[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 Adina City Council has set the maximum property tax levy for 2026, but will continue working to reduce it before the budget is finalized in December. Work on the city's 2026 2027 budget started earlier this year with several meetings between the council and city staff. Through those discussions, council members gave direction. Keep the tax levy increase under 10% if possible. Continue investing in public safety, especially emergency medical services. Explore transitioning assessing services to Henipin County. and look for other ways to fund city services. City manager Scott Neil developed a strategy to match that guidance. It included limiting most department budget growth, reducing some staff positions, finding new revenue through utility franchise fees, prioritizing capital projects, carefully managing vacancies, and adjusting debt service to make room for the new fire station 2. We started our process early this year because we had some fiscal targets uh that the council gave us and we wanted to meet those targets. Uh a lot of hard decisions were made including losing some co-workers that we've uh grown accustomed to here. Uh but we were able to meet our targets and we'll continue to work on those later this fall. Last month, the council approved a preliminary tax levy of about $65.5 million for 2026, which is just over an 11% increase from this year. That increase would allow the fire department to hire 12 new paramedic firefighters, which would be enough to operate three ambulances around the clock more frequently. Neil had originally proposed funding six new paramedic firefighters with the potential for 12 if the city receives a federal safer grant. Because that grant has not yet been awarded, the council set the levy higher to ensure funds are available if needed. If the grant comes through, council members have said they will lower the levy before adopting the budget in December. If it doesn't, they may consider other reductions to avoid a double-digit increase. The city council will hold a public hearing on the budget 700 p.m.