It was another interesting week of Guest Bloggers last week. We’ve got writing talent in many different corners of our organization. We are thinking about launching a permanent “grab bag” sort of blog that a variety of employees would post to on a once-in-awhile basis. The two recent weeks of Guest Bloggers was a test to see if we had the writing talent or interest among employees to sustain such a new effort. The conclusion: yes and yes.
Back to business……
The City is still hammering out its proposed budget for 2008-2009. The most difficult decision for the Council is to make a decision on the scope of our municipal operations for next year. It’s actually not one single decision, but a long series of individual decisions about what the City will do and not do in 2008 and 2009. The end result of those decisions is an outcome on taxation.
Right now, the Council has been presented with two versions of the 2008-2009 budget. We call them Version 1.0 and Version 2.0, respectively. Council Member Jon Duckstad is going to ask his fellow Council Members to direct staff to prepare another version of the budget (I’ll bet we call it Version 3.0) at the Council’s meeting tomorrow night. Council Member Duckstad’s proposal would increase spending in 2008 $1,000,000 over its 2007 total. If the Council directs staff to prepare such an option, we’ll do it, of course.
For the moment, here is a comparison of proposed 2008 City property taxes to 2007 City property taxes of a zero increase budget proposal (Version 0.0), Version 1.0 and Version 2.0 from the perspective of each budget’s property tax impact on the Median Single Family Home (valued at $374,800):
Version 0.0 2008 Property Tax Impact: -2.57% ( a decrease of $28.00 for the year)
Version 1.0 2008 Property Tax Impact: +5.37 (an increase of $58.00 for the year)
Version 2.0 2008 Property Tax Impact: +2.08% (an increase of $22.00 for the year)
There is still more City budget discussion left to go, but these seem to be the parameters that are developing. The Council is expected to have additional budget discussion on October 18 and to have a final wrap up of the budget in December.
