um all right we do have a presentation for for this as well we can we can go through the presentation fairly quickly and bryce is bringing up the first few slides so i'll introduce this at least we know that we've uh presented this to you actually so adopted the preliminary budget back in in september and then we've had some discussions about this since that time but for tonight we have conducting the public hearing and the proposed budget to the public and the purpose is not to address the market values but that uh residents we had a few calls on that brenda has dealt with those on a one-on-one basis so we would receive any public comment and it appears that we may have scared them away at this point and then we have the 2021 tax levy collectible in 2022 and then approving the 2022 budget as well as the 22 salary and wage schedule the next slide the budget process is uh got a very small font in in these boxes here but january is our new fiscal years you know april through may city council would workshop on the budget and levy goals if we're um looking at for for the following year and then staff submits our capital improvement plan requests by the end of may so that budget process begins in that first quarter um or the first quarter begin the second quarter june july and august is when we prepare and uh brenda primarily prepares the preliminary budget and levy uh for consideration we workshop that um sometimes in august and then the city council is looking at approving that preliminary levy by the end of september um the adopted levy then which in this case it was a five percent adopted levy um we look at all of the additional additional elements in that fourth quarter council workshop on the capital improvement plan adoption of the capital improvement plan preliminary tax statements are mailed out and then the budget hearing and adoption of the budget levy which is what we're doing right this evening budget outcomes of course our balanced budget and to continue to maintain city services um we do have an increase of seasonal staff wages of two dollars per hour we did in the proposed 2022 budget we have a 0.3 fte additional hours for one of our positions and uh additional three months are included in the budget as you remember we deferred the hiring of the code enforcement rental housing coordinator until uh the second quarter of 2021 so that is now a full year fte position or it's a part-time position but it's budgeted for a full year and the last slide here um we have some other significant purchases coming up obviously the ladder truck which we talked about certainly 140 000 will be a nice little assistance to that uh fund for for that ladder truck um 2022 street improvements on yorkton ridge wood woodland maple lane and ryan drive still still to see the woodland avenue and the ryan drive public hearings for that rondo park improvements with the arca funds coming up and one additional element on your agenda later tonight facility assessment improvements park improvements and again no debt levy is proposed for 202. with that oh we do have the strategic plan items here too these are something that we just wanted to to make a few notes i won't read through all of these items but the four key criteria in the strategic plan enhancing and empowering the community creating operational efficiency maximizing our assets to catalyze development and mandating action and accountability each of those have several elements or one or more elements that are included in the 2022 budget that apply to those items so with that i will move it on to brenda to go through the specifics of the budgetary that council approved in september we sent that levy over to ramsey county and they sent out 2022 proposed property tax bills to the taxpayers here in little canada and based on that tax bill what we'll be talking about tonight is for every dollar that is on that proposed property tax bill uh 21 cents comes back here to the city uh 28 cents goes to the school district 43 cents to the county um eight cents goes to other taxing jurisdictions that's primarily the watershed but what we'll be discussing tonight is that 21 cents that comes back to the city here is our showing our certified levee for 2021 we were at three million five hundred eighty two thousand three hundred thirty dollars based on our preliminary levy which is also option one tonight uh we would have an increase of five percent to that levy or 179 thousand eighty dollars and then we also do have option two uh to consider uh that's a four point five percent uh increase in the levy or 161 thousand one hundred and fifty dollars um and then just to uh note that our property tax levy uh the primary uh source of the property tax levy is for the general fund that's our chief operating budget but then we do have a portion that goes to our fire equipment fund that helps fund our fire equipment purchases and then we have 122 200 that goes to our infrastructure fund that funds our street projects each year uh the reasons uh for those levy increases of either five percent or four point five are listed here we have our salary and health insurance increases for our employees it is accounting for 1.55 percent of that levy increase and then we have some market salary adjustments that haven't been identified the positions but we are going through a position and classif or a position and compensation study here at the city and that study will be completed and presented to council in january february so we have just over one percent of our levy increase is for possible adjustments based on that study our police services contract um it is uh 0.74 percent of the levy increase uh just important to note that uh with the preliminary levy that was going to be 1.8 percent of the levy increase based on our preliminary contract with ramsey county sheriff's department although but because of a change in the allocation of the funding with the seven contract cities that is now at point seven four percent of the levy increase we have a public works reallocation uh the public works had a restructuring earlier in this year and when we looked at what the public works staff was doing they were being coded they were cutting their time sheets to more water and sewer activities but in reality they were doing more street maintenance and so we're recommending to move those over to the general fund for those street maintenance activities and so that's a half a percent the levy increase and then the fire services contract and it's 0.49 percent of levy increase and i just wanted to note on that though that the fire contract in 2021 little canada fire department who you know provides fire services here for the city for 2021 they came in with a 3.5 reduction for 2021 this year they have a five percent or four percent increase and so the two-year average of their contract is just a quarter of a percent based on those levees that option one option two we take that uh versus the the tax capacity that tax capacity that's set by the ramsey county assessor's office but our city tax rate based on option one and option 2 are either 25.559 or 25.419 which is a 6.57 percent increase or 5.99 increase in order to put that in perspective if we go to the next slide what that means here are all the communities in ramsey county and their tax rates based on the preliminary levy as you can see either option one or option two our tax rate compared to the other communities in ramsey county we are the third lowest we had been the sixth lowest for several years in 2021 we dropped to the fourth lowest and now with this preliminary levy at five percent uh or four point five percent we do drop again to uh the third lowest so our tax rate uh is declining based on these levees and we can go to the next slide but then here is based on i picked one of them i picked the 4.5 increase in pink there is our median value home in little canada had a value of 293 000 in 2021 that has increased by 3.75 percent for calculating the 2022 taxes so 304 thousand uh important they paid 676 last year based on the 4.5 they would pay 7.47 it would be a 71 dollar increase and the next slide is showing though that based on either option one or option two this is a newer slide and the numbers are pretty small but what it's looking is all the communities in ramsey county is looking at their median value home and it's taking their preliminary tax rate and it's saying what they would pay in city property taxes so as you can see here either option one or option two option one we're at seven hundred fifty one dollars for option two we're at seven hundred and forty seven uh we are the third lowest in ramsey county and only a four dollar difference and a four dollar difference between the four and a half percent or the five percent levy um and so of that the four and a half percent levy like i said they would pay 747 dollars and what that's funding is the the largest portion is our police services budget that 333 dollars a year of that property tax bill goes for police services or 27.75 per month and then we go with our fire services at 118 dollars per year our parks recreation community services at 98 that's uh for maintaining our parks public works that's for our snow plowing our street maintenance at 77 we have general government at 65 capital infrastructure as we had uh talked about in the levee we have that 122 200 and so 25 dollars annually is for that street reconstruction community development which is our planning and building inspections is at 21 and then we round it out with our contingency so 747 dollars per year or 62 dollars per month that is mayor council that is the administration finance city clerk correct the city hall building the maintenance of the city hall building is in there too okay great question that was nice to have that in there service here we're going to be talking a little bit more in detail about the general fund but as council knows and the public we've got a budget document that's a hundred pages or so and we talked about all about the funds that we're budgeting tonight and so those are the budgets that we'll be approving this evening and more on the general fund so that is you know we've talked about this before but this is our chief operating budget here for the city uh we have a balanced budget and so here first of all is the expenditure side we've got 4 million three hundred eighty three thousand three hundred and ten dollars uh for that budget in expenditures the largest portion is forty one percent for police services uh parks and community services is just under thirteen percent and then general government just under 13 public works 11 community development and then we rounded out with contingency and then on the revenue side since we have a balanced budget we have the the same dollar amount there four million three hundred eighty three thousand three hundred and ten dollars for 2022 and since the services that we talked about on the slide before with the police services fire services plowing streets maintaining our parks we don't charge for those services and so we need to collect revenue for that and so property taxes is how we pay for that and so that's 71 percent of our general fund budget and then licenses and permits are 7 intergovernmental revenue and we go down from there with license and permits we did increase that by 36 300 from the 2021 budget anticipating that we will have increased building permit activity here in little canada in 2022 had we not had that we would have either needed to cut expenditures or increase the property tax levy further property tax relief if there is anybody that would like further information the state does provide direct property tax relief to taxpayers we've listed four programs there the homeowners homestead credit refund special property tax refund the renter's property tax refund and the senior citizens property tax defrail program they can contact the minnesota department of revenue the phone number is there on the screen or the website or they can contact the city and ask for me and i would be happy to assist them also tonight then we would just ask uh for you to close the pub public hearing then to approve the 2022 preliminary property tax levy either at option one or option two or another option approve the 2022 budget and then approve the 2022 salary wage schedule heidi does have will verbally give you an update on that schedule we have a couple changes that we're making not in the dollars but um on some certifications on that with that i can take any questions yes i'm mightily impressed that we've been able to decrease the level of city tax rate relative to our pure cities of the county um year after year despite having uh increases what it tells me is that as a city we've done a good job being moderate in our approach and not spending too much um and i think that ought to be commended so uh i am just it's a miracle that we're we've gone down as far as we have been despite not particularly wanting too much for for for any given thing here in the city everything still works and that's good that we're not cutting to the bone too close mr mayor and council members actually i think one of the reasons just uh observation but the other two cities that were in front of us are lower than us in the past would be wiper township and badness heights and their biggest reason for jumping is they have had some deferred investment i would say in their public streets um streets and and improvements and um wiper township did a pretty massive bonding project to do some some catch-up and uh insights is also increasing their their public streets funding um in recent years and so um kudos to you that have done a long-term you know capital improvement plan and tried to stick to that uh one million dollar range that's that's kept our streets in really really good shape for a long period of time and uh and has you know we've increased from that as needed so um it's not just our personnel cost it's actually long-term policy decisions in regards to our infrastructure that i think are making that that difference well you know i would agree with that chris but i also think that the staff um from you on down everybody brenda especially in the finance department have done very good job of keeping us aware of where we're at and what our goals are and how do we get there and the thing that i've appreciated the most is how well staff listens i i i do i commend all of you for that that you do listen you don't come in with preconceived ideas uh it's not your way or the highway and it's made working with you very easy and it's it's been very healthy for us as a council i've i can't say enough good things about that so i i guess i'll i'll pile on as well as you know that the whole budget process now is i'm sorry guys the whole budget process now is almost taking the full year right but it but it's it's becoming a non-event it it because it's part of the nature it's part of what we do you know on a monthly basis or quarterly basis it's less of an event to put the budget together so i i think that the systematic way that the staff is going through this is amazing i appreciate it chris also kudos to you for having a breakthrough with the ramsey county sheriff's department and the contract cities to you know we've we've fought for years about we think we're paying a little too much share in this and and you and the team have been able to put together the right pitch to get a little tweak in there that that saved this entire city a lot of money without repercussion you know it's not less service we're we're equalizing the load across the contract city so thanks for that so what do we need to do here accept the budget first five or four and a half i will uh make mostly close public hearings oh second there's a mole motion to close public hearing all those in favor say aye opposed always keep us in line tomorrow ocean carries fives here we don't want them rushing the stage so with i i would i'll make a motion that would go with the five percent thank you because i was a could have done that too i'll be the heavy this year somebody else's turn next year we will have uh no cost a month is not that great there's uh potentially salary increases that are coming up that we need to we need to deal with and that five percent will will help a lot more i will second that motion all right we have a motion in a second to increase the levy to five percent all those in favor say aye aye aye opposed motion carries 5-0 mayor i'll make the motion we adopt the 2022 budget option one i have a motion in a second all those in favor say aye aye opposed well she carries 5-0 we have to have a motion for certifying the levy and all those where is that covered you covered but i think let's have one more motion to do the reduction in the debt levy as council knows we have a scheduled levy for the public works building of 183 618-75 we pay that with our water and sewer fund and so we can certify that levy at zero zero a motion in a second all those in favor say aye aye aye opposed motion carries five zero