| East Bethel Council listens to residents suggestions about 2010 budget |
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| Wednesday, 05 August 2009 | |
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Staff writer The East Bethel City Council asked residents to come to City Hall the evening of July 29 to let it know what their budget priorities are. At this point, the 2010 budget is $5,125,349, which would be a 0.29 percent decrease from the 2009 budget amount of $5,140,273, which was approved last December. The 2009 budget was revised to reflect recent cuts. The revised 2009 budget is now $4,963,000. Mark Bouljon said the council should not necessarily look at cutting areas where the city spends the most, which is public safety. He said city government exists to provide citizens with things they cannot provide for themselves. “I would urge you to not be intimidated by a simple argument over money,” Bouljon said. “ “Money is important. My wife is not employed at the moment and we’re having some serious difficulties, but the fact is frankly, we both expect services to remain and as much as we might resent paying taxes or more taxes, we can understand that some things have got to be done if we’re going to maintain some kind of quality of life here and some kind of reliance on the institutions we’ve come to count on.” Diane Jacobson believes parks are more a want than a need. “I’m fully aware that if you have some good parks, it is a draw to the city. People do look at that,” Jacobson said. “But when you go overboard, how do we maintain them all?” Jacobson questioned why there needed to be a $162,139 transfer from the general fund to the parks department. The city in 2010 is budgeting for general fund transfers of $100,000 to the parks capital fund and $62,139 to the trails capital fund. These are the same amounts that were transferred from the general fund to these accounts in 2009. There were no transfers to a trails fund before then. The transfer to the parks capital fund was $112,000 in 2008 and $100,000 in 2007. Jacobson said the needs are roads, fire and police. She questioned why the fire and public works departments needed an assistant to help with paperwork. The city is hiring a full-time person to assist the fire and streets departments. The budget for the 1.0 full-time equivalent (FTE) position would be shared between the departments’ budgets. The public works department would cover 0.6 FTE and the fire department 0.4 FTE. Jacobson said city staff should be required to take a half-hour unpaid lunch break rather than work through lunch in order to improve productivity. Other residents backed up this comment. Paul Hunt said in looking at the budget, he does not see many flaws, but he questioned what the city was thinking of to reduce costs. Councilmember Bill Boyer said the council could raise fees for services, but this is no different than a tax increase. City Administrator Douglas Sell said the Legislature is now allowing cities to collect a portion of revenue for administrative tickets for code and traffic violations. This is something the council would have to approve. Tom Ronning said the city is doing a good job keeping the levy increase low. He said the question boils down to what is the city willing to concede. Ronning said he does not want the city to reduce public safety. Richard Lawrence wants to see the city cut more instead of shifting the budget and continuing to raise taxes. A few residents raised concerns about wages. Lawrence said the council should see if it can cut personnel or reduce hours and then beyond that, look at other cuts, even public safety. “I would take a bet that if you go through the city, 75 percent of people have either lost their jobs, lost their hours or have decreased pay,” Robert Jacobson said. “I don’t know how the city can justify giving anybody a raise.” Diane Jacobson said the city should look at cutting community service officers (CSOs) from the budget. CSOs respond to low-level calls and help with matters such as code enforcement, dog bites, delivering packages to city councilmembers, patrolling through neighborhoods and assisting deputies in traffic control on accident scenes. They cannot carry a weapon unlike other deputies. Councilmember Steve Voss said the council wants the police to be a visible presence in the community. He said in the council’s eyes and in most residents’ eyes, the CSOs are part of the sheriff’s office and you cannot tell whether somebody is a CSO or a deputy when they are driving in their squad car. Voss said if East Bethel cut CSOs like Ham Lake and Oak Grove have done, deputies in East Bethel would have to respond to the lower-level calls. 2010 levies The levy at this point is anticipated to increase from $4,676,487 in 2009 to $4,750,325 in 2010. This amounts to a 1.58 percent increase. However, the council could change that before approving the 2010 budget by the end of the year. The 2010 levy right now includes a $3,426,986 general fund levy, $1,164,765 in special levies, a $147,354 debt service levy to pay for the voter-approved fire station and weather sirens projects and $11,220 for 2008 sewer revenue bonds. The $1,164,765 in special levies includes $1,144,087 for police and fire departments benefits and wage increases and $20,678 for increased PERA costs. Valuations/MVHC A couple of major factors are impacting 2010 budget revenues. According to the Anoka County Assessor’s Office, residential valuations for East Bethel will fall 7.4 percent between 2009 and 2010. Commercial/industrial property values will fall 2.2 percent. Agricultural is seeing a drastic 65.9 percent decline. Valuations for 2010 were set earlier this spring. The city is also impacted by cuts to Market Value Homestead Credit (MVHC). The city lost $95,231 of MVHC in 2008 and $154,921 in 2009 and will lose $228,932 in 2010. Residents will still see this credit on their property taxes, but the state is no longer reimbursing cities for the difference between the amount the council levies and the amount it receives after the credits are subtracted. The Legislature did give cities the power to levy residents for the lost MVHC. For the 2010 budget, cities can levy back the aid lost in December 2008 and 2009. The 2010 MVHC loss cannot be levied back until the 2011 budget cycle. Eric Hagen is at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it |
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