-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Tuesday 22 October 2002 19:03, WizardMarks wrote: > What R.T. Rybak and the city council propose to do to your public > library in the name of keeping taxes low is a sin and a shame and they > should all be held to account for this travesty of the "budgeting > process."
I am not going to hold RT Rybak accountable for the current budget problems. He hasn't had time to make a dent in the problems left for him by predecessors who handed him a dying Target Center, a Brookfield default, and an overwhelming pension situation. Ditto any new members of the council. We elected these people to help solve the problem while keeping taxes stable. > for a $1.5M increased budget over 2002. The proposed budget did not > allow for the library to receive any increase over last year's > allocation. This is not money for the new library. This is the cost of > day to day operations. This is the books, etc. This is people's jobs. Yet the Library Board spins this as a "loss". It's not. They then come out with a bunch of very dire sounding measures they will have to take in order to deal with this "loss". Now let's look at this "loss". In 2001, according to the annual report on the Library's own web site, they were given $18.8 from the City budget. (Although the proposed city budget had planned to give them $20 million-- is there a missing $1.2 million out there?) -- They say they received additional revenue from other sources to bring their total revenue to $23.5 million. They only spent $20.5 million. They ended the year 2001 with $3 million in hand. Nevertheless, in 2002 they were given a 9.9% increase from the City. Let me repeat that, it's important: in 2001 they had $3 million left over, but they got an increase of almost 10% anyway. Now they are asking for another increase: 6.8% (assuming they actually get the $22 million the City budget had planned to give them in 2002-- I don't have time to try to reconcile the many different library budget numbers I've seen for 2001, let alone track down partial 2002 spending to see if it's on track). > part-time employees. We would lose no fewer than 52 employees. Monday is > the busiest day of the week at all community and district libraries. If Monday is the busiest days for all those libraries then why in the honking heck is the Library Board floating closing them on Mondays to save money? If they want to close down for a weekday, how about if someone down there actually takes a look at usage patterns, and proposes closing on the day with the least traffic? > Here is the cost to you to maintain the library's budget request for > 2003: It is 1/3 cent per $1,000 of your taxed real property. I'm being > taxed at $118,000 in 2003. That means my additional tax to support > running the library for the full $1.5M is forty cents. Actually, based on dividing $1,500,000 by 382,000 citizens, if the cost were borne evenly, this increase amounts to $3.90 per person. But of course, expressed via property taxes the burden of this increase is shifted to businesses and the wealthy. But businesses will just put any increased tax expense back into their prices, or they will leave town. Ditto, apparently, the rich folks (some of whom have recently declined the Library Board's excellent offers to come join us here in the City of Lakes). -michael libby (cleveland/north Mpls) References: MPL Annual Report: http://www.mpls.lib.mn.us/basics.asp City 2001/2002 Budget Info: http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/citywork/city-coordinator/finance/services-budget/budget-book2002.html <signature> <name>Michael C. Libby</name> <email>[EMAIL PROTECTED]</email> <web-site>http://www.ichimunki.com/</web-site> <public-key>http://www.ichimunki.com/public_key.txt</public-key> </signature> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE9tpW/4ClW9KMwqnMRArfdAJ9Qpop7gRMWcwSxbW5bqtqe+1ExvACgm37H 2rJeQEVTBIhdO1zL7dVRldg= =pO7S -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:mpls@;mnforum.org Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
