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City’s budget cutting a muddled mess |
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Wednesday, 12 December 2007 |
If you live on Forest Lake and like the idea that the city of Forest Lake has made a practice of cutting lake weeds each summer, get ready for a change. The weed harvesting program has been suspended for 2008.
If you’ve been pleased that the city has been proactive in beefing up police public safety in terms of officers and equipment and taking strides to better maintain streets and parks, get ready for a change. The city council has cut plans to fill an existing police officer position and won’t hire a new worker for street and park maintenance.
If you were excited by the progress and potential for a community center being built here soon, cool your jets. The city has cut a funding proposal to provide dollars for a possible bond issue vote and information campaign next year.
These are just a number of the budget cuts enacted by the Forest Lake City Council on Monday. The cuts were recommended by City Administrator Chip Robinson after it appeared clear he was working with a city council that wasn’t happy with the budget and tax levy proposal that has gone through the tax hearing process.
Although some of the reductions that came about this week were the general ideas of some on council, Robinson will forever carry the burden as the official who proposed the cuts, be they good or bad for the community.
It is understandable that Robinson took the direction that he did.
The sad fact is that the city council failed miserably in its duty to help plan and guide the budget process from its start in the spring. Only in the 11th hour did some on the council raise concerns.
When a public forum was called to collect citizen input, only a handful of citizens attended and the best they could offer was for the city to cut the budget across the board 20 percent. Council members sat on their hands and continued to do so until forcing Robinson’s actions this week.
After all was said and done on Monday, the budget reduction plan the administrator put forward will cut just under $389,000 from the general fund for 2008. The adjustment will lower the 2008 city property tax levy from the earlier reported $7.2 million to $6.8 million.
What was once a 9.9 percent tax hike has been reduced to 4 percent as the now official levy of $6.8 million is some $300,000 greater than the $6.5 million tax levy for this year.
If the council would truly have followed the wishes of the group who lobbied for a 20 percent cut, that would have been roughly $1.4 million and not just under $389,000. There appeared to be little stomach for that action by our city leaders.
There are many who agree it is time to pull back government spending. Homes for the most part are not selling for their county-determined values and those valuation declines will surely impact the 2009 budget for all forms of government.
But there has to be a serious look at the services government provides and how you pay for them. Without any form of state local government aid, there is more pressure on the local property tax. That’s a fact.
How will these cuts shake out? Perhaps the masses who have no interest in budget planning meetings and tax hearings, but leave the complaining to the same old group here, will remain silent. The lack of a cop, a squad car and a street worker probably won’t have a direct impact.
Those who live on the lake and pay hefty tax bills because of the value of lakeshore property may be the ones dinged the most by the suspension of the weed harvesting program. The city will now explore other ways to take care of weeds.
That could mean asking the newly formed Forest Lake Lake Improvement Association to take it over or finding a way to chemically treat the lakes. The weed harvesters will go into dry-dock, it would appear.
Credit for the council’s willingness to end the weed harvesting program has to go to Councilwoman Susan Young. She has led this charge and is on record questioning why government should run a program that benefits the few at the expense of the many.
It wasn’t that long ago when the city demanded the Hopkins Jaycees buy a weed harvester as its donation for having the ice fishing contest here.
What is acceptable in terms of the taxes people pay? If you go by the recent Citizens League survey that ranked the 113 cities in the metro area, Forest Lake was 104th on list on the lowest paying cities. It’s not quite the bottom, but pretty close.
Was it too much to expect our elected city council to shepherd a policy that would lead to a carefully planned and shaped city budget that would take taxes paid and public services into balance? It just never happened.
What did happen, of course, was the council essentially forced an administrator to pull out the hatchet and do his worst. And now there is talk of a citizens oversight committee to help with budget planning next year.
Perhaps we need to examine why there are council elections every two years? If a citizens oversight committee is the answer, the city council just may be something we can do without.
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