We have one item on our agenda today which is to receive public comments on the mayor's recommended 2027 budget. Mayor Fry presented his budget on August 12th providing a proposed fiscal plan for the city's operations in 2027 totaling $2.29 $29 billion with an increase to the city's property tax levy of about 11.3%.

The recommended budget was developed by the mayor to preserve core services while beginning to restore the financial stability needed to sustain them. At the highest level, the 2027 mayor's recommended budget totals approximately $2.29 billion when independent boards and transfers are included with forecasted revenue and other financing sources balanced at that same level.

So, I'm asking for $15,000 for two community Narcan dispensers at liquor stores at uh Lindel and Broadway, Plymouth, and Emerson. I'm asking the county with the opiate settlement funds, we need three Narcan dispensers on the north side, just like the south side because a storm is coming and all the progress you made could be reversed very quickly.

Ending funding for lead will shift the costs into jails, courts, shelters, and emergency rooms and erases relationships that took years to build. I respectfully ask the council to continue funding lead Minneapolis in 2027.

So that's why this coin enforcement program is so important because it supports workers like me to know our rights and to be able to stand up and defend them. many families like mine can't risk losing this funding and please fully fund the code enforcement program so that we don't have to come back every year and keep fighting for it.

During the federal shut down of SNAP, 60,000 Minneapolis residents and 14 residents. I would ask you to please cut my grant. I don't care. I'm scrappy. I'll find the money. keep the staff. You can't replace them.

That is why investing in youth and families cannot be treated as optional. Youth programs, mentorship, recreation, community resources, and family support are not extras. They are prevention. And I believe we need to think about public safety in the same way.

I understand the need to balance a shortfall and to relieve pressure on residents from a rising levy. But these are successful, well- tested, and highquality programs such as green cost share, which has alone resulted in over $17 million in energy savings in slide 16. and it is wildly popular and overs subscribed every year.

Um, this budget is pretty clearly upside down. Um, you can't cut us to fund the police. Um, please stop investing in institutions that are not serving us and invest in us directly.

I call it genocide. And whatever you call it, it's a manufactured crisis that must end. I ask everyone here today to consider what deserves budgetary priority. ensuring that the basic needs of all are met by measures like public housing and safe injection sites are giving $246 million to the cops while 45 million go to public health. Please make it make sense.

Um I know some other council members have raised just as we're thinking about going into this next budget cycle. Um what and probably the city attorneys might need to weigh in on this. what would happen if uh the mayor was to veto this uh budget that we did reconcile, what the steps would be, what does it mean for the previous property levy, if that would be reinstated, will we have the cash reserves to also essentially cover the 2026 proposed uh or let me say adopted levy.

The short answer is it puts the city in uncharted territory. So we've never had a failure to pass a budget. Um, so I don't want to use the term financial crisis, but it would certainly be an interesting scenario were we not to successfully pass a budget this year.