It’s not always all about the money, but it’s budget time again here at the City, so, for a couple of months here, it’s mostly about the money.
City staff will present a preliminary budget for 2005 to the Council at the Council’s August 17th workshop. We hold a 60 minute workshop with the Council prior to each Council meeting. The workshop format allows City staff and City Council to be a bit less formal and to have constructive dialogue about the many issues we deal with in city government. Our official Council meetings are not generally a good format for this same kind of give-and-take, back-and-forth dialogue. The workshops are educational. Council meetings are more legislative and judicial in nature.
Unlike a Mayor-Council government, like Minneapolis where the Mayor prepares a budget and then tries to get the Council to go along with it, Eden Prairie operates as a Council-Manager government. In our form of government, City staff prepare a budget and seek Council approval of it. We have a good idea of what the Council is hoping to see in our budget. We try to prepare a budget that we think they will approve. Unlike Mayor-Council governments where the budget can be a major source of political infighting, our budget process is not developed under premise that seeks to reward political friends and punish political enemies. Our budget is based on financial and management goals and objectives, which the City Council has previously signed off on.
In Eden Prairie, we operate on a two year budget cycle. We prepared, and the Council approved, a budget for 2004 and 2005 in late 2003. So the 2005 budget we are going to present to the Council is largely a budget that they have previously seen and approved. The only differences to this version of the 2005 budget are that we have updated revenue and expense numbers based on the new information.
Generally, City operations and services for 2005 will be at the same level they are at in 2004. The only exception to that is in our Fire Department. We are getting ready to build our 4th (and probably final) Fire Station. In addition to the capital costs of the building, we will also need to add about 15 new volunteer firefighters.
For 2005, staff are recommending a budget that increases our 2004 budget by 2.9% to a total of $32,400,000. This budget proposal requires an increase in our City property tax levy of 3.3%. The median value home in Eden Prairie of $310,000 would see its City property taxes increase by an estimated $30.00 in 2005 if this budget is adopted. Here’s what other cities have tentatively announced they are going to do with their 2005 tax levy:
Brooklyn Park + 9.7%
Richfield + 5% to 8%
Coon Rapids + just under 5%
Champlin + 7.5%
Minnetonka + 4.5%
Plymouth 4.85% + 10.06%
Anoka + 4%
Maple Grove + 6.22 to 8.04%
Eden Prairie + 3.6%
Minneapolis + 8%
The Council takes a look a the full budget proposal for the first time on August 17th. The Council must adopt a final budget for 2005 before December 31, 2004. I think we’ll meet that deadline.
