Updated 8/30 with council meeting video embedded.
Good morning, Shakopee!
City Council got a lot of heavy lifting accomplished last night. In what was probably our most important meeting so far this year, we had big, great discussions as a council on where we are going as a city and how we get there.
I have 3 goals in the 2013 budget:
- Remove as much unnecessary spending as possible
- Fill gaps in staffing
- Stabilize our debt service
Our preliminary levy (total amount of property taxes paid by Shakopee residents and businesses) needs to be set by September 15 and I am very proud that we got the majority of the work done last night so we can approve it at our next meeting. It was not easy, councillors and staff had to make a lot of difficult decisions but I believe our decisions put Shakopee on a much more sound fiscal path into the future.
The final levy is passed in December for 2013 and we have a few decisions to make before that happens regarding the future of our fire services, the fee study and getting a better handle on our revenues and underspend for 2012.
Thank you to my fellow Councillors and our city team for being extremely positive and having a wonderful discussion last night!
2012 to 2013 Budget
Our city team did an amazing job of putting together a year over year budget with an increase of just $64,352 (.3% increase). This number includes all negotiated staff wage increases (averaging about 2%) and a 15% increase in anticipated health insurance costs.
They also completed the very difficult task of putting together ways we can further cut the budget. We were able to add $30,500 in revenues and will be completing a fee study by December to make sure we are covering our costs on fees and permits.
We also had big discussions over cuts. We decided to cut overtime spent at Derby Days ($1,700), Hometown Messenger will be part of the Park & Rec brochure ($23,000), advertise online for job postings ($1,500) and eliminate our little-used Public Access Channel in the age of YouTube ($5,000). Many of your ideas generated from my community survey were discussed and some implemented. (I’ll post the full list of your ideas soon.)
Meeting the needs of Shakopee
population overlayed with tax levy
Our population has grown significantly over the last 10 years. Until 2008, our tax levy for delivering services to our businesses and residents grew with that population and more phone calls, more police, more firefighters, more plows, etc. Since 2009, our tax levy has stayed flat and even reduced a few years. To keep that levy flat while delivering the services people expect, we did some interesting things. Here are the major changes we made to the 2013 budget to move Shakopee forward.
Debt Service
Shakopee voted in a referendum in the 2000′s to build a 2nd fire station on the east end of Vierling (not our new station). It takes $250,000 per year to pay back the bond for that voter-approved station. The last few years, in order to Continue Reading →
This is great!! Mad props to wifi.
