Thanks, Jim Graham, for the first-hand report. I'd like to keep the thread going with a few questions. (Disclaimer: long post)
> During the Mayor's presentation today Mayor Rybak stated that we would have > to begin the debate about the NRP cut. I (Jim Graham) answered RT that this > debate had already been engaged in and was over. The debate took place > before the last election. The politicians promising no cuts to NRP and to > leave neighborhood control of NRP and empower those Neighborhoods won the > debate. The Mayor and several candidates for City Council won on the basis > of these commitments to keep NRP intact and promises to find the funding for > it. We gave money, support, and votes on the basis of those commitments. > It is NOT up for debate about funding NRP; it is up to those making the > commitment to find the funds. That the taxpayers of Minneapolis should have > a referendum on where and what they would be willing to see tax increases > for. The Mayor said he would oppose such a referendum. (The Mayor and City > Council Members do not trust the people to spend the people's tax dollars in > the places the politicians think are important I guess.) OK. But the current crop of electeds has locked in a pledge of RAISING the city's property tax haul by 8 percent per year. If you want to preserve NRP, it seems to me you have two basic choices: raise property taxes MORE (and remember, that 8 percent overall translates into 13 percent per year for residential, thanks to state tax reforms) or cut some other spending MORE. Jim has a plan below. I think the rest of you need to ponder what you would do/support. And discuss it here. The police make up 32 percent of the 2003 property-tax-supported budget alone; they are getting 23 percent of the cuts. The next two biggest categories are fire and public works - which brings the budget slice to 59 percent. According to the city's 5-year projections, they need to cut $55 million in anticipated spending growth. The police come in for $12 million in cuts, fire for $2 million and public works for $8.4 million. That's about half of what you need. Now you have to find $23 million in cuts from other departments: the next biggest are Info Technology ($13 million budget this year), Inspections (also $13 million, slated for no cuts under the projection), Licenses ($6 million), Finance ($5 million) and City Attorney ($4.6 million). No other function - City attorney, human resources, health & family, clerk, assessor, civil rights, mayor, council - costs more than $4 million. Another big expense you could cut is paying off the Internal Services fund deficit - amount city departments spent in the past that was put on a credit card. The city proposes to spend $10 million this year on that. You could postpone the payback, but you pay higher interest costs PLUS your bond rating will go down, raising borrowing costs more. There's also a $4 million community development fund that's slated to be wiped out. So...get me to $55 million in cuts, or raise taxes by more than the 8 percent overall, 13 percent overall residential. Think of it as Sim City for list members. At this point, I'm not advocating a plan because I'm still trying to assess. I'd love help from list members - with numbers attached. > RT Rybak and Paul Ostrow gave answers about things changing now, about > unexpected debts, they had not anticipated 9-11, etc. Can anyone tell me > how 9-11 affected the City of Minneapolis' policy or debt? I don't think it was a major factor, but it did raise police and fire and some public works costs. Jim is right to ask for specifics here. Good question. <snip> > What the Mayor and City Council should be doing is admitting they have a > problem and asking how to solve it. Not telling us that they learned from > Brookfield's about defaulting on contracts so they are now defaulting on > their contract and commitment about NRP. Sorry folks, our leaders may be > stupid enough to allow contracts to be unfulfilled, but the public is not. > Remember that is why we got rid of the old leaders, they lied to us. So ask > for help and you will receive it, but please cut the crap, it is insulting. I think this is too easy. If any of you have read "The Power Broker" by Robert Caro, about NYC strongman Robert Moses, you know a favorite strategy is to lock in bond commitments - loans that must be repaid - which become "non-discretionary" compared to other public spending. That's what the old city crew did. Bad policy, and most paid at the polls. But that doesn't change the reality for RT and crew. I don't think any of the current fiscal hawks - Ostrow and Barret Lane, to name two - favored the Cherryhomes stratagems. But they're stuck with them. You can't save money at this point by blaming old bad loans. You can only not do them going forward. I do think a ballpark is officially toast. Add to that HUGE pension debt that HAS ballooned due to post-2000 market drops, made worse by post-9/11 economic malaise. That's TENS OF MILLIONS of borrowing that the current mayor had nothing to do with. Paying back this debt really limits the amount of debt you can take on in tough times to preserve spending - and also keeps you from deferring debt on things like the Internal Services fund. > Suggestions: > 1. Do not even think of cutting the number of patrol officers unless you > have figured out how to give us better policing. It is illegal and would > trigger a lawsuit. On what basis? > 2. Cut City employee pay by 2% across the board except for senior staff and > City Council and Mayor, cut those salaries by 10%. Cuts to be in affect > until budget crises solved. Senior staff, the Council, and the Mayor got us > into this mess and they need incentive to get us out. Good specific. Budget heads: how much would this add up to? The combined budget of the Mayor's office and Council is about $2 million per year, with $600,000 in spending growth between now and 2008. I'll assume you save the entire spending growth, plus 3 percent on the $2 million (the salary cut, between the 10 percent for a few and 2 percent for most). That gets you a total cut of $660,000 from mayor and council - you only have $54.34 million to go. Obviously, cutting city salaries would produce much more. How much? Good question. The city has 4,600 employees. Figure average salary at $60,000 (I have no clue, just a guess, probably high), you save $5.52 million per year with an immediate 2 percent cut - or $25 million through the life of the budget. There are added savings from no increases in future years. Jim may have solved the problem right here. But union agreements mean such cuts can't happen right away. But would anyone (including good police officers) work for the city, and what affect would the inevitable strikes have? Layoffs seem one obvious budget solution. They do mean less people doing work, though. This is obviously where union influence will be deployed. It will be interesting to see how strongly councilmembers resist layoffs, and what the public has to say about it. > 2. Sell City owned land in an open process to get maximum profit from it. > Have Neighborhoods review bids and approve winner since the income will go > into the NRP pot. Intriguing...although we did elect the council to make such decisions. > 3. Stop ALL MCDA community development grants except for Citizen > Participation funding to Neighborhoods. Freeze would take place immediately > and require re-approval of all such past grants not already disbursed in > light of present budget shortfall. Community participation grants are bedrock and should be preserved. Don't think they should be the only thing, though. > 4. Freeze all grants to large developers. No matter when made. Don't think you can do that on past deals - see above. > 5. Re-posses and sell all property not up to date on payments of City Loans. OK. Sometimes, though, workout plans really do make more financial sense. > 6. Freeze all non-NRP TIF Seems attractive...but again, may give too much power to the neighborhoods. > 7. Fund portions of NRP from other City sources. (MCDA would be a good > source, since NRP takes care of more community development than other City > entities. This is an option. Not sure NRP needs to be maintained as a separate program, though, to accomplish this. > Find new revenue streams: > 1. Make all Real Estate property in Minneapolis taxable at City Level, > including that held by non-profits, and other government entities where > possible, even that which is exempt by other taxing entities. A state law change needed? > 2. Charge higher service charges for services provided to other government > entities and non-residents. That can come back to bite you, especially at the legislature. > 3. Best new income stream - Start a City owned Casino at the old Sears > building. Use profits to fully fund NRP and set aside 10% of profits to go > to Native Community, including those not from reservations with casinos. > State tax the profits from the casino. Such a casino would use two floors > of the building, but would make the remainder far more valuable retail and > commercial space; - tax it. This would also free Minneapolis from the > vagaries of the Legislature. If enough is left over, put some into the > general fund and buy a stadium for the "powers that be". (A little for > everyone) Note to neighbors: you want this? Do we want to fund neighborhood improvement on the back of the poor and gambling addicts? Also, you need the state to approve this - and I suspect they like having us by the vagaries. > As I said several months ago, there will be an attack on NRP by city > officials. It has already started. Neighborhoods need to organize to > address the problem NOW. City officials say they want neighborhoods working > cooperatively to address mutual problems; Neighborhoods should give the City > such cooperative efforts in at least this one situation. Neighborhoods > should organize to cooperatively stop the destruction of NRP. I think neighborhoods should work with the city to discuss comprehensive solutions. I don't think the first step was a good approach. The meeting yesterday was too soon and too poorly organized. Why does the council have to have something voted on by Jan. 17th? More time, please. That said, I'll repeat my wife's question over breakfast this morning: "If the budget is being cut so much, why SHOULDN'T NRP take its share of the cuts?" > David Bower says, "City Officials will tell you neighborhood power will be > changed, not undone." David is correct, City Officials want all such power > changed back into Council control, but not undone. They want neighborhoods > to continue to give input, but not about how to spend money and not if the > input does not support what the Council wishes to do. I think this is too harsh. Cynicism is justified, but Jim's conclusion is far from foregone. Sorry for the length, but I do think this is an important debate to have, here and elsewhere. David Brauer (the German spelling, with the "r") King Field _______________________________________ 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
