The Sherburne County Board met Tuesday for the final time in 2020 and put the finishing touches on a few items before turning their attention to top priorities for 2021. Some of those priorities will be helping local businesses impacted by COVID, as well as ramping up efforts for distribution of the COVID vaccines.
The meeting started with County Administrator Bruce Messelt detailing honors for two individuals, County Attorney Kathleen Heaney and Board Chair Felix Schmiesing, who were both elected to their respective offices 16 years ago.
Heaney was recognized for receiving the MN County Attorney Association’s highest honor, the Distinguished Service Award. Messelt opined about her value as a leader in the county and also as a resource and friend for many other county attorneys across Minnesota who regularly seek her counsel.
Schmiesing was given an award recognizing his service this past year as board chair, where he was counted on to provide stability and leadership, both in the county and through his work with the AMC. Messelt commented that Schmiesing was an influential voice in helping counties across the state navigate the many unknowns of the COVID pandemic.
“I appreciate the award, but I just took my turn,” said Schmiesing, referencing Sherburne’s tradition of rotating the chairperson’s duties.
“I couldn’t be more proud of how we put aside the politics of the day and did what was best for our citizens.”
Rail Authority
During the regular meeting, the commissioners took a temporary recess to hold the regional rail authority meeting where they received an update from Met Council staff regarding Northstar commuter rail.
Tony Hebert, Director of Commuter Rail and Ed Petrie, Director of Finance, joined the commissioners via Webex to provide an update on operations, as well as the 2021 proposed budget.
Because of COVID-19, the men reported significant changes to the levels of service provided for commuter rail. Total trains trips decreased from a usual level of 72 per day to just 20, which also decreased staffing in several areas. For example, Metro Transit staff dedicated to Northstar were reassigned to help in other areas such as the Southwest Line, and the BNSF railroad crews were reduced from six to three.
While 2020 started with two months of the organization meeting its budget, ridership has plummeted nearly 95% as a whole since the start of the pandemic and there are projections for the slowdown to continue into next year. The budget proposed for 2021 also reflects this change, going from a current amount of $22 million down to around $11 million. This reduction will cut Sherburne’s contribution for the operation of Northstar from nearly $1.5 million in 2020 to less than half of that, or approximately $690,000 in 2021. The county also will contribute roughly $40,000 to the bus link service as it has in the past.
Schmiesing did ask one clarifying questions it relates to Transit Police and he sought reassurance that as ridership increases once again, the police staffing levels will be maintained for reasons of safety and security. Met Council staff assured him that it will be the case and police staffing levels will return to where they were pre-COVID.
Next, Public Works Director Andrew Witter presented figures as part of the Northstar master funding agreement, which the commissioners approved unanimously.
In a seemingly ironic move, they also voted to set the rail levy at $0 for the upcoming year. However, this is possible because the county does not use property tax dollars to pay for transit related expenses.
Instead, the county uses its Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) of one-half cent to fund many of its transportation projects, including transit. According to Messelt, the vast majority of the LOST revenue goes towards local road and bridge maintenance, repair and replacement projects.
Comissioner Pay
Next on the agenda was a resolution setting the commissioner’s pay for 2021. Several years ago, the county adopted a policy to set commissioner pay based on the median full time worker salary in Sherburne County as reported each year by the census bureau and the American Community Survey data. However, as the commissioners learned a year ago, sometimes that data is not available in December when the salaries are statutorily required to be set.
Because of the unavailability of the data in 2019, the commissioners took a pay freeze for 2020 and kept their salary at $51,978 per year. As was adopted in the restructuring in 2017, this amount represents their total pay as per diems are no longer collected.
This year, they were presented with several options since the data is available and reports the county median income as $53,720. After discussion, the commissioners unanimously approved this to be the new salary for 2021. In addition, they adopted a clause moving forward to utilize data from the previous year so they don’t run into the same situation by not having the needed information if the survey results are not yet published by their December meeting. In doing this, their salary recommendations will reflect the median county data from two years prior instead of a current average.
Budget
Assistant Administrator Dan Weber presented the 2021 proposed budget for adoption. It reflects approximately $103 million in expenditures and roughly $52 million for the county levy, a 3.41% increase over a year ago.
This figure represented a cut of about $272,000 from the preliminary adoption in September as staff had done some additional trimming to decrease the levy by nearly one-half percent.
The budget passed unanimously.
Covid Update
HHS Director Amanda Larson shared a pandemic update with the board, including a summary of Sherburne’s most up to date data. It included 7,111 confirmed cases as of Tuesday, with 266 requiring hospitalization and 51 deaths. She also noted that the county’s cumulative case rate of 730 per 10,000 residents means that Sherburne has had a higher than the state average rate of infliction with COVID.
Cases have recently been trending downward, but the current 14 day school formula is at 134, still much higher than the rate of 50 which is one piece of data that officials use to recommend distance learning.
Sherburne’s current positivity rate is 8.9%, a full percentage higher than the state’s overall average.
In some positive news, Larson discussed the status of the vaccine and said she expects the county to start being involved after health care workers and long-term care residents have been vaccinated, as those groups are at the top of the list and being vaccinated by the state.
She next sought and received the board’s permission to be ready with a staffing plan to turn the county’s ten current part-time public health nurses into temporary full time workers as needed to meet the vaccination demands.
Larson used an analogy that the vaccine supply is going to start like a slow trickle out of a hose but quickly become a gushing fire hose as more and more becomes available. She vowed that her staff will be ready to execute their vaccination plans which is expected to start right at the beginning of the new year. She also noted that Sherburne County’s supply is expected to be the Moderna vaccine if it gains approval, as the current Pfizer vaccine has different storage needs and is being used by larger systems such as the VA.
Business Relief
Weber ended the meeting by discussing the current status of the funds that had been approved by the legislature just the day before. He expects the county to receive approximately $1.85 million in this round of funding and wanted to know some parameters from the commissioners for how it should be distributed to businesses.
There was a general consensus that the money should be distributed as quickly as possible and should be targeted towards the businesses that were forced to shut down with last month’s executive order, including restaurants, and gyms.
The group also discussed some unknowns such as how the state was going to distribute funds directly to those same businesses.
Weber took the direction and stated that he will have the application process and some planning ready for review at the January 5 meeting.
