Local Public Health Act Annual Reporting

Each year, Minnesota community health boards are required to report on staffing, finance, and performance measures to help identify and understand trends in how Minnesota's local public health system operates. This is called the Local Public Health Act annual reporting because it's required in Minnesota's Local Public Health Act (Minn. Stat. § 145A).

Reporting is typically open from mid-February through March each year to report data for the previous calendar year. View data from past years: Past Data: LPH Act Annual Reporting

Local Public Health Act annual reporting is currently closed. 

What to expect for 2025 annual reporting (reported by March 31, 2026)

Community health boards (CHBs) can expect the following for calendar year 2025 reporting:

Finance and staffing 

CHBs will have two options for how to report on finance and staffing: 

• Option 1: Same as reporting for calendar year 2024
• Option 2: Early adopters can use the optional new forms which reflect how reporting will look for all CHBs in calendar year 2026: Future Alignment with Foundational Public Health Responsibilities. An example form will be coming soon.

There will also be some new staffing categories (i.e., communications staff, preparedness staff) and some terminology changes (i.e. health administrator to agency leadership). A crosswalk will be available soon. 

CHBs will continue to report COVID-19 expenditures for calendar year 2025. 

Instructions for reporting are coming soon and will be available online here: Instructions for Local Public Health Act Annual Reporting

Performance measures

All community health boards will continue to self-report annually (on a 4-point scale from can fully meet to cannot meet) on their ability to meet a set of 46 national measures. 

Instructions are coming soon and will be available online here: Instructions for Local Public Health Act Annual Reporting

Performance-related accountability requirement

The performance-related accountability requirement is a yearly "deep dive" into a single measure to support systemwide progress and improvement (MN Statute 145A.131 Local Public Health Grant ​Subd. 3. Accountability)

For 2025, community health boards will demonstrate their ability to meet the following national measure, as approved by SCHSAC and the Commissioner of Health in December 2024: 

Measure 2.2.5 Maintain a risk communication plan and a process for urgent 24/7 communication with response partners. 

What community health boards will report

Community health boards will demonstrate meeting the performance-related accountability requirement by:

• Attest to meeting the following elements:  
  1. The community health board has a risk communication plan dated within 5 years.  
  2. The risk communication plan:  
     1. Describes the process used to develop accurate and timely messages.  
     2. Describes methods to communicate necessary information to the entire community, including subpopulations who are at higher risk.  
     3. Includes methods to address misconceptions or misinformation.  
     4. Describes the process to expedite approval of messages to the public during an emergency.  
     5. Describes how information will be disseminated in the case of communication technology disruption.  
     6. Describes the process for managing and responding to inquiries from the public during an emergency.  
     7. Describes the process to coordinate the communications and development of messages among partners during an emergency.  
     8. Contains a list with media contact information.  
     9. Describes the procedure for keeping the media contact list current and accurate.  
• Provide a brief narrative describing how your community health board implements elements 2b, 2c, and 2g. If your agency is accredited, you may submit relevant documents used in the accreditation process.  
• Share any opportunities and challenges related to your risk communication plan and processes (open ended response).
• Note: Community health boards will not be asked to submit the full communications plan. 

How and when community health boards report

Community health boards will submit this information via the Response Sustainability Grant reporting in REDCap in March 2026.  

The Center for Public Health Practice will work with the Center for Emergency Preparedness and Response to collect this information.  

Support and resources

More information on the performance-related accountability requirement can be found online: Local Public Health Performance Measures and Performance-Related Accountability: Recommendations of the SCHSAC Performance Measurement Workgroup (PDF)

Stay tuned for webinar information and office hours. Please contact your system consultant with questions: Who is my public health system consultant? - MN Dept. of Health

Related

• Requirements of the Local Public Health Act (Performance-related Accountability Requirement)
• Local Public Health Act Statute
• Local Public Health Grant
• Foundational Public Health Responsibilities and Framework
• Intersection with Local Public Health Assessment and Planning