what you will see in in our budget is we are not um recommending nor are we u seeking any approval on any rate changes for any of our utilities. Uh that was a goal that we set early in the year and we've stuck by it. So there will be no rate changes in any of our uh utility rates.

The city's total levy, which includes the general fund debt, street maintenance, park facilities, HA, and EDA levies, um is increasing 8%.

In 7 years since 2019, my property taxes have gone up or my valuation has gone up 73%. ... instead of being assessed the what is it roughly 8% um I'm being assessed by North St. Paul um 18.8% increase. Um my property went up um according to uh taxes payable um 13%. So that's a that's a 5.8 8% difference. That's roughly 50% more in taxes and I can't account for it on my tax statement.

property taxes is in some ways very simple and in some ways very complex. Um, so I could sit down and show you how each even though I'm not the one who calculated, how each and every one of those was calculated. Um, the percentages I I understand how you're looking at it. You're looking at if my market value went up this percentage, why didn't my property taxes go up the same percentage? It's not necessarily going to be linear in that in that sense of the way...

I don't understand these numbers. It means very little to me. But I am very very passionate about our parks. It is very important to any city to have parks. It's the health of the community for the health of the community. And I have heard rumors that there is a chance that some of our park money might be taken away. Am I right or am I wrong?

I went to budget meetings and they were down to a gnat's eyelash about what the money was going to be needed and the taxes and the rate and the whatever. And there was no problem. We found $80ome,000 to be backfill the park dedication fee. We had $9ome,000 to go on a consultant which was a waste of time. The outcome was the same. We can't do it. We don't have enough money for that white elephant. It just isn't enough money in the taxpayers's pocket to pay it. But I can't imagine it. Where did the money come from? Is that kind of money built into this budget? a slush fund of some kind of situation that there's a line item contingency fund. Yeah, I won't call it slush fund. I'll call it a contingency fund because you came up with $170,000 in the last year out of god knows where.