Victoria Heller asked: > > The City plans to collect $329.4 million from selling services (primarily > > water) and $158.6 million from property taxes.
Carol: The City has five major enterprises, Solid Waste, Water, Sewer, Storm Sewer, and Parking. Water would be probably a fifth of this total if this figure above is suppose to represent revenues generated from enterprise services "selling" products. > > Do you think it would be more honest to sell water "at cost" and double > > property taxes - so taxpayers would know how much it really costs to run > > the City? Carol: Water revenues are kept in the Water Fund and all water related expenditures are made out of that fund, meaning that rates are "at cost". Property taxes are not subsidizing water. Taking revenues out of that fund and using them for other unrelated activities is illegal as well as bad accounting. If that is happening, some good citizen should sue the City for misappropriation of funds. And other than street sweeping, which to me has a tenuous connection to sewers, and Clean City, which to me has a tenuous relationship to Solid Waste, what Ms. Heller alledges I don't see happening. > > Question 2 (two parts) > > > > Assuming the MCDA collects the $48.8 million of "rents" and all of the TIF > > property taxes of $61 million, the Agency's total income would be $109.8 > > million. The MCDA expenditures are shown as $146.4 million. > > > > What does the Agency do with the $146.4 million? Carol: Their activities are detailed out in the budget book. Each project they do has a separate fund and the list gives you a good snapshot of the things the MCDA is involved in. > > Why is there a $36.6 million shortfall? Carol: I would doubt that there is a $36M shortfall. Taking a swing at this without having all the figures in front of me, my guess is that the majority of the difference is grants that the MCDA receives. When I was doing more of this, this would have included federal funds like CDBG, state grants for affordable housing and brownfield cleanup, UDAG and other grant funds. > > Question 3 > > > > Last year, Minneapolis received $62 million from the State. The new budget > > shows $158 million coming from the State. Carol: Checking the 2001 budget, the amount was in the $151 M range. The City received more than $62M in 2002 from the state so the difference isn't as dramatic as it is being shown here. There may have been some different accounting of the figures however, so there may be problems with apples to apples comparisons due to the tax reforms. > > In view of the State deficit, do you think this is realistic? Carol: I think that given that we have a governor who has pledged: 1) to not only not touch K-12 (which is 40% of the budget), but to give them an inflationary increase 2) to not balance the budget on the backs of the employees (which couldn't be done anyway, there are not enough salary costs to even come close to solving this problem even if you cut every state employee) . 3) to hold higher education harmless (10% of the budget) 4) to not cut services for the elderly (about 20% of the budget) 5) to not raise taxes or undo the tax "reform" of last year, which is contributing about $2B of the $5.7B problem (which is the $4.6B plus inflation).... I think that one of the only places the governor hasto go is to local governments and any city should brace for potentially dramatic cuts. Until the session is done, you are just making educated guesses at what will happen in six months. But you have to start with a budget that starts somewhere. I always thought that having the state and local governments on the same calendar would make very much sense so local government didn't go through half a year budget without knowing what their revenues for the year were going to be. > > Question 4 > > > > The City expects to collect $146.4 million from "other" sources. This is > > almost as much as the total property taxes. > > > > Do you know where this money is supposed to come from? Carol: Yes I do. > > Question 5 > > > > The City is in debt for more than $1.5 billion. The budget shows "debt > > service" payments of $122 million. > > > > How do you plan to reduce the debts before interest rates increase? Carol: The Board of Estimate staff constantly review interest rates and the debt that is in the City's portfolio. When interest rates are favorable, it will propose refunding portions of the debt to lower interest rates. This, for example, is where the money for the NRP came from. > > Last Question (two parts) > > > > How did we get into this financial mess? > > What is your plan for getting out of this financial mess? As I am not running for anything, I will reserve those answers for those who are. Carol Becker Not the Third Ward _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
