Thomas Searles writes: > Actually, I think the wrong question was being asked. A more interesting > question would be, "Where has all of the money gone?" > > According to the Minneapolis budget, > http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/city-budget/2002adopted/Section3.pdf, Fire > counts for 3% (up $3.4 million from 2001), and Police count for 8% (up $1.8 > million from 2001) of the budget for 2002. > > The state provided $151 million to Mpls (down $2 million from 2001) and the > feds provided $39.2 million (up 0.5 million from 2001).
<snip> >I'm not buying it when some try to blame the state and federal > governments for all of Mpls' money woes. > > I welcome all corrections or clarifications to the numbers I have > referenced. First, Tom, thanks for providing a link to your source - that's not done enough. Your numbers are accurate but, I would argue, a tad misleading. A significant chunk of city spending is money that's simply not available for police, fire and most public works. At least 30 percent goes to pay for water, sewer and other bedrock services, and charges for them (utility bills) CAN'T be used for anything else. Another 10 percent is debt being paid back by specific projects - again, not there but for the project, and unavailable for general spending. Another 11 percent is general debt service. It's higher than I'd wish, and valid to criticize. However, we can't drop that number once it's there, at least when making current budgets. (Also, but the city has shown an ability to pay it off, with two-thirds of a Triple-A credit rating.) So basically, that leaves you with the other half of the budget (which, for you wonks, includes the city's Internal Services debt related to city operations). 44 percent of that half (22 percent overall) goes to park/library levies. That leaves the Minneapolis City Council with about 27 percent of Tom's baseline number to use for the police services we've been debating. 27 percent of $1.244 billion in spending equals roughly $336 million. (It's more or less the city's General Fund - see http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/city-budget/2002adopted/Section5.pdf - plus the Internal Services deficit.) Of that $336 million, the police spend $90 million (27 percent), Fire $42 million (12 percent) and Public Works $37 million (11 percent). So police, fire and public works gets half of spending including operations-related debt - or 64 percent of the General Fund without that debt. A final thing to consider: Tom used the city's 2002 budget (as am I)....but the state-aid cuts didn't kick in until 2003. The challenge the city faces is making up state cuts from the only place it can - the General Fund, which is two-third spent on police, fire and public works. Thus, those areas are where the cuts must largely come - thus the problem the council, and we as citizens, must wrestle with. David Brauer Kingfield REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
