- Started promptly at 8:30, all commissioners present
- 1st Order of Business: Drainage authority
- County drainage ditch manager seeking approval for 23 contracts and presented about the situation. 23/25 of county drainage ditches need their benefits to be redetermined. This means that the acreage that each ditch drains needs to be reassessed, some of them haven’t seen a reassessment like this in 100+ years. These 23 ditches cover around ⅓ of the acreage in rice county.
- These reassessments will take into account land use changes, there has been substantial urbanization in the last 100 years that needs to be accounted for
- How would it work:
- Four groups of ditches would be assessed based on region
- Land owners in the region would likely need to be present for at least 1 meeting during or after the reassessment process
- This project would start in 2026 and end in 2028
- Cost: roughly $3.97 per acre for the contracts, there around around 90,000 acres that will be a part of this process
- Cost shared by all land owners within the region
- Why we should do this: To capture everything that’s changed since the ditches were first made. If there is a 50,000 repair needed on a ditch, they will repair based off of the original establishment of the ditch, which doesn’t cover the effects of the current watershed, leading to more necessary repairs and maintenance
- 2nd Order of Business: Reintroducing/introducing the counties role in the Mill Towns State Trail Joint Powers Board
- This group had speakers from Faribault, Northfield, and the DNR
- Their goal is to provide trail continuity throughout the entire county
- One speaker: Chair of the Friends of the Mill Towns Trail
- The Friends of the Mill Towns State Trail Joint Powers Board (elected officials to manage trail planning) started in the 90s, advocated for trail that connected Red Wing all the way to Mankato for a State Trail through this county, 85-90 miles, this is the overarching goal
- State trails have more resources for building and maintenance
- First portion was a 2-3 Mile stretch between Northfield and Dundas
- Many state trails are just paved over abandoned train tracks. They couldn’t do that for this section of trail, so this trail has to be done in bits and pieces
- This group has raised money for things like benches and Kiosks that are not the government’s responsibility, and lobbied for their goals
- Man named Scott from the DNR came to speak – good representation of relationship between state and local government
- The Mill towns trail was brought to the MN legislature in 2000
- State trail system has 2920 miles authorized by the legislature, 620 of which are paved, 1490 open and managed by the DNR
- Southeast MN has the most State Trails
- They presented some areas for future development, like a disconnect in the trail system in Dakota county, and an area to be built through Northfield this year which will complete the Northfield trail segment
- Presented some completed efficient projects like underpasses in Northfield, and map Kiosks to make the trails more interactive
- 6.2 miles of trails they hope to be completed by the end of 2026
- They talked about the Waterford Bridge Project, a 100+ year old bridge in Southern Dakota county which is being restored to be a connection across the Cannon River. It is now on the national register of historic places, reconstruction with likely begin in June 2026 and will last at least 40-50 years
- Funding all coming from State dollars
- They just completed a mile of trail in Dundas at Rice County 8, built on State property + a little bit of city property
- What’s Next – Coordination and support for completion of Rice County segments
- This is why this group wanted to communicate and let the Board know what they are up to
- Another man came up to discuss a bit more about local trails.
- One example benefit of the trails: Just a few weeks after one opened, a newspaper article talked about mobility challenged folks who were able to use one to get to a nearby Burger King and order an ice cream cone
- Trails are the key piece of the puzzle to allow less mobile people to be able to get outside, as well as people who are very fit. Especially with new things like e-bikes available
- Economically, trails are beneficial as well. Lainsborough, a dying community revived itself by putting in bike trails
- Bike trails are a 1 billion dollar industry in MN
- Some community comments:
- People bike from Northfield to Faribault and back all the time, but she says it would be very helpful to have a trail between the two because there are some areas that don’t and barely have a shoulder of the road
- 3rd Order of Business: Community Corrections
- Next week she will be coming before the board to ask them to dismiss some debt from 2025
- Wants to give some context around these fees before next week and answer any questions before making that request:
- Types of corrections facilities fees assessed: supervision fees, drug confirmation testing fees, EHM/EAM related fees, psychosexual evaluation fees
- These services are not mandated to be funded, but some are mandated by statute
- Providing these services is advantageous down the road, it helps get people out of jail (ex: for something like electronic alcohol monitoring, which is much more cost effective than holding someone in jail)
- In the last 2-3 years, the department has used grant funding to significantly reduce the cost of fees
- For Example: Electronic alcohol monitoring feeds funded through the REAM grant, Second change grant, and treatment court enhancement grant
- Fee collections are prioritized in this order (types of fees) from people in corrections facilities
- Restitution due to victims
- Court fines
- Supervision related fees
- Impact on community corrections operating budget
- Budgeted amount $75,000-$90,000 annually
- Fees imposed vary by year based upon cases assigned and type case
- Collection rates vary
- Fee Collection Process
- One Year Due Date
- Collection through Revenue Recapture
- Last audit review in 2023
- Statute of Limitations uncollectable debt
- Collection rate for this year is over 60,000 and we’re only ¼ through the year, which is a good sign
- 2023 Legislative changes affecting fee revenue
- Requires waiver of fees for indigent individuals
- Demonstration of indigency
- 125% of the federal poverty rate
- Receiving/qualified for public assistance other than medical assistance
- If they are receiving SSI/SSDI
- Other extenuating circumstances
- There is sometimes an option for transferring the fees into community service hours
- Additional fees may not be added
- Current fees may not be increased
- Supervision/correctional fees due to sunset completely on August 1, 2029
- Reviewed at Due Date (1 year from assessment)
- If qualified, consider CSW (community service work) if able
- 2025 had a higher fee waiver rate than 2024, 2026 is on track to be the same level as 2025
- Statute of limitations – expirations in 2025
- Fees assessed in 2019
- Collections impacted by COVID pandemic
- Fee collections on hold during pandemic shutdown period
- Impacted by revenue recapture audit removals and reentries
- Higher Collection rates result in reduced SOL (statute of limitations) dismissals
- 2025 SOL dismissals total $109,000
- This is money they have spent over the last 6 years
- Future considerations:
- What will be the impact of grant expirations?
- Community supervision remains underfunded by the state in the formula established in the 2023 legislation
- Underfunded by approximately 10-12 mil dollars statewide
- Workload study currently underway to evaluate the formula
- Many counties utilize fees to offset local costs of supervision
- Fourth Order of Business: Child and Family Service Team
- There is a large Child welfare policy change that’s coming from legislation, they want to inform the Rice County Commissioners on this – The Minnesota African American Family Preservation and Child Welfare Disproportionality Act
- It originally sounded like a complete transformation of the child welfare system
- It is more like a tweaking of the system
- Key provisions of the law build out some of the practice specific changes for workers, call attention for need of culturally significant resources to support their work
- MN Statutes Section 260.61
- Lessons learned from Phase-in Counties
- Hennepin and Ramsey County have been the first to implement the law with $5M start up allocated
- Focus priorities:
- Community education on culturally specific providers
- Calculating the Unknown
- In the future, they will be meeting with community partners, figuring out new technology and applications (including pilot programs), identifying best practices they are already doing so they can streamline their worker resources
- One of the hardest things for rural counties is finding culturally specific resources
- Rice county assets for implementation
- Great staff providing active efforts in casework
- Continuation of bringing community leaders and partners together, gathering input from them for implementation
- Active children’s justice initiative that meets regularly
- Number of out of home placements have been decreasing over the past few years through their work
- 1319 reports last year that this team worked through of child abuse reports in Rice County
