Special City Council Budget Session Tonight

The Council has its first budget session tonight 5:30.

The Departments covered are City Planning, Building Inspections, Mayor/Council, Economic Development and Finance/Administration departments and our City debt.

A few points as we start tonight. The proposed budget has a 6% increase in spending and a 3.61% tax increase. Both of these numbers are unacceptable. I have identified $200,000 in spending cuts to date. I am still working to reduce further cost.

Tonight's and the next budget session are to listen to staff's request. The Council then needs to prioritize spending decisions. The amount the Council decides to spend will determine Isanti's property tax levy rate. Isanti currently has a 64.7% levy rate. I have been working to reduce city property taxes since I was first elected to the Council. My 2006 long range fiscal plan has a 55% levy rate goal. This would take Isanti from being the 15th highest taxed locality in greater Minnesota to one of the most competitive tax rates in all of Minnesota.

In my second installment of Isanti's Fiscal Future I will detail the city's effective tax rate in comparison to the rest of the state and the competitive disadvantage we face. I will also discuss trends that do not bode well for Isanti.

We must also be aware that the City is going through a new assessment by the County. We may think this would lead to lower values and taxes but the opposite has been seen throughout the state. Sale prices are going down but valuation keep marching forwarded due to the delayed reaction time of the assessment process. This leads to the troublesome possibility that sale prices go down, tax levys go down but if assessments go up the actual tax you pay may also go up.

Government must be as lean and cost effective as possible now more than ever.