Dakota County Newsletter - Fall/Winter 2024 - Serving You

Counties are sometimes called the “hidden layer of government.” But if you look around the community, we’re often hiding in plain sight.

Dakota County government’s role and responsibilities are broad. While some services are more visible to the public, we impact the lives of residents in many ways.

We plow county roads, oversee elections, shelter the homeless, issue passports and provide first responders for public safety. We also maintain parks and greenways and provide access to library materials and spaces. We protect the environment and offer vaccines to keep families healthy — to name a few of the valuable services we provide.

The Dakota County Board of Commissioners makes sure we deliver those services in an efficient and cost-effective way. The county’s seven elected commissioners set a vision and budget for county government. They review how services impact our 447,000 residents and serve as a watchdog for taxpayers.

Dakota County, the third-largest county in Minnesota, has 224 programs and services. We provide some services because residents tell us they help make this a great place to live and work. However, many county services are mandated, or required, by state government. They keep the public safe and provide safety-net services for people in need.

OF THE COUNTY’S 224 PROGRAMS:

144 are required. These include child protection, environmental health, emergency planning and bridge inspections.

44 are not required. They include park activities, 4-H support and volunteer programs.

36 support other county services. They include housing aid, fraud investigations and land surveys.

State and federal funds cover 35 percent of our program costs. We also rely on local property tax dollars and other funds, such as fees for specific services. We’re able to provide all our services while maintaining the lowest tax rate in the metro area this year.

HERE’S A CLOSER LOOK AT SOME OF THE MANY SERVICES YOUR COUNTY GOVERNMENT PROVIDES:

RUNNING A JAIL, PROVIDING OTHER SERVICE

One of our main responsibilities is public safety. That’s done through law enforcement, the courts, emergency planning and more.

State law requires sheriffs to house and care for jail inmates, transport inmates and provide district court security. They also must investigate serious recreational vehicle accidents, search for drowning victims, carry out orders of the court and issue permits to carry.

Operating a jail is the largest mandate in the Dakota County Sheriff’s Office. It’s roughly half of the office’s 200 staff and $30 million budget. The jail has 263 beds and about 174 inmates daily. Roughly 60 percent of inmates report living outside Dakota County. About two-thirds of inmates have been in our jail before.

We don’t do the bare minimum in our jail. We offer industry-leading programs, rehabilitation services and specialized health care. These efforts set up inmates for a successful transition back into the community.

In March 2025, we opened a new 28-bed Integrative Health Unit to provide specialized medical and mental health care to inmates. This innovative new unit is not required, but we want to increase inmates’ likelihood of success while in custody and after release. That will benefit individuals, families and the community.

Residents might assume that the Sheriff’s Office and city police departments are required to patrol our roads and communities. While there isn’t a state law requiring it, we provide that service to protect and connect with the community. Thirty sheriff’s deputies patrol 355 square miles of rural Dakota County.

PROSECUTING CRIMES, OFFERING ALTERNATIVES

A key part of public safety is holding those who commit crimes accountable. That’s a responsibility the Dakota County Attorney’s Office takes seriously.

Counties are required to prosecute all felonies involving adult offenders. Certain counties, including Dakota, also must prosecute some gross misdemeanor offenses. They also need to charge misdemeanor and gross misdemeanor cases that occur in rural areas of the county.

The attorney’s office also is mandated to prosecute all cases involving juveniles who commit crimes in the county.

Criminal case numbers vary from year to year, but they have remained mostly flat in Dakota County over the past five years. In that time, there has been a decline in the number of juvenile criminal cases.

County attorneys are required to offer a diversion program for first-time juvenile offenders. Instead of offering one program, we offer seven, including the only drug treatment court in the state.

We’re required to offer a diversion program for first-time adult offenders, but we offer two. One addresses low-level property offenses, the other low-level drug crimes. We also have a diversion program for repeat, low-level drug offenders.

Some adult offenders may also avoid a conviction by participating in our drug treatment court or veterans treatment court.

PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM HARM

We protect the most vulnerable populations, including youth through child protection programs. We know the importance of this work.

Child protection services start by receiving a report of maltreatment and determining whether more review is needed. We need to make that decision within 24 hours.

If a maltreatment report meets criteria for review, we determine whether staff will conduct a family investigation or a family assessment. Investigations involve severe allegations of child endangerment and sexual abuse, which can result in criminal charges.

Our family assessments involve lower-risk maltreatment reports, such as lack of supervision or less-severe physical abuse. After an assessment, we may recommend that the family receive help from a social worker to ensure the child’s safety.

MAKING RECYCLING AS EASY AS POSSIBLE

In Dakota County, residents, businesses, schools and local governments are required to recycle. That helps to reduce waste going to landfills. The county works to provide residents with convenient ways to recycle at government buildings and spaces — parks, city halls, community centers, athletic fields and more.

We work with cities to develop a recycling program. This includes ensuring a labeled recycling container is available next to each trash container in public areas. There are currently more than 340 municipal buildings and parks in Dakota County where recycling is available.

We provide grants to cities, townships, schools and businesses to improve recycling and help meet requirements. Funding for recycling grants comes from the state and host fees from landfills in Dakota County.

Our work to provide public access to recycling helps meet the state’s goal to recycle 75 percent of waste by 2030. The more we can all recycle, the less we rely on landfills. That’s better for the environment, and it makes financial sense to recycle materials into new products instead of burying them. The state estimates nearly a million tons of material was thrown away in 2021 that could have been recycled.

Making recycling easy and ensuring everything that can be recycled gets recycled is important. When you’re out and about in Dakota County, we want recycling to be available to you.

REGULATING HAZARDOUS WASTE

Counties play a large role in keeping our air, water and land healthy.

For 40 years, Dakota County and other area counties have been required to regulate hazardous waste generators, including businesses and governments. We issue licenses, inspect facilities and report violations. We work with the property managers because the goal is to follow the rules and maintain safe operations.

There are more than 1,100 hazardous waste generators that need a license in the county. They range from a large oil refinery to dental offices and auto repair shops. In one year, they generated 300 million gallons of hazardous waste, such as flammable liquids and toxic chemicals.

The county inspects about 500 locations each year. We check for proper waste handling, employee training and emergency planning.

PROTECTING GROUNDWATER

We provide some services because it’s good for the environment and public health, even if it’s not required. That includes inspecting new wells and ensuring that unused wells are properly sealed.

Dakota County is one of 10 local governments in Minnesota with state authority to permit and inspect wells. We handle residential, business and agricultural irrigation wells. We don’t regulate city or community wells.

There are more than 8,000 active residential wells in Dakota County. Another 800 wells are used for environmental monitoring or owned by government agencies and others.

Inspecting wells is important to protect groundwater. Poor well construction or improper well sealing can affect the underground aquifers that provide our drinking water.

Between 80–100 new wells are built each year in Dakota County. On average, 120–180 old wells are sealed annually. State law requires proper sealing of unused wells, so we offer a program to reduce the cost to well owners.

The county pays for the well program through permit fees, not property taxes.

OFFERING BENEFITS FOR THOSE IN NEED

When families hit a rough spot financially and struggle to afford food or a place to live, they might need help to make ends meet. Counties fill that need by administering economic assistance funds.

The benefits we provide vary based on income, family size, work situation and more. We administer SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits, which families and single adults use to buy food. We also offer the Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP), which provides funds for families to cover basic needs and helps parents to get or maintain work.

In Dakota County, an average of about 10,000 households received SNAP benefits last year. We also served a monthly average of nearly 1,100 households through MFIP.

These programs are state-supervised and county-administered. County tax dollars aren’t used to provide public benefits.

PROVIDING LICENSES AND CERTIFICATES

Counties are responsible for providing important documents for life’s most important moments — birth certificates, marriage licenses, death certificates and more. These are available at our service and license centers.

We provide birth and death certificates, and we make the process convenient by offering them at five locations — Administration Center, Northern Service Center and the Burnsville, Lakeville and Robert Trail license centers.

Getting married or officiating a marriage requires county filings. Marriage licenses and certificates are available at all three service centers and by mail. Residents can also request a marriage certificate by mail.

We provide a convenient way to get driver’s licenses and passports. It’s not a mandated service, but we know it's popular. Passports are available at the Administration Center in Hastings and the Western Service Center. It’s more convenient to get your passport from the county than through a state office.

We also help people become a notary — someone commissioned by the state to witness document signings for legal, real estate and other purposes.

We want your experience at a county service or license center to be positive. Our service software tracks results from customers. We’ll keep working to make the license and permit process efficient and convenient.

MAINTAINING THE FLEET

Some of our work happens behind the scenes, including fleet management. We buy, repair and maintain the vehicles and other equipment that support county services. That ranges from Sheriff’s Office squad cars to snowplows and even the equipment that keeps our parks accessible for visitors.

In 2024, our fleet team was named the best department among its peers in the country. It maintains more than 800 vehicles and pieces of equipment for Dakota County. Most of the equipment is used to provide required services. The county vehicle fleet travels a total of 2.7 million miles a year, almost all within the county.

Our fleet team also supports other services that aren’t required but are popular with residents. That includes Mighty Machines, the fun event at libraries and other locations where kids and adults alike can get up close with large vehicles like plow trucks and construction equipment. Those events draw hundreds of people and help show what services we provide to residents.

HELPING PEOPLE GET WORK

Providing benefits to help people live during a difficult time is important, but we also want to help adults find work, so they can be successful and financially independent. Most parents receiving the Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP) benefits are required to participate in workforce programs, which could include job searches or help learning job skills.

Employment counselors help identify an individual’s job skills and work interests. We provide workshops on how to write a resume, prepare for an interview and more. Our goal is to help people get a job with a wage that makes them self-sufficient.

To learn more about our services and how we work to serve our residents, visit www.dakotacounty.us