Jan D.C. asks: Will someone with a fine mathematical mind please try to sort out the conflicting statements about the cuts in LGA.� The Governor says a city should be able to cut 5% with no sweat and that is all any one city is being asked to do.� Others say that the City will take a 30% hit.� On what base are these statements talking about - does anyone know?
I would have to agree that a city should be able to trim 5% from its budget, but I'd like to know what the real numbers are. Me: Great question, Jan! The "30 percent hit" (perhaps as large as 40-something percent) refers to the city's general fund budget - mostly property taxes - that pay for city services such as police, fire and public works (and also licenses, inspections, planning, council & mayor's office, etc.) But the general fund is "just" $300-some million of the overall $1 billion-plus city budget. The latter figure is the "total local spending" the governor's office refers to. What's the difference? First, the city has very extensive background on its website, ci.minneapolis.mn.us. Here's a more compact link to a recent budget explainer: http://makeashorterlink.com/?F30F13883 (see page 17) According to it, the non-general-fund budget consists of: * Enterprise Funds. These include services that the City provides that operate more like a �business� that are expected to generate a profit to cover capital purchases and related debt service requirements. Enterprise services include sanitary sewer services, storm water management, flood mitigation, water treatment and distribution, solid waste and recycling, and municipal parking. * Internal Services Funds are similar to Enterprise Funds in that they are used to account for services that the City provides that operate more like a business - however, Internal Service Funds primary customer is other City departments. Internal services include information technology, equipment rental (i.e. police squad cars and fire equipment), and self-insurance. (Addendum from me: during the Sayles Belton years, the Internal Services Fund ran a big deficit; now, several million dollars from the general fund - property taxes and LGA - are being spent to replenish this fund.) * Other Funds include: Special Revenue Funds where specific revenues are restricted to expenditures for specific purposes. Services accounted for in the Other Funds include such services and operations as the Minneapolis Convention Center, and other grant funded services. * The Independent Boards include Board of Estimate and Taxation, Library, Park, Community Development Agency, Neighborhood Revitalization, Municipal Building Commission, and Youth Coordinating Board. Me again: So you can pick your philosophical comparison. The city would say that the enterprise, internal services and other funds are designed as break-even propositions that pay their own costs and debt, so they aren't property tax supported and aren't discretionary. (In other words, cutting these services would actually cut revenues). On the other hand, property taxes and LGA support services that don't generate income and aren't expected to run a profit, like police, fire and public works. The governor might say "why exclude the independent boards, MCDA and NRP administration, your own equipment purchases from your calculations?" They might also ask why sewer, water and parking funds can't be bigger profit centers (although many claim they already are.) Public plea: I do hope someone more experienced than I from the city or MCDA weighs in here. I'm doing my best as a lay person to answer these questions (which I need to know for my day job). However, now is a CRITICAL time to educate the public with the facts. If someone from the city doesn't have a ready answer they can post here, they need one NOW. David Brauer King Field TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Send all posts in plain-text format. 2. Cut as much of the post you're responding to as possible. ________________________________ 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
