Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the County Administration topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Beltrami County board holds closed session, affirms county administrator's strong 2025 performance
Summary
The Beltrami County Board met in closed session to conduct its annual evaluation of County Administrator (referred to in the meeting as Administrator Berry). The board's prepared statement praised 2025 leadership, cited disaster recovery work, a $36 million bond plan and several million dollars in cost savings.
The Beltrami County Board of Commissioners met briefly in closed session and read a board-approved evaluation stating that the county administrator performed "very well, continuing his strong record of success in 2025." The board entered closed session pursuant to Minnesota Statute 13D.03 (labor negotiations) and Minnesota Statute 13D.05, subd. 3(a) (personnel evaluation) and later returned to open session.
The written evaluation (read aloud by a board member) credited the administrator with leading disaster recovery after a major windstorm, preparing a $36,000,000 bond issuance described as yielding more than $12,000,000 in taxpayer savings, delivering a balanced FY26 budget amid funding uncertainty and completing a classification/compensation study. The statement said county revenue increases and cost reductions together approached $15,000,000 in 2025 and that countywide turnover decreased from 21% to 10% over three years.
The board did not vote on policy changes in open session related to the evaluation; the documented steps in the meeting record were (1) a motion to go into closed session that carried by voice vote, and (2) a later motion to end the closed session and resume the public meeting. No public action (such as hiring, termination or a compensation change) was recorded during the open session.
For now, the board's publicly read evaluation is the formal record of the annual review; staff indicated any follow-up or formal contract changes would be handled according to statute and county policy.
