We’re done. It’s finished. The 2008-2009 City budget was approved by the City Council at its meeting on Tuesday night. At just a few minutes over 4 hours, it was the longest Council meeting of the year, but the City has a budget for the upcoming biennium. Today’s posting is the internal release we posted on our Intranet for employees describing the budget.
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12/19/2007
At its Dec. 18, 2007, meeting the Eden Prairie City Council approved a 2008 City budget. The 2008 budget has a tax levy of $30,665,882, an increase of $749,212, or 2.5 percent over the City’s 2007 tax levy of $29,916,670. The newly approved City budget for 2008 is $40,851,327, increasing expenditures by $1,590,014, or 4 percent over the adopted 2007 City budget.
The additional property tax impact of the City’s 2008 tax levy on Eden Prairie’s median single family home is projected to be at or near zero. The median single family home is valued at $374,800 in 2008. The City’s property taxes on the median single family home in 2007 were $1,073. As a result of the Council’s action on the City’s 2008 budget, the estimated City property tax for the median single family home is $1,072.
The 2008 City budget includes funding for the continuation of the City’s current service, program and staffing levels with a few exceptions. The 2008 budget includes more than $800,000 for operating costs at the newly expanded Community Center. It also includes new staff positions in the Police Department, Facilities Division and the Information Technology Division. The 2008 budget also includes reductions in the scope of two City programming areas: heritage preservation and immigrant services. Plans to address these program reductions will be drafted early in 2008 and presented to the Council in February.
City staff will prepare the final budget documents for submission to Hennepin County by the end of next week. The 2008 budget will be posted to the City’s Web site in January.
This has been a challenging year for those of us who work on the City budget. On behalf of everyone who worked on the budget this year, I want to thank employees for their help and patience as the process worked its way to the final approval at last night’s Council meeting. For those employees who devoted hundreds of hours of time and energy into creating and presenting the 2008 City budget to the Budget Advisory Commission and the City Council – Thank You! Your work is very much appreciated.
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It feels good to be done with the budget this year. Now I’m looking forward to getting the work done over the next two years.
