Know Before You Go: A Guide to the City's Preliminary Levy Hearing

What Burnsville city services would you be willing to do without to keep your property taxes stable? Fewer police officers, less maintenance to parks, or risking the spread of the emerald ash borer?

Over the summer, Burnsville City Council members have been working with city staff to develop the city’s approximate $80 million 2012 budget. After tonight, they will be one step closer to setting the final levy after an expected vote to cap the tax levy. Once set, that amount can be lowered but it cannot be raised (to see the latest proposal click here and scroll to page 77).

Tonight, City Manager Craig Ebeling will present a levy for 2012 that marks a substantial decrease over 2011. If approved, the total levy for the coming year will total $27,025,511 — 3 percent decline over the year prior.

However, such cuts will have consequences. At the outset of the budget process, city staff argued that Burnsville would need to enact a 2.7 percent hike (about $750,000) to maintain the status quo: Of that total, $547,801 (1.9 percent) would come from existing properties and $210,000 (.8 percent) from new construction.

But council members agree that given the rough economic waters ahead they want to hold the line on property taxes as much as possible.

Whether that can be achieved, however, hinges on if the city levy can be kept to no more than a 1.3 percent increase. For that to happen, there would need to be approximately $100,000 in budget reductions. That has some city council members thinking that, combined with past budget cuts, some city programming is getting nickel and dimed to death and would be better off eliminated altogether.

Mayor Elizabeth Kautz and Council Members Mary Sherry and Dan Gustafson think the city has gone too far with cuts in previous years and anything less than a 1.3 percent increase would harm existing programming.

“I see some areas that we’ve cut almost too far, and don’t want to get into them. I’m comfortable at 1.3 — to go below that would cut into services,” Sherry said.

Council member Dan Kealey and newly elected member Bill Coughlin advocate for a .8 percent levy increase. That’s the added tax value expected to come from new construction in the city.

“Look at what is going on in the economy… Biting the bullet is the right thing to do,” Kealey said at an August work session.

City staff did not recommend bare-bones budget austerity measures. In a June 14 preliminary budget document, city staffers wrote “Present economic conditions aside, it would not be reasonable to assume that costs could be ‘frozen’ at current budget levels from now through 2016 while continuing the same current level of services."

The authors of the document went on to explain that the city’s budget would have to increase with the rest of the economy as the cost of materials, energy, fuel, equipment, and other necessary goods continues to rise with inflation, though the level of service would stay the same.  Increases in non-tax revenues would be able to account for just a small portion of that increase.

In an effort to abide by the council's wishes, Ebeling laid out some budget reductions for the council to consider at a work session in August. They included:

• Terminating the two police officer positions that had been retained due to a federal grant that is no longer available; The City was able to restore two officer positions lost in the 2009 budget cuts via a Federal Grant. That grant ends at the end of 2011. When these positions were restored to the budget with grant funding, the Council understood that they would need to consider whether to continue these positions at full cost to the city — about $100,000 per officer, including wages and benefits.

• Using a portion of the city fund balance to pay down debt service on the Ice Center improvements, which is about $400,000 per year. Under what is proposed, for the foreseeable future a portion of the debt payment would come from the city’s savings, which would reduce the need to levy for the payment.

• Delaying plans to restore funding to the Parks Capital fund, perhaps for good, which would save the city $150,000 (.5 percent of the budget). The council decided to funnel money into the fund in 2009, after they concluded that an increase was necessary “simply to maintain the existing complement of parks facilities” in the future. However, due to economic uncertainty the City has delayed funding and eliminated projects for several years in a row in order to reduce the need for tax burden. If approved, the city would not restore funding in 2012.

• Lastly, the council considered holding back funds from the newly established city Emerald Ash Borer account — a pool of money that would be used in the event of an infestation. The city planned to put in 50k to the fund, or .2 percent of the overall budget

Council members firmly oppose cuts to the police force. Ebeling noted in budget documents that the “challenge goal of $100,000 in reduced current expenses appears to be achievable,” without the loss of these positions.

Tonight's meeting at 6:30 is the first of many in the budget process. By law, a proposed levy must be adopted at the following meeting on Sept 15. The levy and budget will be finalized on Dec. 6.

However, in the intervening months the public will have ample opportunity to chime in. At least four public budget meetings are planned:

•Department Budget Presentations: Tues., October 25, 6:30 p.m.

• Budget work sessions: Nov. 15 and Nov. 29, both at 6:30 p.m.

• Budget open house: Dec. 1, 4 p.m.