselves $600,000 just by pulling this expedition out and using it for a little while longer, that would go a long

00:50:13,430	way in funding this clerk position. May I say, Comm Risch, I don’t mean to contradict you or anything, but this is the the vehicle is a one time costs. I. Uh, OK. This would be an ongoing next year, just next year for the 2026, it would help understood.

00:50:31,970	My apologies, Comm Zenker. That is a proverbial kicking the can down the road, and I’ve fought that ever since I’ve been in this seat. And it’s, and it’s brutal. You know, kick in, uh, we can save it, you know, we don’t need to do that this year.

00:50:42,470	We could do it and then all of a sudden we have big expenses. I can take you to multiple buildings that we own without in the city. where we’ve kicked that pervert little can down the road and it costs us more later. And we finally started to address those issues. Right. In a big way. Exactly. That’s you Where’s our competing mics.

00:51:03,070	Comm Cleary. I, I guess I just would like to speak to that point as well. Um, I’m not gonna like die on the hill of removing this expedition, uh, whether we keep it or not, but I, I guess I would make kind of a similar point to my point

00:51:15,900	about the compensation, um, the fleet plan uh, was a very hard thought through concept that I just, I, I would like to stick to the fleet plan as close as possible just because, uh, you know, though it might be a very functional vehicle, it was put on this year for multiple reasons, whether it be that

00:51:37,630	they’re worried about continued maintenance on a car as it ages and what that maintenance costs versus a newer vehicle.

00:51:52,100	It also might be on this year because we don’t have a heavy lift for big ger machines this year, so it’s easier to fund it this year versus if we don’t do it for 3 years and then on that 1 year and 3 years when we want or need it to be replaced, all of a sudden we have two snowplows that have to be replaced and we’re like, we can’t do the expedition 2, and

00:52:07,170	just the, uh, the plant exists for a reason. It’s already saving us money, so I just, I’m hesitant to make adjustments to to Kurt’s concept, but at the end of the day, it’s not a huge adjustment, so I’m not like overly worried about it either, I guess.

00:52:26,330	So, Dmitri, could you tell us what the full loaded, fully loaded cost is of a clerk position of the clerk position. Yeah Yeah, yeah, OK, so it’s on the record. OK. other thoughts uh, Mayor, just a quick, uh, point of clarification. The state’s increase, I believe, was told, was 3.5% increase for next for 26. Just to clarify.

00:52:57,270	um pretty sure it wasn’t because I know what my wife got. it’s a bird. Yeah, so American Commissioners so, um, I talked to the compensation manager for the state, and they are moved their ranges 3.5%, so the ranges are, so the ranges move 3.5 last year and they’re moving 3.

00:53:19,700	5 and 26 as the budget approval was 3%. The ranges are set. The increases are 0 to 5%, with an average around 3. that’s just what they’ve been doing. And, and then the, it doesn’t matter. That’s what the largest employers are doing and that’s what they’re living by. So I’ve got a question, Mr.

00:53:32,630	Mayor, where did the 3 and 2 come from to begin with? I, I, there was no discussions when I was in my budget meetings. Dmitri, um, are you, uh, excuse me, Mayor Comm, Comm Risch, are you talking about the 3% cost of living plus the 2% merit.

00:53:48,530	Correct. I, I, I don’t know how that was arrived at. Uh, great question. Um, so kind of to Comm Cleary’s point, I think she mentioned it earlier. So we’ve had some studies over the years, so this is before my time in 2015, there was a study on, on the market adjustment.

00:54:03,800	There’s, you know, at the city, and we, they did that adjustment but they didn’t really follow the plan, which is supposed to do a cost of living adjustment every year.

00:54:19,500	In 2021, we did a, uh, the, the City Comm approved an update to that study to sort of get everybody back up because we couldn’t hire people at the lowest rate, which was too low because it wasn’t meeting the market kind of like Comm Zener said, kicking the can down the road. Well, we kind of had to pay for it. So we brought the bottom up but we, but everybody that’s within the ranges never got moved up as much.

00:54:37,170	And so you, we had compre what what’s called known as compression. We have arranged for every grade of employee and within that grade that employee’s supposed to move at a certain rate. And so then we did a compression study based.

00:54:56,330	because a lot of employees were basically saying, look, you, what you call market or when I’m not, I’m too close to the bottom of where the employees are being hired, so somebody who’s been in the job for 5 years, was getting very close to the same pay as somebody who’s walking in the door. And that’s what happened.

00:55:14,530	So we had this sort of a mini compression study where the, the experts told us with Gallagher told us, look, you have to move through the range. You have to give us the cost of living adjustment based on market and known as a market adjustment and then on top of that you if you follow how fast do you want this an employee to

00:55:28,370	get to midpoint. and the and they said on average employee gets to midpoint about 75 to 7 years, which means that’s where they’re an expert in their field or they’re good at their job, about 5 to 7 years. We said we can’t afford that. We can’t pay people to get to midpoint that fast.

00:55:46,530	And so our solution was, hey, we’ll get to midpoint in 10 to 12 years. And so that what’s caused us to say, OK, if we add 2% to the to the market adjustment, we will move people through the range as they should, and then people, new people coming in will start

00:56:04,170	at the bottom or close to the bottom and then those, there’ll be a little bit of a separation between experienced employees and new employees and so on and so forth so that’s how we got to that and so we’ve been following that plan for the last 2 or 3 years and so we’re just continuing that plan, um,

00:56:21,800	just as we were recommended by our experts. Any other comments? OK. I got other comments about the budget overall. Um, what we have to do is keep trying to find efficiencies, and I’m gonna give a couple of examples, um, at the police department, we’ve got this new software program called Axxon.

00:56:44,700	And Axxon will help officers draft reports and save thousands of hours in staff time. So that should be an opportunity for us, if not to reduce staff, but at least keep a lid on additional staff going forward because we have this AI technology that can help us with it And in the police department, I’ve been

00:57:02,600	working with our new chief, who’s a great Guy, doing a great job, and looking at getting a couple of electric vehicles. Each year we spend about $26,000 just on fuel for a patrol car,, $26,000. And we, North Dakota has some of the, the lowest electricity rates in the country.

00:57:23,230	So the anticipation of some of the analysis I’ve saw an electric patrol car can cut our operating costs by almost 50%. So we’re looking at doing that in the police department.

00:57:39,170	It’ll be a, we’re not gonna go all in, but we’re gonna try a couple of police cars, electric vehicles, to try and reduce costs, reduce maintenance, reduce fuel costs, and things of that nature. Plus the officers tend to really like them because they go very fast and they don’t make any noise. So that’s, that’s a positive thing about it. Um, are you advocating for speeding? I, no, well, only when they’re chasing the bad guys. Only when they’re chasing the bad guys.

00:57:56,270	But you could turn the noise on or you could turn it off if you’re sneaking up on a bad Guy. Um, I was at the lab, I, I was, I, I was at the landfill two weeks ago and um I went out there shopping.

00:58:07,730	They’ve got a store out at the landfill. Um, you can bring your paint and stains and uh chemicals and whatnot and leave them at the landfill if you’re a B resident, and then you can take what you need.

00:58:21,370	So I, I, I shop at the landfill on a regular basis, but Toby S Sheldon gave me a tour of the landfill, and it’s a pretty amazing place, and that’s your portfolio, but he was there and he gave me a tour of the landfill and I picked up a bunch of paint and stuff.

00:58:34,170	And, um, he said, now with the new garbage trucks, they’re already have been able to eliminate 4 positions. That’s an increase in efficiencies. That’s, that’s what we want to do. Try and find ways in which we could, uh, increase efficiency so we continue to play our employees decent wages, but find other ways in which to reduce costs.

00:58:49,800	Electric vehicles, uh, garbage trucks that don’t pick up the extras. Different things like this to save money for the city. Um, the last thing I wanted to comment about is when I look through our budget and our funding all the time is all the money we spend on insurance.

00:59:07,230	Crazy amounts of money for building insurance, automobile insurance, things like that. Uh, we had a reed police car and I was in there and I was looking at it and said, oh, we’re waiting for the insurance company to total out this vehicle so we can replace it and whatnot.

00:59:20,530	Our, our, one of our fire stations had a water backup and we’re we’re waiting on the insurance company to, um, um cover this cost if they’ll cover this cost. When in fact there’s bigger operation as we are, we should look at doing some self insurance. Some self insurance. So, we, we kind of are self-funded through the North Dakota Insurance Reserve Fund. OK.

00:59:36,530	We’re, we’re part of a pool. Sure. That’s what really what that is. OK, well, I see Bain Insurance repeatedly through last week. So, there, there are some things we do have to buy commercial insurance for. Just a, just a lot of insurance payments in our last financial statement I signed off on. Yep.

00:59:53,630	And my thoughts are, some of that stuff, instead of paying those insurance premiums, we set up our own separate fund to cover damages when things occur. Maybe it’ll be a patrol car, water backup at the fire station. Things of that nature.

01:00:11,430	Well, we’re attorney Mees has gotten a response she wants she wants a Well, Fane is our agent and is sort of the middle person between us and um the insurance reserve fund we’re required to, to use an agent. OK, we, that we have a middleman. Not, not really, but we don’t have a choice. I think that’s state law. It is. OK. We can’t insure our own vehicles.

01:00:33,700	I mean, I, I, we’d have liability insurance, of course, big liability insurance, but as far as the cost of the physical vehicle, I don’t see why we couldn’t absorb those things. We are under state law, we could be self-insured.

01:00:50,000	There’s some things that we can’t self-insure like, uh, workers’ comp, we have to use WSI, but there are some things that we could, uh, self-insure We could study it. I can tell you it’s going to be a big number upfront to put aside. I’m not sure that our reserves would be very well positioned at this moment, but it certainly would be something we could study.

01:01:09,530	I, I’m not disagreeing with self-insurance. I just, we’re already part of a big self-insurance. We could take some baby steps So Comm Connelly uh, I worked in the insurance business for 11 years, and one thing about self-insured plans, they usually pay a company like Bain or Aetna or, um, Blue Cross Blue Shield to administrate it

01:01:30,900	because they have that intercal knowledge. It’s still the city’s plan, but they administrated it more effectively and more efficiently than a lot of times if we tried to do it in-house. because sometimes it’s a lot to keep up with.

01:01:56,000	food for thought Anything else So I’m, and this is a small item, but you, you all might throw fire at me, but I’m gonna bring it up anyway. Um, again, I’m trying to be responsible and be wise to what I think uh we have with, with the property tax, uh, dollar limitation moving forward and, and, and for sure for this year, but um, in the past the commission’s Commissioner’s

01:02:19,970	salaries have all been um, adjusted based upon whatever we passed. as a budget number for the employees and uh it’s not a big number of our budget at all, but every 1% effectively is $1000 out of our budget.

01:02:40,170	So if we were to cap or freeze for 1 year or 2 years or whatever or or not. I’m just throwing it out there. um, I think it shows us as leaders being responsible, uh, to our citizens of what that means. I say freeze it for the entire time that I’m around. I, I just am throwing it out there as, uh, I, I don’t know.

01:02:58,900	How do we stack up with other city commissions? Are we in the, I, somebody when I was running for office, they said, well, how much are you going to get paid? I said, I didn’t know until I read the Tribune, but, um, it’s not a lot, but, um, do

01:03:10,270	we, are we, I, I don’t know that the other cities. I mean, I don’t know. I, I, I know Jason knows the answer to that, but I don’t really care personally because I didn’t run for the compensation I didn’t either.

01:03:28,270	Mayor and Commissioners, if you’re, if you’re curious to know where you sit, I, I would have the actual, uh, information in the email that I could find it, but I just a broad stroke, uh, Bismarck elected officials are significantly lower than other communities of this size, um, in all posi in all positions. It’s not working The light’s on. Apologies, uh, Mayor and Comm, we had tech troubles over there.

01:03:53,900	Um, I don’t have the actual numbers in front of me. I could pull them up, uh, we did a poll earlier this year with Lakeside Cities, uh, in North Dakota and just based on the the larger cities, Fargo, Grand Forks, Minot, um, Bismarck is the lowest of all of those for both mayor position and the city

01:04:14,730	commissioner’s positions. Fargo is a little unique in that they recognize a deputy mayor and so there’s kind of three tiers of salaries for those positions. um, but where you’re, where the five of you are today, it is kind of at the low end of lake size cities in North Dakota.

01:04:30,230	Good, Comm Risch. How do we pair to the county commission. Uh, Mayor and Commissioners, I don’t have the exact numbers for the county commission, but it’s my understanding that the county commission salaries are higher.

01:04:52,230	They’re equal across all five positions, but I believe the county also provides healthcare benefit, and if you are a county employee, if you’re essentially elected two times, you are then eligible for their county pension plan as well. That’s a whole different level.

01:05:17,270	So again, I only bring these things up with things to consider for what we’re doing and also just as elected officials to be respectful for what the mandate has been on controlling property taxes, and our number is not a big number. It hardly affects the budget, but I don’t, uh, figure my hourly wage for having this position. I’ll tell you that. No, I didn’t run for that purpose.

01:05:39,730	so Commissioners, what are your thoughts with regard to the budget and, and the ordinance so we could ultimately get something over to the county. I think I’ll make a you want us to make motions so we know what the heck we’re doing and we’ve got about 40 things on the table here, Demetri. And they don’t all have to be applied. K, can I add one more, sorry.

01:06:05,370	Can I add one more thing to your email this to you. I just want to give you a copy. Oh, just great. Good The dedicated funds. Yes, sir. are committed, I should say Uh, I’ll just briefly describe what, what you’re looking at.

01:06:34,170	Essentially it’s a list of $20 million worth of reserve of reserves that we will dedicate or with your approval, we should, we, we, we, our, our intent is to dedicate these for these purposes, for the emerald dashboard prevention, police station land purchase C building renovation in in the next few years and next year we, we can start doing those little

01:06:52,370	things and um utilizing our reserves for these kind of projects. We, we, we have a, our, our ERP system is fairly old, uh, and it’s, we’re gonna need to replace it. That’s going to be a very heavy lift, not only with one time, but ongoing things.

01:07:09,530	And obviously the Fire Station 6 fire trucks and station that we’re dedicating our reserves to those purposes and with your approval, of course. Mr. Risch. Well, first of all, I don’t know what an ERP system is and so what is our total reserves now and what, you know,,,, $20 million is a substantial amount of money.

01:07:28,530	Um, so with this budget, we would be spending $20 million out of the reserves and not putting anything into the reserves. Is that correct? Correct. Well, well, this would be actually committing the reserves that we have to future projects.

01:07:47,170	um, and the purpose for that is, is a, if we were going to go back, we have a reserve policy that says we’re supposed to be x persona, I think it’s 40% of our general fund expenditures, and I believe we’re over that at the moment.

01:08:05,370	In fact, I know we are, but this would be allowing us to allocate part of those aside so that when we come to paying for the next fire station and the next fire truck, we have the dollar set aside without impacting the 2026 budget because we would never be able to handle these inside one budget, um, but then beyond that, I don’t know what our reserve balance is off the top of my head. I can’t remember.

01:08:23,000	Um, Mayor Comm, Comm Rich are reserve balance is approximately $63 million. in the general fund and that includes everything from restricted and unrestricted and everything. This is just taking some of the unrestricted money and setting it aside for these projects, so you know, so people are so public and and really just you all understand that this money is set aside.

01:08:42,800	It’s not something that, you know, we’re sort of keeping all this money for no apparent reason. This is, this is intended for these projects because they’re gonna eventually come due and and need to be spent.

01:09:00,800	To answer your question on the ERP system, it’s our, uh, I forget what the Enterpriseoce. I forget what the P stands for. Basically it’s, it’s our accounting system and entity wide. It’s where you punch in, it’s we do payroll through it we process payments everybody uses it for, for, um. for um accounting reasons for budgets for everything, and it’s a citywide, everybody has a log in, everybody uses it.

01:09:24,000	It’s, it’s just kind of old. It’s But to be fair, Mr. Mayor, most of this money will be spent in 2026. The fire station, the fire truck, uh, building renovation, maybe not all of it in 206. The police station land. That’ll be, there’s a fair amount of it that will be.

01:09:40,970	Probably spent between the end of 26 and the first part of 27. Mr. Cleary. Just to, to add a little bit of an explanation for that, um, Comm Risch, some of this stuff, uh, for example, the, uh, emerald ash bore prevention was earmarked in 2025 because we were waiting for that to, to happen, right?

01:10:05,470	So like, we don’t know, you know, with the projection of city building renovation, like will all of it get used, but we are kind of reserving it essentially for that, um, EAB is in North Dakota now, so I’m assuming that some of that will get used next year as we, um, work on saving our urban forest

01:10:25,330	from it, but, um, some of that we, you can’t plan exactly when you’re going to use it, but we can earmark it and they are specific to one time costs. You don’t wanna be spending your reserves on ongoing, um, costs, so that’s uh all everything listed there is going to be like a one-time cost. Rich.

01:10:44,970	But to be fair, we’ve got some other big one-time costs coming up a potential new police station, an expansion of the airport that, um, and, and just to be sure, everybody knows our airport. We don’t actually assess a mill levy. They’re self-funded.

01:11:02,630	Um, the last time I think we spent money on the airport was in 2000 when we tore down the old one and built a new one, but there’s new, uh, proposed expansion has got a big number on it and so there’s some big expenses coming up, uh. the runway with the runway.

01:11:20,230	that was just recently refurbished or rebuilt was we had some sales tax dollars I went to that. OK Anything else? I, I think if I remember the, the easy way is if we have an adjustment to the existing preliminary budget would we’d make motion to either do several at once of those or one at a time. Yeah.

01:11:41,600	All right, with that, Mayor, I’ll make a motion that we for budgetary purposes, add the deputy clerk, um, municipal court. for uh per our, our dog was 88,426. Second, do we have discussion on that Hearing on will again, I’ll just, man, this is really tough tonight. They’re kind of hot.

01:12:07,270	Well, you know, I always get yelled at when we don’t talk loud enough too, um, I’ll, I’ll put that out there that, that it’s just a budget, it’s in there if we don’t use it, fine, if corrections come from municipal court, and they don’t need it, so be it, but I just don’t, I don’t wanna shoehorn us later on and create other, other problems for the future.

01:12:26,970	OK, any further discussion on that? particular amendment And then we’ll call roll Comm Cleary Yes Misser Risch. Yes, Comm Zenker. Yes, Comm Connelly, Mayor Schmitz, yes. Any other items Comm Risch, I’ll move that we remove the expedition from the fire department budget. It’s a, I drove it myself. I looked it over.

01:12:56,900	I’m a car buyer on the side. Excellent vehicle. We can get some more life out of it. And I understand the fleet replacement plan, but you know, it doesn’t have many miles on it.

01:13:20,000	Second, OK, uh first and the second, what discussion do we have? I’m just going to say that I understand your reasoning. Uh, I’m a no vote because I’m, I just truly want to stick to the fleet plan and follow it, uh, cause I’ve seen so much of its value in in bigger chunks, uh, but I, I understand your perspective.

01:13:36,270	I just am trying to to stick to to Kurt’s role, so. Yeah, I’m gonna call role Miss Iris? Yes, Comm anchor. No. Comm Connelly, yes. Comm Cleary, no, Mayor Schmitz, I’m going to say no and I agree because of the fleet plan. Next, any other items.

01:14:07,470	Comm Richor, I might as well make a motion that we do the pool on the 3% rather than a flat 3% pay increase and will allow the 2% merit to stay as it is. I’m in a second for discussion.

01:14:32,430	Um, and I promised Dimitri I wouldn’t put him on the spot and make him talk about his own salary, um, but, um, I guess I I understand what Comm Risch is presenting to us, but I’m just curious from a financial perspective, if we do this and we do it for one year with the intention of like obviously discussing a percentage.

01:14:53,730	uh going back to a percentage next year or letting obviously every commission year by year decide that how would that affect the compression that we’ve been trying to fight, uh, would there be a better balance in going with a 4.5 rays to make room for that position we added as and leaving a couple extra dollars to just manually adjust compression.

01:15:16,730	um, I guess I’m just wondering if you have a perspective on that. I think Comm Clery. I will say so. I’m just doing some quick math. So anybody who’s about 70 some 70 or you know, a low 70s, thousands per like if somebody gets paid, let’s say $72,000 they’ll get 3%. with that with that uh method with a flat 3%.

01:15:43,970	So anybody above that will get a lower and lower, lower, lower, lower and then below that will get will get higher so it’ll sort of why create a gap and so it’ll catch everybody from the bottom up, but everybody at 73 year old basically get compressed.

01:16:04,000	so everybody below 73 will will bump up against that 73, and that’s, that’s the fear that we have is that it’s just going to create more inequities in the pay plan that we currently have. If I may make a just my personal recommendation to the, to the Commission.

01:16:20,000	Obviously, you are all decision makers is that if we were to do something new, let’s do it next year. Let’s not try something completely out of, out of this world this year. Um, but that’s obviously I’m just just a lowly finance director. I don’t know. OK, we have a 1st and 2nd. Any other discussion? I’d just say what we have with the straight percentage is a widening.

01:16:40,600	That’s what widens it now, because the highest people get the most and people at the bottom get Swollen up. That’s what widens the different, um, differences between in the between our employees a straight percentage.

01:17:01,530	I’m not sure what the median pay is, Comm Risch, that’s, that’s kind of my concern is I, I’m thinking it’s somewhere around there, um, and what that’s gonna do to the to the to the pay ranges. I’m just not sure. I’m not really, you know, for or against the idea. I just think it’s. I’m not sure what it’s gonna do. It’s gonna give some guys at the bottom a pay increase. Well, sure, yeah.

01:17:22,230	Can I ask you a question? Um, so with that 3%, what’s the impact to the ranges? The ranges will not be moved it can’t move it because you’re not, you’re not adjusting the cost of living effectively. You’re just doing a flat dollar amount per employee raise.

01:17:41,970	So we will not move our ranges and so the state and other employers will move their ranges, so we will be 3.5% behind. I, I just want to clarify in my own mind. Thank you. Well, it sounds like the people at $70,000 around there and below will. Oh. Do fine. Is that, did I understand you right, Dmitri? That’s correct. I’m.

01:18:02,900	I’m just not sure what the median is though. That’s, that’s the bulk of our workforce. Any other discussion? We’ll call role Comm Zenker. No, Comm Connelly, yes. Comm Cleary, no. Comm Risch, yes, Mary Schmitz.

01:18:30,700	I’m ano, and it’s because I’m more concerned about the compression because that’s really where we’re going to be at is the the employees who have been here with us for 7 or 8 years are going to be compressed. and we’re gonna lose them, which is really my is a serious issue. any. that fails uh any any other go ahead, Comm Connelly I make a motion to freeze, um, the pay for all commissioners and the mayor spot. For this budget. Yeah.

01:19:07,900	Second. is there any discussion Well I didn’t run for, for the pay, but our pay is meager compared to the rest, and I’m not afraid. I, I spend sometimes 20 hours a week, um I’m gonna vote no just because out of principle, I, we’re not doing much for the budget and 3% on a very little amount is

01:19:28,270	uh not gonna be much so. From a political standpoint, oh rah rah, he, you know, I’m freezing my own salary, but from a practical standpoint, when the county commissioners are essentially paid at least twice what we’re paid and we’re so much more productive. Um, I’m, I’m going to vote no.

01:19:48,530	And, and I only one we’ve and I only one we’ve ever had. And, and I only pointed it out again, I don’t think it’s a major budget. I second that notion? I don’t think it’s a major budget item.

01:20:00,270	I want to point it out is like I want to make sure we’re respon being respectful, um, we can donate our salaries entirely. We, we can. So I just wanted to point out there like I, I also accept the fact that I do not run for this position. uh, for the compensation. Iran to do good for the city.

01:20:14,630	Uh, yeah, I think I would agree. I mean, obviously, I think if any of us were here for the compensation, there’s probably other things we could be doing with our time.

01:20:32,270	Um I just my one concern was that we’re freezing it just for 2026 because I just don’t want to put any situation where the next, you know, 2027’s budget committee and Commission is held to what we vote tonight. So, uh, I guess I’m. I’m fine freezing it for a year. Uh, I’m fine not. I just didn’t want to do it for continued. years.

01:20:52,500	I’ll, I’ll make one further comment and maybe this might be even what I would think is most appropriate, um, and then we can decide how we vote after that, but I would be more inclined to say we’ve capped the commissioned salaries that cost of living, whatever we determine the cost of living is, so that might, that’d be a lesser amount than maybe what is ever approved for the rest of the employees, but.

01:21:08,530	no, that’s my last comment on that. Uh, any other comments So we have a motion in a second. We’ll call the roll. Comm Connelly? Yes, Comm Cleary, yes, Mister Narich, no. Misser Zener Yes, Mayor Schmitz Yes. That was just for this year All right.

01:21:43,230	Anything else If there are, if there are no other. So, we just got to figure out how we’re going to cover that 880. Well, I had a, I had a solution Well, you got that. For one year.

01:22:08,270	anything Pardon me I mean, I, I put it out there as I think that you know, I, I really think 4% is an adequate raise for 2020. going into 2026, um with 3% of it being cost Doctors and, and, uh, city administration, but I’m one person and that would that certainly would provide us some funding for that. I’ll also say $88,000 is not going to affect the bottom line of this budget significantly.

01:22:48,900	We’re going to be using some reserves regardless. So I don’t see that as a, I don’t think we need to fund that particularly or find a way to fund it. Maybe that’s the best way to say it.

01:23:07,870	Oh, you want to do Um, American Commissionerer um, I would say, you know, I think, I don’t think it’ll, it’s just that significant of a cost at this point, but it’s just because we saved a lot of money on that fleet plan. I mean, can I just be honest.

01:23:21,600	I’ll take you back on with Comm, Comm Cleary said, you know, that fleet plan saved us a lot of money this year and I can’t, I can’t promise that it’ll be the same next year. Um, I mean, this is an ongoing cost, so um but the way that the way that is put into the current budget if 6 months into 2026, it’s been determined through whatever other savings there are in technology, that

01:23:46,100	position’s not needed. It doesn’t then necessarily become a continuing position. If that’s a stipulation of in the wishes of the Commission and that’s how it was passed, so this position is to clarify, if you can clarify this from Mayor Commissioners that this position will only be funded if

01:24:05,370	it is proven that it’s needed or by the budget committee or who’s the by the budget committee, whatever our process is to fill vacant spots, right? Budget and employment. They still have to follow the same scenario as as whether public works or you can only have a position that Les.

01:24:26,100	We go through that same process should we fill it or not, especially certain positions anyway understood, Mayor, yes. I mean, I guess just Demetri an example was when we approved last year, we approved firefighters, but they were on hold.

01:24:45,970	as we were waiting for the station, so I think it’s OK for us to approve a position and then we still have to, it still has to get approved to start the hiring process at a certain point because I think we’re going to still be con continuing conversations with courts as far as how IT is helping, how legal and police are all streamlining stuff, so I think.

01:25:01,970	like she’s still gonna need approval to hire, and that doesn’t have to happen tod today, so uh, it can’t happen today. So, um, I think that that’s fine. Um, I personally, again, just gonna reiterate what I already said, would prefer to leave the um compensation, uh, the increase at the 3 and 2, just because of the compression study and the

01:25:24,500	planning we’ve done and we’ve put into it, I think adding this position in, uh, Dmitri and staff and budget committee will figure out how we are going to absorb that.

01:25:49,900	I, I hate again like to lower the compensation increase or budget or um salary increases on a year where we are doing a lot of routine maintenance and lifts that we were expecting to make, uh, I think with 1176 in place, there are going to come years where because of big equipment expenses or big projects that come across the board faster or, uh, you know, as more of a surprise than this year that we are gonna have to

01:26:11,270	make adjustments to salaries because of the 3% cap, this year, fortunately is not one of those years, and so I just, I don’t want to do a decrease for the sake of doing a decrease on a year where we’re not being held to it by the 3% where it’s

01:26:30,500	like our only option, um, because I think that there is potential that that will come up on years where we have, um, a higher fleet purchase or, um, bigger projects, and I just would rather make sure we stay the course with our comp uh compression study, um, and continue forward with it.

01:26:50,730	And I think that from what Dmitri says, we can, we can figure out how we add that position into the budget without adjusting the salary increases overall. So, I’m not going to beat it in, uh, the, the conversation any further, but actually the larger percentage of increase for compensation is today is going to make our potential

01:27:10,530	issue with capital needs and equipment replacements more difficult conversations because we’ll have a locked in higher compensation budget forever, Saul, that, that’s part of my concern.

01:27:36,000	That’s part of my reason for let’s be respectful and still make sure we’re given adequate raises, but let’s not lock ourselves in forever, that extra 1%, which is effectively $340,000 a year on the general fund budget, just the general fund budget. I’m still not clear where the 3 and 2 came from. Was that? It was cost of living of 2 of 3%, I understand that. I understand that, that’s approximately what the cost of living is.

01:27:51,170	But, who made the decision on the three and two for the budget. The budget committee, OK. That was her initial recommendation So, but I’m, I’m done talking about that. So if there’s nothing else that I would entertain emotion to adopt the amended budget, including the utilization of the dedicated reserves to fund the um shortfall which is for, I remember the pieces of

01:28:16,730	equipment other than the fire fire engine off top of my head, but there was some, some other pieces of equipment as well. I would move to approve the 2026 budget ordinance, 6638, including the 2026 fees and charges in the general fund committed balance amounts as presented, um, and attached to

01:28:37,070	the agenda item, including um the previous motion, uh, to add in the Clerk of Court’s position as an additional FDE. Do we not need to also say we’re going to use some of the general fund reserves to fund the deficit.

01:28:56,230	I believe I is that included when I state that I’m that it includes the general fund committed balance amounts. Is that, that’s what I’m speaking to, right? No, that’s a different number, because we’re about $1.5 million or $1.4 million. 1.7 billion.

01:29:17,100	um American Commissioners, um, Comm Cleary, the, the $20 million is the reserve this committed reserve, and then what Mayor’s referring to is the fact that we’re using our existing reserves for the for the fire truck we actually appropriating the expenditure for the fire truck.

01:29:34,100	I, I put that, I think that’s an emotion that I provided to Comm Cleary as kind of as presented as as we have it on the website just to make sure I wanna make sure we cover it because we can’t have a deficit budget. Yes, if you want to state that I’m perfectly fine with that Um, I can give you the exact number if you prefer. Sure It’s 11, 17, 1,747,000. So to include that from reserves, correct? Am I understanding that correctly? To cover a one-time balance. Correct.

01:30:01,800	Second, any further discussion Hearing number or call roll Comm Cleary Yes, Comm Risch, yes. Comm Zenker. Yes, Comm Connelly, no. Mayor Schmittz Yes motion carries Thank you for the lively discussion, and I think we had, I mean we it it’s important for us to have these conversations, I believe. All right, moving to item D.

01:30:34,070	Consider request for resolution receiving bids, ordering preparation of the engineer’s statement. for street Improvement District. 589 Go ahead, Gabe. If I could get the screen up for a second Maybe. There we go, perfect. Um. Mayor and Comm, a street Improvement District 589 is new construction for improvements of roadways within West Region Medical 2nd edition. We opened Bbiz up yesterday.

01:31:31,530	Uh, we had 3 bidders on the project, uh, with the low bid being Knife River Corporation with a bid of $681,793.41. Um, our recommendation is to approve, but I do want to note that, uh, this is some of the property within here is in a commercial district and our development policies require developers to

01:31:51,730	prepay 40% of the pavement costs, and one of the two developers has paid that, but the second of those two developers has not paid that uh prepayment amount yet.

01:32:06,800	Uh, we’ve, we’ve contacted them a couple of times and so our recommendation would be to award to Knife River of this project, but to hold site plan approval for that particular project until such time or for that parcel, uh, that has not paid its prepayment until such time that that prepayment is received. um Comm Risch, I just, um, gave Mr.

01:32:24,430	Mayor Gabe, um, the low bid is considerably above the engineer’s estimated it’s because these people are really busy and they’ve got a lot of work and they’re, um, or, or what, what’s your guess on that? Mayor Comm, Comm Risch, this one in particular, this project had a component of it wanting this this builder who wanted to get into their site, uh, required a portion of the

01:32:41,500	project to be completed yet this year to have actually pavement in the ground yet this year, with the remainder being done next year. So it’s probably not the most efficient way to build that, and I think in our engineer’s estimate we didn’t, uh, appropriately allocate the, the remobilizations that the contracting industry will, will

01:32:57,530	have to um use to construct this particular facility. Move to approve is presented. Second, further discussion Here none will call roll Comm Risch? Yes. Comm Zenker. Yes, Comm Connelly, Comm Cleary, yes, Mayor Schmitz, yes.

01:33:23,730	All right, we’re moving to other business, and I know all that I’ve got 3 items for other business that we’ll have to attend to, um, but does anybody else have anything Comm Risch, I just, and this is Comm Cleary’s portfolio, but I want to remind our good citizens that next week is free landfill week, but don’t bring any tires out.

01:33:42,370	And when you’re out there, um, stop by the city store and pick up some paint or, uh, chemicals are different things cause it’s free for city residents. And Alicia runs the store. She does a great job. Thanks, Comm Risch OK.

01:34:07,100	Anybody else All right, I’m going to call in Jason Meaning mayor and Comm, um, I’m in front of you tonight with something that we didn’t put on the agenda, but it is something that we do need to address. Um, many of you know Community Development Director Ben Ereth has submitted his resignation, his last day in this organization will be Friday. Um, that causes some dominoes that need to stand up and be tipped over again.

01:34:22,630	And one of the things that we need to do is we need to recognize an acting director for that department. Um, I would like to call out uh that um we have gone through the steps. We’ll go through the steps with HR to recognize Daniel Nairnn as the acting director for community development, uh for the interim.

01:34:40,530	Uh, Daniel is currently the planning manager and has been working with Ben over the last couple of weeks to pick up on some of the skills and the tasks that Ben is managing um during his final days here, uh, but I also would like to share with you as the administrator, we are using this opportunity

01:34:56,630	to just take a pause and evaluate the best use of that department, its resources, the staff that we have in place. I’m not here to tell you that we’re opening up the Community Development Director position immediately, but I’m also not here to tell you we’re eliminating it altogether.

01:35:12,630	So we’re, we’re just using this time to take a deep breath and uh assess the situation. uh, the staff that Ben leaves behind is very well trained, very competent and professional in their tasks. Certainly he has led them well over his time here.

01:35:31,870	Uh, Bismarck is a better place because of Ben’s input, um, in his professionalism and his leadership. And so I thank him for that, but I would like you to know that in the not too distant future, I hope to stand in front of you with a, uh, either a plan to move forward to fill a position, or perhaps

01:35:44,800	a plan that might look a little different than what we are used to seeing today, but I would like to use this time to reflect internally, talk with some other stakeholders in the organization and and some of you that hold the portfolio here as well.

01:36:01,700	So, um, no promises on the date, but I’m certainly not looking to slow play this into 2027 or anything like that. We recognize the need for leadership in that department. and um we’ll be um coming forward with a plan in the not too distant future on how best to move forward with that.

01:36:23,630	Any questions for Jason OK, thank you Um, next item is calendar reminder and update so I know it’s not for a couple of months yet, but November we have our first commission meeting on the 13th, which, which is a Thursday and not a Tuesday because Tuesday is Veterans Day. and so just make sure we’re all aware of that. Oh, that’s good. I’m a pretty repetitive.

01:36:47,900	Uh, uh, well, that’s why, that’s why I’m trying to get out in front of this. Some of that sent me a meeting in Yeah. No. So that night when you, that’ll be your reminder. OK. So the other, the other item is um in December this year we have 2 meetings.

01:37:16,600	One of them is scheduled for December 23rd, which is going to be a travel day. I might, uh, I already know I’m traveling that day and I know I’m probably going to be in an airplane during one commission meeting would be. So I would like to see us consider cha reducing December meetings down to just one.

01:37:34,630	The, which would be on the 17th, the 3rd Tuesday for the entire month of December and even consider suggesting that on the calendar, moving forward, because December’s a very busy month as it is with a bunch of holidays in there, um, I think it would just, it would be more accommodating to all staff included.

01:37:55,470	So if that’s OK, then I would ask that the administration repulsed that, uh, and make that adjustment if we go ahead, Comm. Do we need a, a motion on that because we probably do because we have to adjust the make a motion to excuse me, Mayor, just a correction. December 16th is a Tuesday. I wrote 17th. I’m sorry 16th. OK. We do need a motion though to do that.

01:38:10,530	You’re right. So I’ll make a motion to have 1 December meeting on the correct date of the 16th. Um in, in lieu of two. Second. Is there any discussion We’ll call roll Comm Cleary, yes, Comm Risch. Yes, Comm Z anchor. Yes. Comm Connelly.

01:38:36,700	Yes, Mayor Schmitz, yes, and then before I forget to get to item number 3, remember next week, Wednesday. 17th, I think is the right day. We have our joint, we, we agreed, I think we all got polled on this, but that’s why I’m mentioning it now is uh the 17th, next Wednesday in this room at 5 o’clock will be the combined meeting of both the Burleigh County Commission

01:39:02,330	and the Bismarck City Commission on the topic of ETA. Whitney, you just do a calendar invite for that one too. 5:15? 5:00. 5 o’clock. OK. And then the last item is I’m gonna call in Greg Ha because there’s a situation that arros today for some grant funding at the airport. Yeah.

01:39:30,070	Good evening, Mayor, Comm, um, yeah, I apologize for, I mean, you know, I apologize, but then I guess we thank the FAA for, for their offer. Um this afternoon at about, I don’t know, 4 o’clock, we got a grant offer for, uh, 8.

01:39:58,170	6 and some change, uh, for our runway, uh, 321 and tax away Drehabilitation project, um and, you know, like I said, we just received it, uh, late this afternoon, but, uh, the FAA needs a response from us by Friday. This is one of those typical things where the end of the fiscal year, they have some extra discretionary funding.

01:40:16,900	Uh, we have projects that we have put together and are waiting and ready on the shelf, and they have the opportunity to, uh, provide some additional funding to us. Um, so, you know, we’ve been successful with this in the past.

01:40:38,270	uh, on a number of different projects and uh this is just like another example of that, uh, but in the interest of your time, um, tonight we really just need, uh, your approval to accept the grant offer and then authorize the mayor to sign the grant offer electronically and then we will come back at another meeting.

01:41:04,630	uh, um, more formally and, and, uh, uh, ask for acceptance of the uh the bids that we’ve got from the contractors and the project budget and all that kind of stuff, we’ll come back and take care of all that, uh, at a, at a later meeting, but, uh yeah, there’s this is It’s the east half of the uh, Crosswind runway and the parallel taxiway. um Yeah Yeah, so this project, uh, does the east half.

01:41:37,500	We had to break this project up into, uh, two pieces. um and uh it’s it’s not reconstructing, it’s rehabilitating the pavement. Uh, it’s also, uh, laying out the, the new cans and conduit for uh changing out the lighting. The lighting has reached its, the end of its useful life.

01:42:03,800	We’re also, uh, fixing the blast pads on both ends of the runway, uh, cause it was noted by our certification inspector a number of years in the last several years that it’s a little bit wavy out on the ends. Um uh, the, the, the ground needs to be nice and level and graded and all that kind of stuff.

01:42:20,700	So, um, so there’s a few extra, uh, uh, additional things that we have to do to continue to meet, uh, our certification with the FAA. On the second half, when we come back later, you know, hopefully we’ll get another, uh, grant to uh be able to fund the other half, uh, you know, hopefully next year, um, and, uh, it’ll

01:42:43,100	be the same thing on the West side, but then there’s some additional drainage work that’s going to be done, uh, in between the tag the main runway and the taxiway and then another uh grading of a, a, a little grading of an area, um that was noted by a certification inspector, uh,

01:43:04,730	just in the last couple years, um, and then they’ll put in all of the new LED, uh, runway and taxiway lighting, you know, at that time. So we’ll, they’ll, they’ll install the cans and we’ll just continue to run with our incandescent bulbs that are on there now because you can’t have half and half.

01:43:26,000	So, uh, if we can get, uh, approval to accept this grant, then we’ll come back with the bids and the project budget and all that. So Comm, Mayor, yes. Oh, Greg. Will this, uh, you know, we’re trying to gather up as much funding as we can for the airport expansion. Yeah.

01:43:40,900	Would this allow us to use some other money that we might have had to spend on this or the airport expansion. Is it going to take away from our funding for the terminal project? Is that kind of your question? No, no, my question is, maybe this will free up some other money that we could use towards the

01:43:59,170	terminal project. No, so yeah, we reserves, you know, we budget this stuff and, and we do these projects, it’s, uh, you know, on a on-demand basis and when the grant funding is available, FAA told us that we have to do this runway recons well, uh, rehabilitation before we get to the terminal project.

01:44:20,270	This is one of those things where if you look at our, uh, pavement condition index study, um, our numbers are going down, you know.

01:44:36,900	Each and every year on this runway, and we wanted to do this runway and taxiway before we did the main runway, and they told us no, you need to do the main one right first and then come back and do this other one. And now we’re just finally getting to it. Comm Zenker, you’re nodding because you remember, you know, as airport Comm back then that.

01:44:51,270	But, but, but did you have money budgeted for this out of our, OK, so that money will, some of that money we won’t have to spend because we’re getting this additional funding. Or might have to do some, the rest of it, I suppose. I don’t know. Yeah, our, our share, this is a 95% grant.

01:45:09,600	um, and, and there was a little extra money, I should say too that came our way, that’s paying for the design costs for the West half. So that’s also included in this 8.673,500, um, so we got a little, little bonus, uh, funding to get a head start on the design, and which we have right now, um, at the Independent fee estimators right now, the, the design is,

01:45:36,170	is complete and we’re getting the fees estimated so that we can negotiate the final cost on that. So. just one more thing One more. Yep, we need a motion. OK, I’ll make a motion that we, uh, allow Greg to accept this and allow the mayor to sign electronically to. Yeah.

01:45:54,900	Agree to it. Second, OK. Any discussion Mary none will call roll Comm Richsch? Yes. Comm Zennored? Yes. Comm Connelly. Yes, Comm Cleary? Yes. Mayor Schmitz, yes, thank you. One last call. Anybody else have any other business? If hearing none, we stand Adjourned. Thank