The city council is going to do something different this year in budget planning. What they want to do didn’t sit well right away with the city administrator Steven Kvenvold.
The council always does a department by department budget review before final approval. But this year they are going to get a jump start by sitting down with department heads before the review. This step will be taken because the council sees a very lean year and they want to assure the public that they are doing the best job possible by looking closely at everything.
This was the discussion at the council’s commitee-of-the-whole C-O-W session Wednesday afternoon.
Kvenvold didn’t immediately dismiss the idea. What he usually does, he told the C-O-W, is that he makes suggestions and sends it back to department heads before the traditional budget presentation.
Kvenvold said that the pre-reviews will have to be done as the entire council, not with only one councilperson sitting in. With only one present, the entire council would not get the thinking about decisions.
Council President Dennis Hanson emphasized this year residents won’t again understand the reasons for the tax levy. All city residents will really understand is that there will be an increase.
The council settled on proposed levy of $45.5 million for 2010, compared to $41.1 million in 2009.
But no formal vote could be taken on the plan because state law does not allow it. The formal vote had to be taken at the formal council session later in the evening.
However and ironically, even with the comments about lack of understanding, the vote on the levy was originally scheduled for the council’s consent agenda. No doubt it will not be passed so quickly.
But it will be passed without the benefit of the 90 minute C-O-W discussion that would have been of political benefit to council members.
No member of the public was at the C-O-W meeting. Department heads, and representatives of realtors and the chamber of commerce were in attendance.
Department heads told the council that 2010 budgets are already being prepared with zero increases planned.
Council members were also concerned about getting the new public works garage built. The plans are still to have an adjoining transit garage. However, if federal funds are not confirmed by Oct. 1 for the transit garage, it will not be built this year.
Hanson emphasized that the levy could be decreased if Rochester Public Utilities takes over street light operation and maintenance this year, a move that could happen by the first of the year. No final decision has been made.
But as one person said later, all this does is move the cost of the street lights from the property tax roles to each person’s electric bill.
This possible move was accompanied by no information on how it would work. In effect Hanson put in on the table without a preliminary discussion or a guarantee it would happen.
City Engineer Richard Freese said his 2010 budget is flat. If the money isn’t there, the project will not be done in 2010. A longo time ago it was evident that no money would be available for a number of building and road projects in 2010.
During the discussion Hanson threw out two questions:
1. Can the city stomach this kind of increase?
2. Can the city handle this kind of increase given what it means in staffing and service cuts?
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