Abby Nadeau
Staff Writer

On Monday, the Forest Lake City Council voted 4-1 to set their proposed general revenue levy at $6,874,393, an increase of 9.9 percent over 2007.

City Administrator Chip Robinson said that the city started with a budget with a 25 percent increase and was able to cut it down to 9.9 percent.

However, during the council meeting Mayor Stev Stegner believed the city could cut more.

“I feel that the budget right now is too high,” he said. “The city has increased its spending 40 percent since 2004 and it makes no sense to increase our budget by 9.9 percent.”

He said that the city needs to make some “sound cuts” and that they should look into leasing people instead of hiring people.

While Council member Susan Young agreed that more could be cut from the budget, other council members did not.

Council member Greg Ochs said he approved the budget not for today, but for tomorrow.

“I’m thinking of tomorrow and the year after so that we have the appropriate funds,” Ochs said. He added that this budget increase will be used to facilitate future growth.

The council then voted 4-1 to approve the budget, with Stegner voting no.

The council cannot increase the levy from the original $6.8 million, but they are able to cut items from the budget until the final numbers will be presented during the Truth in Taxation hearing on Monday, Dec. 3.

“We need to promise each other that we will have at least two more work sessions with very frank discussions about the budget,” Young said.

The budget

Since June, city officials and department heads have been working together to finalize the 2008 city budget.

Each head of the department gives the city administrator, Chip Robinson, and finance director, Ellen Paulseth, input on the items they need to function as a city and then the city works to accommodate, in the realm of their budget, the needs of the departments.

In the 2008 budget, Robinson and ?Paulseth worked to fully explain the role of each department by describing many aspects about the specific department, including their organizational chart, their activity description, mission statements, 2008 goals and objectives of the department, as well as their expenditure summary.

Then the budget lists where the money was spent in 2006, where it is estimated to be spent in 2007 and where it is proposed in 2008, giving the community a thorough picture of where each department is spending its money.

Some departments spend the majority of their budget in wages and benefits, while other spend more in materials and supplies.

Following the department summaries, each department lists what exactly they are spending their money on.

For instance, in the police department’s budget they have allocated $8000 for a new snowmobile for winter patrols on the lake and $31,000 for a new squad car.

More specifically, the city’s revenues are estimated to be $9,102,743. The city’s revenues are up 8.64 percent over 2007’s revenues of $8,333,000.

The 2008 budget sets the city’s expenses at $9,982,743, compared to 2007’s estimated expenses of $8,566,068.

The city’s expenditures include $3.1 million for police protection and $1.3 million is proposed to be spent on streets, as well as an additional $1.2 million in the total capital outlay.

Much of city’s revenue, almost $6.9 million, will come from property taxes, with an additional $806,539 from intergovernmental sources like state aid and state and federal grants. Another $519,200 will come from licenses and permits and $595,750 will come from service charges.

Property taxes

As stated in the budget overview the “city’s certified property tax levy will increase by 9.9 percent in fiscal year 2008 over fiscal year 2007, compared to a 20.9 percent increase in the fiscal year 2007 over fiscal year 2006.

However, the property tax rate (the factor that is applied to the property owner’s taxable market value) will only increase by 2.9 percent.”

The budget statement said the percentage increase is due “to the growth in the taxing district. As the city grows, so does the demand for services.”

Robinson said the 2.9 percent increase in property tax rates would equal, for a $250,000 home, an additional $60 a year, or $5 a month.

mayor’s concerns

Since August, the city council and mayor have met with various city officials during budget workshops.

On Thursday, Sept. 6, on the third and last budget meeting, Stegner approached Robinson and Paulseth about his own concerns for the budget.

Stegner said he was concerned about the tax impact worksheet and said he was “challenged to believe there is a 4.1 percent increase in the market value.”

Robinson said the city has no control over the estimated percentage number Washington County set.

Stegner also brought up the idea of outsourcing to other companies for city services.

Robinson asked Public Works Director Mike Tate to speak to the idea of outsourcing for his department.

Tate said that when the city outsources, in his experience, they lose control over their services.

He said that the city use to outsource to Washington County and when that happened, Tate said, all the county roads were plowed first, before the city’s roads.

Stegner also approached Police Chief Clark Quiring about the amount of sergeants he had on staff. He questioned whether there were too many police sergeants that were supervising.

Robinson said that after speaking with Quiring, “command and control standards state that a supervisor should have between three to five persons to supervise. We are at four.”

He added that “the city also needs supervision on each shift. This requires a minimum of four sergeants.”

During the city council meeting on Monday, Stegner brought his concerns back to the council.

He said he felt “pretty dejected” because the budget “did not go down one dollar.”

Other council members seemed to be surprised that Stegner was not pleased with the budget.

“I was at two of the meetings and I didn’t hear your recommendations for a decrease,” Young said. “I would have felt much better and felt more respected as a peer if you had brought those forward in a workshop discussion.”

Once the council voted on the levy, Robinson followed it up with his own statement.

“One responsibility that you give me is to prepare a budget that looks forward,” Robinson said. “We start with a huge amount and we keep cutting it down farther and farther and we maintain the level of service needed. We started at 25 percent and we ended up with 9.9 percent.”

Young suggested the council discuss where they want to cut items from the budget. She suggested looking at fireworks, the weed harvester, six-day overtime pays during the Fourth of July and replacing sidewalks that are already existing.

Ochs ended the conversation by agreeing that cuts need to be made, but he wanted the council to make sure they make the right cuts.

“There are certain things that we can cut, but is it a smart cut, a reasonable cut and is it something the citizens would want to see cut?” he asked.

The council did not set any dates for future budget discussions.

The budget must be finalized by the Truth in Taxation Hearing on Dec. 3, at 7 p.m.

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