Sponsor: Public Health
Title
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2025 Recycling & Energy Board Joint Activities Budget
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Recommendation
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Accept and approve the 2025 Ramsey/Washington Recycling & Energy Board Joint Activities Budget as recommended by the Ramsey/Washington Recycling & Energy Board.
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Background and Rationale
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The Joint Powers Agreement between Ramsey County and Washington County created the Ramsey/Washington Recycling & Energy Board (R&E Board) and provides that the two county boards retain authority to approve the Joint Activities Budget of the R&E Board. The highest shared priority of the counties’ is to prevent waste through shared solid waste strategies focusing on waste reduction, reuse and recycling. The Joint Activities budget is used to administer and carry out joint waste management activities which are “upstream from the facility” programming intended to reduce the amount of waste that must be managed through the R&E Center. These programs include the Food Scraps Pickup Program, BizRecycling, Business Pollution Prevention, Food Recovery Grants, Deconstruction Grants and Compost Market Development. These joint waste management activities all intentionally align with and are intended to support shared solid waste policy priorities committed to by the counties’ in their respective solid waste management plans.
On May 14, 2024, the R&E Facility & Finance Committee approved and recommended that the R&E Board approve the 2025 Joint Activities Budget and on July 25, 2024, the R&E Board approved and recommended that the county boards approve the 2025 Joint Activities Budget. The attached documentation represents those approvals and recommendations.
The Joint Activities Budget is summarized below.
|
|
2020 approved |
2021 approved |
2022 approved |
2023 approved |
2024 approved |
2025 proposed |
|
Total Joint Activities Budget |
$9,053,290 |
$9,083,369 |
$10,707,727 |
$11,609,454 |
$11,981,000 |
$12,340,000 |
|
Washington County (27%) |
$1,194,290 |
$1,922,230 |
$2,891,086 |
$3,134,553 |
$3,234,870 |
$3,331,800 |
|
Ramsey County (73%) |
$5,175,674 |
$5,197,139 |
$7,016,641 |
$8,474,901 |
$8,746,130 |
$9,008,200 |
|
Ramsey-Only Funds** |
$1,964,000 |
$1,964,000 |
*$800,000 |
$0 |
$0 |
$0 |
|
*Carryover Ramsey-only funds from 2021 |
**Washington County chose to reduce funding during 2020-2021 to support internal program needs.
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County Goals (Check those advanced by Action)
☒ Well-being ☐ Prosperity ☐ Opportunity ☐ Accountability
Racial Equity Impact
Recycling & Energy continues to evaluate all of their programs to ensure alignment with the county’s solid waste management plan and Ramsey County Climate Equity Action Plan as well as state policy and legislation around renewable fuels, carbon free and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) mitigation. This alignment contributes to improving air and water quality through resource and energy conservation, waste reduction, climate change mitigation and resiliency and mitigation of PFAS entering the environment. These positively contribute to protecting human health and the environment. Recycling rates and participation in waste/recycling services provided by the county are not even across racial groups in Ramsey County. Ramsey/Washington Recycling & Energy works with Saint Paul - Ramsey County Public Health to emphasize services and invest in community engagement to assist in designing ways to reach and assure services to underrepresented communities. This Joint Activities Budget includes programming aimed to overcome barriers and bring about parity across our community in awareness of and use of these services. Examples that deliver on equity include:
• The Food Scrap Pickup Program is designed to remove barriers to participation by offering a year’s supply of the program’s food scrap bags to every household at no additional cost regardless of housing type with program information available in five languages.
• The Business Pollution Prevent Program offers grants to businesses to offset the cost of them moving to less toxic solvents, thus reducing the impact of air emissions to both nearby neighborhoods as well as employees. This program was first rolled out in zip codes identified by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency as “environmental justice tracts”.
• The Ramsey/Washington/R&E anaerobic digestion project for food scrap waste offers a solution that reduces food waste from being disposed in area landfills, a strategy to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from food waste disposed of in landfills, generate a renewable natural gas, offer a carbon sequestration strategy and PFAS mitigation strategy through the making of a biochar product as part of the process.
Further, the goals of this budget are aligned with climate mitigation strategies in the Ramsey County Climate Equity Action Plan intended to reduce contributions to GHG emissions.
Community Participation Level and Impact
Joint Activities programs rely on community participation and buy-in to be successful. Success in residential food scrap curbside collection, food waste prevention, pollution prevention, organics management, business recycling, and recycling in multi-unit housing programming is advanced by R&E’s education and outreach efforts in the community. Through these efforts, Ramsey County and R&E are able to make grant resources available, offer education materials on program goals and answer the “why” in terms of what policies are in place and what problems to solve. By taking a collaborative approach when working with residents and businesses, Ramsey County and R&E are able to achieve greater buy in and positive outcomes in encouraging behavior change and reduce the negative impacts of waste generation on our communities. Public Health and Recycling & Energy engage communities in the development of the County Solid Waste Management Plan, the Food Scrap Pickup Program, engaging organizations with the offering of grant resources and technical assistance and collecting feedback on how our program approaches can be modified to achieve greater outcomes.
☒ Inform ☒ Consult ☒ Involve ☒ Collaborate ☐ Empower
Fiscal Impact
Ramsey County’s obligation to the 2025 R&E Joint Activities budget is $9,008,200. This is paid from revenues collected through the County Environmental Charge. The 2025 Public Health department budget incorporates funding for the joint activities contribution.
Last Previous Action
On June 4, 2024, the Ramsey County Board held a workshop on the Recycling & Energy Board’s joint activities budget.
Attachments
1. R&E Board Resolution
2. Budget Recommendation for Approval from the R&E Board
3. Budget Recommendation for Approval from the R&E Facility and Finance Committee
4. R&E Board 2025 Joint Activities Budget