Dakota County's Only Lead Nurse and Only Disease Epidemiologist Just Asked the Board Not to Cut Their Jobs

TLDR

• County public health workers spoke at the September 1 board meeting about the 2027 budget.
• County administration is recommending an 18.7% levy increase and cutting 23 full-time positions.
• One speaker is the county's only infectious disease epidemiologist. Another is its only public health nurse handling elevated blood lead levels in kids.
• The board has to set a maximum levy by September 22.
• There's a budget open house September 10 in Apple Valley, 5:00-6:30 p.m.

Here's the thing about budget hearings — the numbers never land until someone puts a face on them. That's what happened at Tuesday's Dakota County Board meeting.

A group of public health workers, several in red shirts, took the podium one after another, in the same public comment period where two dozen residents came to talk about elections. They weren't there to argue percentages. They were there to describe what they actually do all day, and what disappears if their jobs do.

The Numbers They Were Reacting To

You need this context first.

Dakota County administration has recommended an 18.7% levy increase for 2027. On a median-value home that's roughly $145 more a year.

And even with that increase, the recommended scenario cuts 23 full-time positions. Administration laid out three options — 10 cuts, 23 cuts, or 56 cuts. The 23 is the one they're recommending. Public health is on the list in every scenario, including the smallest one.

Rising costs, plus state and federal cost shifts, are driving it. Commissioner Mary Hamann-Roland gave the board a related update at the same meeting: changes to federal law could shift somewhere between $76.5 million and $177.8 million in food assistance costs onto Minnesota counties by 2028. Long-term services support costs are running about $60 million now and projected to hit $75 million before the end of the decade.

So this isn't a county that's just being stingy. It's a county absorbing costs that used to land somewhere else. But the choices still have to get made.

What the Workers Said

Ash Irons Domeski, a public health nurse and Minnesota Nurses Association steward, walked through the Family Home Visiting Program. Nurses go into homes during pregnancy and up to a child's second birthday. They weigh babies, check blood pressure, talk about nutrition, connect families to food pantries and specialty care.

Then the outcomes: parents in home visiting programs are more likely to get prenatal care and carry to term, less likely to have low-birth-weight babies, more likely to breastfeed longer, less likely to need emergency care. It reduces child maltreatment and improves school readiness.

"We have a mantra that helps motivate our work," she said. "The developing child cannot wait."

Regina Gavin is an epidemiologist. Here's the line that should stop you: she is the only infectious disease epidemiologist in Dakota County, and one of only two epidemiologists total.

She runs investigations for measles, whooping cough, and tuberculosis. When a measles case gets reported, she interviews the family, maps every place the person went while contagious, and identifies unvaccinated people who were exposed — then actively excludes them from public settings so it doesn't spread.

"I even spent the evening of my child's first birthday working late on a measles investigation, because measles doesn't wait," she said.

Her warning: measles case counts are at their highest level in 35 years, vaccination rates are dropping in Minnesota and nationally, and outbreaks are growing in neighboring states. "My workload is and will be increasing in the coming years. It's a lot to handle right now. I can't even imagine what it's going to be like."

Natalie Stone is the only public health nurse in Dakota County working with children who have elevated blood lead levels. She finds the kids, works with the families, and tries to locate the source of the lead. Lead exposure in childhood can cause lifelong intellectual and physical harm.

"We get a lot of phone calls from people that are desperate for help," she said. She's lived in Dakota County 46 of her 47 years.

Katrina DeVore, chair of the MNA bargaining unit at the county, read a statement for Kristen Ness, a public health nurse of 27 years who couldn't attend. Ness's statement had two stories in it. One was about running into a client at the Western Service Center — a woman she'd done home visits with during a high-risk pregnancy 27 years earlier, who stopped to say her adult kids are doing well and to say thanks.

The other was about a girl with asthma who couldn't run without coughing and was missing a lot of school. After two visits — insurance help, a pediatrician appointment, a conversation about triggers and when to go to the clinic versus the ER — the kid was showing off her new inhalers and telling the nurse she loved recess.

Ness's warning: "Currently, we are already short-staffed. We carry higher caseloads, and some programs are starting to implement a wait list. We have lost nurses to other counties, and turnover is expensive and stressful."

Katherine from AFSCME spoke too, on behalf of social services and employment and economic assistance workers. Her angle was different — the workers themselves. "Many of us are the sole members carrying health insurance for our families." She warned that cuts just shift the work: "Cutting jobs leads to shifting the tasks to others and increasing the rate of burnout."

The Ask

Every speaker landed on nearly the same sentence, which suggests it was coordinated — and honestly, that's fine. It's a clear ask.

"As budget discussions continue, we ask that decisions be viewed not only through numbers on a spreadsheet, but through the impact these decisions have on residents and on the county's ability to provide proper services."

What Happens Next, and When

This is the part that matters if you want a say.

September 10 — Budget and property tax open house, 5:00 to 6:30 p.m., Western Service Center in Apple Valley. This is your last open house before the number gets locked in.

September 22 — The board sets the maximum levy. This is the real deadline. The board can go lower later, but it can't go higher than what it sets that day.

December 1 — Another open house, this one in Hastings.

December 15 — Final budget adoption.

Chair Laurie Halverson mentioned the September 10 open house herself, and the county manager said it was at the top of her list too. "We have received a lot of comments, and we continue to receive a lot of comments."

The Bottom Line

If you have an opinion about whether Dakota County should raise your taxes 18.7% or cut 23 jobs — or both, which is what's currently on the table — September 10 and September 22 are the dates.

Property taxes are climbing across the metro right now, not just here. Metro governments across the Twin Cities are weighing sizable hikes, and your county bill is only one piece of it. District 196's levy went up 12.8% for 2026, and cities are running their own increases on top of that — Lakeville's revised budget is a good example of how quickly these stack up.

One interesting wrinkle: a recent survey of Dakota County voters found residents were willing to pay more in taxes to keep services. Whether that holds up when the actual bill arrives is a different question.

Comments go to CountyAdmin@co.dakota.mn.us, or show up September 10.