[Music] welcome to agenda Edina a program summarizing the actions taken at City Hall that affect you most I'm your host dorothia Marty the city is starting the new year with a Slimmer budget than originally planned the adopted budget is nearly 5% less than recommended by staff city manager Scott Neil developed the 2025 budget in response to feedback from residents prioritizing significant investments in public safety while still upholding high levels of city services across all departments the original proposal included a $ 61.5 million tax levy an increase of 13.14% from 2024 of that 5.46% was specifically earmarked to fund the expansion of Public Safety services including the opening of Fire Station 2 and adding new police and fire Personnel the rest of it was to cover city-wide operating costs fund projects and the capital Improvement plan support the street special Levy and update the city zoning ordinance council members were not comfortable with a double- digigit levy increase between the December 3rd public hearing and Levy adoption later in the month the finance department worked hard behind the scenes and offered some possible reductions use cash reserves for zoning ordinance updates instead of levying for the expense use cash reserves to pay for the design of a new cold storage building for Public Works use Public Safety Aid funding from the state to pay for some police equipment and funds from the equipment replacement Levy to pay for some garage safety improvements at Centennial Lakes defer improvements to the shelter at Lewis Park delay hiring new paramedic firefighters until January 20126 reduce the general fund by 1% the council accepted all of the suggested reductions and approved a budget of just over 47.3 million with an 8.44 per Levy increase Neil and his executive leadership team will work to reduce the general fund to get to the adopted 2025 budget council members also challenged staff and each other to Begin work now to reduce the 2026 budget projections my big concern to make a dent in the 2026 because we can't come back with another double digit increase so then it's all right we got to have the tough conversation and do the work starting now now to contract our expenses and it's hard work we got to make tough decisions but we have to do that with the community um we just we have to do that work and I think that will take us almost a full year to have those conversations so that when we come into August of 2025 we have a really good idea of how um we can um adjust our expenses and service levels and what have you to have a projected Target um that is more reasonable the council also approved the 2025 to 2030 Capital Improvement plan at its last meeting of 2024