City: Truth in taxation

City tax impact for the median value home ($374,800) for 2008: $1,084 – $11 increase from last year

Total property tax impact (including city, county and state taxes): $4,368 – $127 increase from last year

Coming up

The final budget must be adopted at the Dec. 18 meeting of the City Council.

The budget that emerged from the array of options this year is what was last termed “Budget 1.8.” That plan ultimately keeps the city tax increase on the median value home ($374,800) to $11 in 2008, or an increase from $1,073 to $1,131.

But, the budget presented during Monday evening’s truth-in-taxation hearing is not the end of the story. Before its final approval on Dec. 18, a number of sticking points may still come up, including funding for the city’s community services technician and planned reductions to the CIP levy.

The budget presented at the Eden Prairie City Council meeting Monday evening includes funding for the community services technician, known as the immigrant liaison. Earlier this year, that and one other position within the Housing and Community Services division were set to be cut. Money available for service grants to nonprofits was also to be cut. A community group, called “Eden Prairie Cares: Neighbors for Neighbors” was established in opposition to the possible cuts, and the issue has been an ongoing source of controversy during this season’s typically staid budgeting process.

Ultimately, the council voted to fund all of the service grants during a previous meeting, but the possibility of cutting the immigrant liaison position is still out there.

“I think there are a number of things which are still in play on the budget. And certainly, that is one of them,” said Mayor Phil Young, speaking of the immigrant liaison position.

 In an interview after Monday’s meeting, Young said that he had two related concerns about the city funding that position. First, what is the city’s role in providing social services and has it gone farther than peer suburbs? Second, if the city is going to provide social services of any kind, “How are we going to do it?”

Young’s preference, if the city were to provide human services at any level, is that it would be on a contract basis.

If the council thinks that any of these services the city provides are services it should stay involved in, he said, “The discussion should be on the grant funded basis.”

Young said, if such a decision was made on Dec. 18, he expected that there would be six-month period of transition to some other provider of immigrant services.

CIP

A large cut in next year’s budget comes from a reduction in the city’s capital improvement plan levy. The $1 million levy would be reduced by $250,000 in 2008. During Monday night’s meeting, former Mayor Nancy Tyra-Lukens spoke up against making cuts to the levy. Her fear, she said, was that they were “heading down a slippery slope,” to make any cuts to that fund.

“At this level we are going to run down our capital improvement fund,” she said.

The CIP levy, along with the liquor store profits go into the Capital Improvement Fund, a fund that is projected to have an $8 million balance by the end of 2007.  The fund makes up 7 percent of the overall pool of money needed for the city’s capital improvement plan, a plan that calls for a total of $226 million in funding for capital projects through the year 2012. Most of funding goes to transportation.

Tyra-Lukens said the council runs a big risk when the message gets out that they are not re-investing in the infrastructure.

“This is not a fund that should be politically tossed around,” she warned.

Council member Sherry Butcher has also expressed her opposition to reduction of the levy. During Monday’s meeting, she said she would like to ask staff to create another version of the budget that puts back the million in the levy.

In response, City Manager Scott Neal asked that all council members gather up their ideas for budget amendments and get them to the city staff by the end of the week.