(dramatic music) - [Show Announcer] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

(bright rock music) - [Woman Announcer] Coming to you from Rochester Minnesota, R-Town.

(bright rock music) - Last month, the Rochester City Council approved the city's 2-year operating budget.

here to walk us through it all is city administrator, Alison Zelms.

Welcome back to our town, Administrator Zelms.

- Thank you I'm glad to be back, I think it's been about a year, so it's.

- It has been, good time to check in.

So before we get into the nuts and bolts of the budget, I'd love to hear a little bit from you of just why this process is so important and how it impacts our everyday lives as members of this community.

- I mean it's one of the most important things that the city council does every year throughout their time on the council, whether that's one term or 10 terms, right?

So it really sets the stage for what we focus our efforts on throughout the year.

In a large way it doesn't change drastically because we still of course have police service and fire service and parks recreation and library and all those things that people want but it tries to align our resources and any new resources or adjustments towards our strategic priorities and keeps us moving forward to achieve our vision.

So it really is a reflection of our values and how we actually resource those in order to deliver to the community.

- Fantastic, so this is the first ever two year budget, is that correct?

- In Rochester Yes.

- Yeah that's amazing, so why two years and what does this expanded timeline allow the city to do?

- Well I'm actually really proud of that.

It took a lot of effort from our teammates to get that going and what I think the most important aspect of it is it gives us that second year where we have our baseline and a picture of where we think we're going to really dig into policy items where we say, maybe we want to shift direction or, you know, the property tax doesn't seem like something that's achievable for that year.

So it gives us time to focus on the big picture and align our strategic priorities with our budget.

And that just is hard to do in a short period of time in a city like Rochester that is always moving, where we have to integrate new ideas and add to what we already have.

So it really gives us that clarity and the amount of time that's necessary to do big things and make change over time.

- You've mentioned the term strategic priorities a couple of times.

Can you just briefly tell us what that is?

And I guess how the budget is aligned with the city's strategic priorities?

- Sure, the console updated the strategic priorities a little bit earlier than when they completed their budget last year.

And so those are focused around three themes of affordable living, economic vibrancy and growth management.

So you can start to se theme here of balance right?

Quality services for quality living so it's sort of those two sides of things, right?

And that really guides our purpose along with the foundational principles of social equity and compassion and public safety and sustainability and financial sustainability.

So we try to really align our resources and our thinking and our strategy towards the priorities that the council has set which reflect the community and what they want to see.

The challenge, as I mentioned before, is people really value what they value.

So folks that use the library a lot really don't want to see that shift if we're looking at balancing our financial resources to add a new program elsewhere.

So it takes time in order to accomplish that, those priorities and then the company action plans from all of our departments and teammates that they're aligning towards that vision, help us to keep moving in the same direction.

So it provides a little bit of stability that lets us keep moving much more in the same direction so we actually make progress more quickly.

I like to think of it from a city's perspective, not as the amount of time it takes for government to work but thinking about taking big action and that sometimes slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

So if we're not really aligned and we don't have those strategic priorities guiding us towards how we want to move, we get distracted sometimes.

And it's harder to accomplish big things because you're trying to do everything rather than focus on accomplishing the big goals we have ahead of us.

- Fantastic, we'll get a little bit more into some of the details within the budget but before the break here, can you just tell us what the budget total is and some of the things that that number includes.

- Sure, it's gonna sound like a big number to folks that are doing their home budget but it's just over $509 million.

What that includes is everything that the city does.

And so that includes Rochester Public Utilities, which is our water and electric utility.

So that's a significant thousands and thousands of customers and things that we don't think about every day because our goal is that they work well and you don't even think about us 'cause it's working.

So there's a couple of ways of thinking of this.

We have operations, so of that 509 million, about 343 million give or take is operations, that's the day-to-day things getting done.

Then we have about 148 million that's capital investment, reinvestment major change; roads, electric, utility water, wastewater, all of those things.

And then we have about 17 million that's debt service for things that we've built in the past and we're financing over time over the life of that type of project.

And another way of thinking about it is the way that our funds are structured.

So we have our general fund, which is operations like police and fire, general administration and there's about 16% of our property tax is supporting that in that fund.

And then we have some other taxes that's about $101 million.

The other 408 million is in special revenue funds and enterprise funds where we have charges for service and directed tax dollars that once they're directed there, they can only be used for and we actually charge those rates specifically for that cost of service.

So when I think about it more discretionary, although a lot of things that people really wanna have is that $101 million of general fund and the vast majority that $408 million is for enterprises and utilities and directed property tax dollars that go towards the library and parks and recreation, as well as the general fund and some of that debt service that I mentioned.

- Fantastic, that is quite a lot and we'll get back to you in the break, thank you so much for joining us and we'll be right back with City Administrator Zelms.

(upbeat jazz) - Be sure to stick around, we have much more coming your way on R-Town.

in this week's Walkabout segment, we revisit a Rochester business that has made a few changes.

We also continue our conversation with City Administrator Zelms.

But up first we sit down with Steve Schmidt to check in after his retirement from the Rochester Civic Music in this week's R-Culture segment.

(bright guitar music) - I'm often asked, you know, who's your favorite artist?

I don't have one because I never did the music for me I always did it for the constituents that I served, it was for the audience.

- And we congratulate him for a job well done and wish him continued success and happiness in his retirement.

- Steve's been a central part of the music scene in Rochester for a long time.

And I think largely that has gone unnoticed as far as the person of Steve being critical to that.

Steve is not about self-promotion in that way, he's really about performing the work of the city and doing a service to the people of Rochester.

What stands out in my mind is how well he brought quality music to the city of Rochester for so many years and touched so many people and did it without bringing particular attention to himself.

- One of the unique things about the city of Rochester is they specifically do have a department that is about music in the city.

Rochester Civic Music brings music to the community and you know, it is funded by the city of Rochester.

It has an advisory board and when Steve was manager of the civic music department, he would've served as kind of the, you know, the person who, you know would tell us about what's going on with the city of Rochester music and then we would give him feedback and he would bring that back as part of curating the program.

- The moments that meant the most to me are those moments when we touched a young student's life and they said to me, this is the music that I grew up in my home country before I immigrated to Rochester.

Or those nights when there were standing ovations Down by the Riverside and the crowd just went wild.

(upbeat rock) It's really the audience reactions because what really mattered was being able to touch those concert goers.

Imagine the number of artists I've had the opportunity to bring to Rochester during my time at Rochester Civic Music, 30 years.

In some of those years we did as many as 100 distinct services.

I am confident that I built a strong foundation for Rochester Civic Music.

And I'm confident that it will continue to serve audiences and artists for many years to come.

We did a great job of building partnerships with people who help us to present our programs be it a rural library or the schools.

(bright guitar music) ♪ I hope to be home soon ♪ - I think it's clear that Steve himself being a musical performer had a profound influence in his ability to identify talent.

Clearly Steve knows the business of performing and he understands the hard work of being a musical performer.

- In all the time that I was working as an arts administrator, I never stopped playing the guitar, I never stopped writing songs, I never stopped recording.

Now that I pivot into retirement, I'm able to get to know all of these instruments again, some of them that I had neglected for far too long.

(bright guitar music) ♪ I'm moving along that open prairie ♪ ♪ Really don't know what I might find ♪ - [Woman Announcer] For more information about this story and other R-Town features connect with us on Facebook, twitter, @ksmq #RTown or ksmq.org/rtown.

(bright music) - Hello I'm Danielle Teal, your moderator for R-Town, The Spotlight, the segment covers organizations, events and happenings across Rochester, we'd like to thank 125 Live for hosting this portion and for lining up our guests.

And we have a really super fun guest today, her name is Szablis Klee and she is from the Southeast Scuba Escape, welcome Szablis.

- Thank you, thanks for having me.

- We're super excited to have you.

First of all, scuba diving in Minnesota?

It's snowing outside.

- Absolutely, well you know we all wanna get out of here also so we tend to take people traveling to go finish up their certifications and go see the 75% of the world that is underwater.

- That's right and actually I shouldn't say snowing, there's snow on the ground.

But you know, we're used to snow being in Minnesota.

So can you tell us a little bit more about it?

You know what are, I assume you do lessons and what does that consist of?

- Sure, so when somebody wants to go discover the rest of the world, once we've exhausted all of the land-based items and in particular women, we can get them certified.

Well I'll start with this, wat we can do is actually take them for a 45 minutes discover scuba.

We do that locally here in the rec center pool they're right by 125 Live.

And it just kind of gives them a taste of what it's like to breathe under water, to feel that weightlessness and to imagine the things that you can see out in the ocean then.

If they like that, then the certification process is about a four hour online e-learning course that Patty has put together.

It involves video learning and just short quizzes.

And then they come to our shop where we do a review in classroom with the instructor and then over to the rec center for about eight hours total of in-water instruction.

So that's the basic beginning of the certification and then to finish that up, there are four what we call checkout dives and those are done either here when it's warm, we can do it in the ice but we prefer not to.

(Danielle laughing) - That would be excessive, I'd be like, I vote not ice.

- Chilly, just a wee bit.

But normally we'll do it in a local lake here, there are two dives over two days.

So two dives each day where you demonstrate to your instructor that you have the necessary skills to be confident in the water and scuba dive.

Once you have your certification card you can dive anywhere in the world, any dive shop will give you tanks of air and rent you equipment and you're able to go out and scuba dive.

- That's really cool, where can people find out more about this?

- So our website is S-S-E-D-I-V-E.com, S-S-E-dive.com or they can stop by our shop here on 2nd street, right next to Sargent's.

- Awesome, thank you so much for being on the show.

- My pleasure, thanks for having me.

- And thank you for tuning into R-Town Spotlight, I'm Danielle Teal, your moderator with KSMQ Public Television, huge thanks to 125 Live for lining up our guests.

You can catch up with us on Facebook or Twitter @KSMQ #RTown.

(heavy guitar music) - Hello again this is Michael Wojcik with your R-Town rundown, if you like me are not particularly a fan of rehearsing the Greek alphabet through different COVID-19 variants bear with us for another one.

Obviously Omicron is upon us, the impacts are affecting our community and the things that we love to do in our community but we have tools to slow and end this pandemic much quicker.

First and foremost, the COVID-19 vaccines are safe, effective, the public data that's available on the CDC website show you that while our hospitals are full right now and at capacity, it's largely not full with folks that have been vaccinated.

It's almost entirely those that are un-vaccinated, so if you like me love being out there in the community, let's all try to do our part to end this pandemic and keep each other safer so we can get out and enjoy more.

But that said, we are seeing impacts and probably first and foremost was the changing of the social ice event this year, it's now been moved back one month and as a result of that there's you know, ice in March is probably a little bit more touch and go than ice in February.

But there's gonna be a number of changes to the event but it's still going to go on, early March.

And I hope to see you all out there, it's been a great event every time we've had it and I'm sure with the new plaza it's gonna be as great as ever this year.

Also coming up, as the weather's gotten colder, there's a lot of opportunities to help out the Rochester Community Warming Center, an email went out looking for volunteers, I'm gonna share some information with you here.

There are ways that you can help directly with the folks but there's also things like picking up meals for them as well.

There's something that you can do to help out if you're so willing, it's something to help those among us who need a little hand getting through the winter and the cold weather.

The League of Women Voters is putting up an event coming up in late January on medical aid in time you can find out more about that on The League of Women Voter's website or Facebook page.

And finally there are some fun events coming to Mayo Civic Center as that schedule starts to refill up, particularly REO Speedwagon, Dinosaur World Live.

So I hope we're able to get out there and enjoy some of these events, that's just a little bit of what's going on in Rochester.

(smooth jazz) - I'm Leah Joy Bee and we are at Art Heads Emporium.

We are doing a paint class tonight with Luke Austin, he's a local tattoo artist and he decided he wanted to teach a pineapple class tonight.

The finished product will be a pineapple and he guides each painter in the class step-by-step through the paint class.

(people chattering) We started as Canvas and Chardonnay back in 2013 teaching primarily paint classes and now we have a wide variety of local artists that teach their art and craft in our studio.

(bright guitar music) Art Heads Emporium, Art Heads comes from my high school art teacher.

She called all of us art students, her little art heads and it stuck with me.

So people are coming in either by themselves or with a group of people to paint a canvas or create a sculpture, sometimes we have some fiber art classes, candle classes, floral classes, kind of a little variety of everything.

(bright electronic music) It's just a way to get out of comfort zone, get out of your house maybe too and do something different that you're not gonna be doing at home every day.

All of our classes are beginner friendly so whether you've made something in clay before or not, you can come in to one of our sculpture classes and we have an artist that will teach you how to create what you signed up for.

My favorite part of owning this studio and being here is people.

So we have Marty.

- Hello.

- [Leah] Vanna and Mikayla.

Sharing the experience with new people and getting to see them excited and happy when they leave with something that they never thought they would be able to create.

(upbeat jazz) - Welcome back we're catching up today with City Administrator Alison Zelms who's here to talk to us all about the city's budget.

Welcome back to R-Town and to the second half of the half hour city administrator.

- [Alison] Thank you.

- So you walked us through in the first half just kind of a kind of zoomed out view of what the budget is and what it includes.

A large part of that budget plan is a capital improvement plan.

Could you talk to us a little bit about what this includes and what it is.

- So when you think about capital improvements that's how we're building our community.

So that's the bricks and mortar, the roads, the electric poles that you see when we expand and have more power generation, pipes in the ground, all of those things, the building that I'm in right now talking to you from.

So it's really important because how we invest in that actually can limit the amount of dollars and resource that we're spending over time.

So if we look at our life cycle cost and we try to prepare and maintain on a reasonable schedule so that we can push out those much larger projects where we have to replace, that's one of the ways that we look at that.

So for 2022 we've got almost $150 million worth of capital investment across all of those lines of operation that I talked about.

And we have a few key projects that we're looking at coming up, one of those is bus rapid transit.

So you know, people have heard, people have heard about Link, right?

So I keep calling it bus rapid transit, but it's called Link now.

We have a pretty large reconstruction project coming up on 65th street, that's almost $11 million.

So that's a reconstruction so that's people think about the road but there's a whole lot of other things that go along with that because we don't want to tear it up and then come back again and tear it up and put water and sewer underneath.

So it's a little bit underneath the road has a lot of dollars associated with it too.

We have the discovery walk project coming up with Destination Medical Center funds so that should be exciting as well as the sidewalk enhancements for the sidewalks people are used to using downtown.

We also have a big substation coming, that's how we provide electric power so we have the Marion Road substation coming up and the Rochester Public Utilities budget, that's a little over $11 million.

And then we've been really focused on district energy and our downtown heating and cooling solutions so that we can focus on making sure that the set of facilities, the Civic Center, theater, arts center, city hall and the library are supplied with quality heating and cooling that focuses more on different types of energy generation.

- To switch gears a little bit.

We know that we're sort of still in this, well it's not still, I guess the new normal of the pandemic.

You know how is the budget addressing the continued impact of the pandemic and how are you continuing to leverage the Federal Rescue Plan dollars in the project?

- Yeah the council was very specific and strategic all the way back in June when we started seeing that we would be receiving the American Rescue Plan Dollars to focus those on some guiding principles.

So we wanted to be strategic in the funding to address the imbalance that we experienced going through 2020.

And now that in 2021 so that we weren't spending finite dollars on ongoing operations, we used a fair amount of that for budget stability in order to shore up the revenue losses that we had and the impacts of the 0% tax levy adjustment.

And so we could smooth out the impact of eating our revenues back where they needed to be in order to support our operation, that was a key component.

And then we kind of looked at these buckets of our foundational principles along with our strategic priorities.

So thinking about fiscal responsibility and sustainability, we had that revenue and budget mitigation, then thinking about our affordable living priority.

We have some dollars that are support for people with some different mitigation, helping to be able to do events in a safe way.

Being able to look at some of that affordable housing need.

And we looked at the growth management and economic vibrancy so we have some reopening and resiliency dollars that we looked at and then supporting innovation so that we can have those quality services for quality living, looking at getting a 3111 set up so that when you call, you call one place and you hopefully get an easy answer.

So having that user experience of any city service can be enhanced in the future and we can be more prepared in the future should we face similar challenges that we did over the last two years and the are continuing now with new challenges ahead of us and in front of us right now.

- Yeah I mean the challenges will continue and in that vein, you know, how have you been centering within the budget, planning process within community engagement, issues of equity in the community?

- I would say it's twofold.

Part of that is how we operate as an organization and we're really looking internally right now in year one of our first diversity equity inclusion plan.

I'm very proud of our diversity equity inclusion director, Chao Mwatela for the work that she's done across the organization to get everyone moving forward in that aligned phase.

To do our own work in house so that we can be better prepared and move faster sooner.

So we looked at making sure that we were resourcing things that would not just meet the needs of the whole but lift up folks who are more negatively impacted, a by the pandemic.

And also already had been, you know more impacted and less engaged in community and less services for them.

It's just more so right, the pandemic actually probably shown a light on something that's been in existence for quite a long time.

So we're focusing our work on how do we provide services more equitably?

How do we make sure that we focus on lifting up and making sure that if there's areas that we haven't invested in before, even at capitol for example, how do we do that?

Looking at policies for type of revenue that we use and how we collect for things like sidewalk repair and replacement.

And being able to do that more on a collective basis so that those who are more impacted by expenses because they have less dollars coming in and have that spread more equitably across the community since everyone benefits when, when one of us benefits we all benefit.

- Well thank you so much City Administrators Zelms, thank you for all you do with your team.

And we hope to catch up with you again, hopefully not a whole year later with more things that are happening in the city.

Thank you so much for joining.

- Thank you.

- And thank you all for joining us for R-Town, the show about Rochester, for more content produced right here in Rochester please visit us on Facebook and Twitter at #RTown.

I'm Nicole Nfonoyim-Hara, be well and stay safe and I will see you next week.

(upbeat rock) (dramatic music) - [Show Announcer] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.