good evening I want to call to order this truth and Taxation public hearing for the city of Richfield it is November 26 2024 and it is 6:33 PM gonna first turn it over to council member whan thank you mayor uh this item is to conduct a truth in taxation public hearing regarding the 2025 property tax levy in 2024 revised and 2025 proposed budget as well as the proposed 2025 utility rates at the September 10th 2024 city council meeting city council adopted the 2025 preliminary property tax levy and announced today November 26th at 6:30 p.m as the date and time for the statutory truth in taxation public hearing hennipin county mailed the proposed 2025 property tax statements to property owners in Richfield the statements are based upon the proposed Lev and announce the date of today's public hearing um with that I will turn it over to our staff who I believe have a presentation thank you and good evening mayor and council members Finance has prepared a short presentation for tonight's hearing screen um looking at the timeline of key events Council has approved the in September tonight is the scheduled truth and Taxation hearing and the council is scheduled to approve the final budget and Lev during its meeting on December 10th um here is an overview of the key budget issues in 2024 and 2025 work force participation remains below pre pandemic levels we have budgeted a cola increase at 3% average Step increase for non-union employees as per the revised Compensation Plan and Market adjustments for negotiated contracts salary and benefits of employees account for nearly 71% of the total general fund budget city is going to be issuing B next month and in 2025 Richfield voters approved local sales tax increase to help finance a new community center Woodlake Nature Center along with upgrades at Veterans Park inflation has eased but remains elevated continuing with the key issues local government Aid for2 25 is projected to remain relatively stable with an increase of only $18,000 in contrast the previous year saw a substantial increase of 1.3 million in the aid received fiscal disparity Aid is going to significantly increase by $975,000 in 2025 there is some improvement in license and permits Revenue with a forecasted increase of $38,000 Levy Levy for Fleet and technology is increasing by 26.6% this would ensure that funding is available to support essential upgrades Eda Levy is incorporated into the city Levy and is subject to a 4% increase Levy for 2025 will increase from 5.45% over 2024 Lev here is a summary of the state aid received over past 10 years please note that this Revenue Source has been very unstable in 2024 the city received a significant increase of 1.3 million in LGA Aid however the expected aid for 2025 remains relatively unchanged there is a forecast of City reserves which is projected to reach 6.7 million at the end of 2025 city does not plan transferring any funds from Capital reserves into the general fund in 2024 or 2025 forecast for the utilization of City's Capital reserves annual transfers to Ice Arena are planned to bring it into the positive territory currently Ice Arena has a negative fund balance of 2.5 million swimming pool ended operations swimming pool operations ended positive in 2023 no transfers to general fund is planned in 2024 the additional LGA money of that the significant increase we noted we received in 2024 is expected to close the gaps City budgeted a surplus in 2025 to eliminate the need for any future transfers from the long-term reserves Levy for roll rolling stocks um Fleet and technology has been increased by 26.6% to mitigate the need for future transfers from Reserves here is the detailed Levy calculation totaling 29.9 million the proposed Levy is an increase of 5.45% over 2024 Levy um general fund Levy 23 million equipment Levy 1.5 million um edl Levy 624 th000 there's also a Debt Service Levy of $4.1 million this slide presents the comparison of the proposed 2025 Levy increase with previous proposed levies the average Richfield home increased in value from 317,000 to 319,000 in 2025 the proposed Levy would increase annual tax of $86 on average Richfield household equating to a monthly impact of approximately $717 the anticipated combined impact of the levy increase and the increase in utility fee is projected to result in an average additional cost of $143 for Richfield home owners this trans translates to an additional cost of 12 additional cost of $12 per month this includes the property tax levy increase reported on the previous slide 2025 proposed budget is 5.93% higher compared to 2024 adopted budget and 4.86% higher compared to that 2024 revised budget this graph shows increase in City's general fund budgeted expenditure the average increase has been 4.99% the proposed increase for next year is 5.93% here is a breakdown of general fund Revenue categories revenue for 2024 has been adjusted from 30.8 million to 31.2 million 2025 revenues are budgeted at 32.7 here is the revenue Pi showing different slices of the general fund Revenue property taxes account for 72% of the general fund Revenue other Revenue sources range between 1% to 16% this slide provides a breakdown of expenses by departments 2024 expenses are being adjusted from 30.9 million to 31.2 million 2025 proposed budget is 32.7 million recommendations of the compensation and class study was implemented in 2024 in 25 staff has planned a surplus of 424,000 to minimize the necessity of transferring funds from Capital reserves thereby ensuring compliance with the city policy of maintaining a 40% fund balance here is the expenditure Pi showing different slices of cities general fund expenditure Staffing update um city is adding 7.5 FTE the existing admin assistant position that supported both executive and fire department has been transitioned into a full-time role within the fire department a new admin assistant position is established to support the executive and City Clerk Division Finance added one accounting technician adding one firefighter and two full-time police officers a full-time temporary engineering Position will be established to support multiple projects over the next three years one full-time solid based coordinator position that will be fully funded from the score Grant from County the role of the recreation coordinator has been expanded to a full-time position of the total 7.5 FTE only f are allocated to general fund city is budgeting $ 31.9 million to support various capital projects including 20.4 million in Recreation and open space improvements which include Woodlake Center and Veterans Park Fleet purchases sanitary sewer lining rehab of storm water infrastructure noise barrier along with along Highway 62 improvements to the 70th Street and 73rd Street and Public Works storage facility continuing with the capital budget the total cost of Fleet and Equipment purchases is estimated to be greater than 1.6 million of that 1.1 million will be funded from tax levy the the gap will be funded in part through the internal user fee charged to all divisions for providing high quality equipments that's all I have for tonight thank you for your time I'm happy to follow up on any questions the council may have is there anybody that has any questions before we open the public hearing all right then at this point we would open the public hearing if anyone is here in person who would like to speak uh as part of this truth and Taxation public hearing uh you can come up to the microphone over here um and happy to hear you speak is there anyone here in person that would like to speak to this item okay and I believe our uh did we have anyone request a call in ahead of time no okay last chance for anyone in person who would like to speak then I would make a motion that we close the public hearing second it's been moved and seconded to close the public hearing all in favor please say I I all opposed all right the public hearing is closed then I would make a motion to schedule the final action on the 2025 property tax levy the 2024 revised and 2025 proposed budget and the proposed 2025 utility rates at the regular city council meeting of December 10th 2024 second it's been moved in seconded is there any discussion I just want to thank the finance department and director Verma totally appreciate all of the work that you've done on this thank you all right all in favor please say I I I all opposed and we have passed the motion seeing that we have no further business a motion is in order to adjourn the truth and Taxation hearing second oh I would second I think you're making the motion moved it and it's been seconded it's been moved and seconded to adjourn this portion of the meeting all in favor please say I I I all opposed and meeting is adjourned we will convene the city council meeting at 7 pm thank you