The Tuesday, December 2nd, 20125 meeting of the Eden Prairie City Council is now called to order. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. >> I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Looks like um we have additional students in the audience tonight. Just want to welcome everybody residents and hi you can yes you're on camera there so you can wave again if you wish. Um students, um we always invite you up afterwards if you have questions or I don't know, pose in pictures to prove to your teachers that you were here. That might have done the trick right there. The if they just tell your teacher to watch the the replay of the tonight's meeting. It's customary during this time for me to read an open podium invitation to our residents. Open podium is an opportunity for Eden Prairie residents to address the city council on issues related to Eden Prairie city government prior to each council meeting. Council meetings typically occur the first and third Tuesday of each month. These open podiums occur from 6:30 to 6:55 right here in the council chamber. If you wish to speak at open podium, please do contact the city manager's office at 952-9498412 by noon of the meeting date with your name, your phone number, and subject matter so we can be better prepared for you. Open podium is not recorded or televised. If you have questions about open podium, please do contact the city manager's office. Cities across the state of Minnesota um have by legislative authorization a housing and redevelopment authority group HRA. Uh some cities have a separate group. We here in Eden Prairie like many many cities embed the HA meeting into the city council. So the city council here in Eden Prairie is its own HR. So we do have an HR meeting uh this evening and I call the HA meeting to order. Our first order of business within the embedded HRA meeting is to approve the HRA minutes from our last HA meeting back on September 2nd, 2025. Is there a motion to approve them? >> I'll move to approve the HA minutes from September 2nd, 2025. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Any discussion? All those in favor say I. Opposed. >> So, Mr. G, I'll turn it over to you. We have a resolution to approve the H levy. Yes. Uh, thank you, mayor, council members, members of the HR for the purposes of this meeting. Um, you approved those minutes of the September meeting because the last time you met in September, you approved a preliminary uh budget levy for the HR, similar to what you did with the city budget, which we're going to get to uh in a little bit. Um in terms of the HRA, what you have done for I would say decades um is established an HRA budget um which was is parallel to the staff costs to um run our housing programs in the city. As you know, um we have a lot of different programs and funds and other funding sources for many of our different housing programs. the the funding source with the HR levy and budget that we use for the $230,000 is the uh staff allocation. Uh as you know, you have a much much more levy authority um if you wish for um for other programs, but we we only levy a very small amount um of our levy authority that we use for for staff time. As I mentioned, um we have many other dollars and other sources that we use for um our housing program for our housing programs. So, the action that we request is the resolution certifying the final tax levy and approving the 2026 H budget at $230,000. You covered that very well and I just want to underscore that sometimes people will look at other cities, sister cities around us, Minnotonka, Bloomington, Edina, Minneapolis, St. Paul and they'll look at their budgets and they'll see line items like like an HR housing line item and it's all over the chart. You know, again, it's not apples to apples. There are people that utilize this account for millions of dollars of levbing and some cities have none. We've chosen through the years to keep it pretty constant as you say to pay for the salary portion of what we do in housing and then fund it through grants and community development block grants coming out of the federal government CDBG funding etc. So council any uh questions u before I entertain a motion. Is there a motion to approve then the this resolution? >> Move to adopt resolution certifying the 2026 HA property tax levy to be $230,000 and approving the 2026 HBA budget of $230,000 as reviewed by the council. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Second. >> I think council member Fryberg got in there. Um uh any further discussion? All those in favor say I. I >> oppose. All right. Is there a motion to adjourn the HA meeting? >> I'll move to adjourn the HA meeting. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> All those in favor say I. >> I opposed. All right. Passes. So to the students sitting in the audience, I hope you didn't get a little bit excited that the meeting was over. That was just the H embedded portion. Now we move back into our regular council meeting. Uh we have no proclamations or presentations. So, it's really moving on to the agenda. Council, any items to add to that? Primarily, that would be a council member report. If not, is there a motion to approve the agenda then as presented? >> Move to approve the agenda. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. Oppos. Moving on to the minutes from our last meeting. We have both the workshop and the regular meeting. Um, after you looked through them, were there any corrections, edits that you wish to make? If not, is there a motion to approve both the minutes? Go ahead and make that motion. >> Move to approve the following city council minutes. City council workshop held Tuesday, November 18th, 2025 and city council meeting held Tuesday, November 18, 2025. >> Is there a second? Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor say I. >> I opposed. >> Consent calendar. U for the students in the audience. the consent calendar are items that are really important. They don't typically require additional discussion. So, we clump them all together. However, council, you are permitted to um request that u we either discuss some individually or even pull an item to vote on separately. Uh anybody have any concerns or questions about any items A through N on the consent calendar? If not, I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent calendar. I move to approve the consent calendar A to N. >> A through N on the consent calendar. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Any further discussion? All those in favor say I. Any opposed? All right. >> We do have um couple public hearings this evening. Um obviously um incredibly important. I'll just um maybe make it as an umbrella statement here that I've often said through the years that probably the number one most important thing that a council really can do is to set the budget because the budget is where we spend taxpayer money back on taxpayers, back on our residents. And if you want to know what the priorities of the Eden Prairie City Council was back in, pick a date 1971, then you look at their budget. What did they prioritize? What did they spend on? What did they raise taxes on to go spend on? So, the budget is the reflection really of the personality of the city. And it's the reflection of what the five of us see as the priorities for the people that elected us. And they give us, you all give us that feedback by electing us, by taking surveys, which we give every two years very thoroughly, uh, by talking to us at the grocery store. you know, and we're very accessible, as you know, calling, emailing. So, through that process, we uncover what we believe are the priorities that the people of Eden Prairie want us to use their taxpayer dollars to spend back on them. So, incredibly important what we're going to be doing this evening. We take this very seriously. This is um the culmination of I know I'm sorry, I'm stealing your thunder briefly. Please repeat. It's the culmination of really a two-year budgeting process, but multiple meetings this year, uh, workshops where we have, um, not painstakingly because we really rely on staff for that piece of it, but painstakingly in terms of the vision and the goals and what we prioritize and what we give staff and then we work through, they give us feedback throughout the year on the budget. So, tonight's that final culmination may I don't know if it'll go fast or slow, but whether it seems fast, it's not fast. Um, it's been a long process to get here. Mr. Gro. >> Yeah. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, with that introduction in terms of the process, the finance manager, Tammy Wilson, and I would like to walk through a presentation, take you through um the budget and uh the impact and talk about um you know, the 2026 budget and what brought us here, covering some of those topics that you covered. And uh looking ahead to 2026 a little bit. Uh we we do do we do do a two-year budget. We're not going to spend a lot much time on 2027, but as you said, we do preparations for 26 and 27. And so we are going to start with a presentation. Then we ask that you hold a public hearing because uh every single taxpayer in the city of Eden Prairie was mailed a notice for this meeting tonight. And then following that, we ask that you take action on the proposed uh 2026 budget. All right. Thank you, mayor, and members of the council. So, the purpose of tonight's meeting is just to gather input on the city's proposed tax levy and budget for the next year. It is a requirement by the state and it must be held after property owners have received their proposed property tax statements, which were mailed out the week of November 10th. And then some of the other entities that will be holding public hearings are the county, which held theirs um tonight, I believe, at 6 PM, and then the school district, which will be holding theirs on December 8th. So, I just wanted to give the audience a little bit of a background on um our process, which Rick kind of touched on. Um so, we do prepare a two-year budget, so the 26 and 27 budget. And at the beginning of this year, staff began working on those two years. And then throughout the year, we met with the departments, the directors, and council just to gather input and get their feedback on that um two-year budget. But tonight, again, I will be just bringing forward the 2026 budget. So, this slide is just a summary of the budgeted expenses for the city. And so we have a budget of $66.8 million which is a $4 million or 6.5% increase. Um and I will go into further detail on each of these line items um on the following slides. But I also want to mention that um for 2026 we do have a balanced budget which means that our budgeted revenues do equal our budgeted expenditures. So for the general fund revenue budget, we are proposing a budget of 63.9 million, which is an increase of 4.5 million or 7.6%. So, as you can see on this slide, the largest um source of income to the city is taxes, and that um accounts for 77% of the budget, which represents 48.9 million, which is an increase of 5.9% from the prior year. The second source of revenue for the city is charges for services which account for 10% of the budget and it represents 6.5 million which and it's an increase of 7.3% from the following year. And the largest slide item of charges for services is the park and recreation program and fees that we collect. And that 7.3% increase is due to the impro improved performance at the community center as we continue to rebound from the impacts of CO for licenses and permits. That accounts for 7% of the budget and it represents $4.3 million which is an increase of approximately 4.2%. And the largest line item of this um category is building permits which makes up $2.7 million. And this is one of the um line items that we conservatively budget each year as the volume of permit activity can vary significantly from year to year. Um the next um category is intergovernmental revenue which accounts for 4% of the revenue representing $2.6 million. And this line item um is consist consists mainly of police and fire state aid which accounts for about $1.6 million and then also um the school liaison program which accounts for 400,000. And the school liaison program is um a program between the um police department and the school district where we share um four and a half officers evenly between the two entities. And then the final cate category is other revenue which accounts for 2% of the budget and it represents $1.5 million. And this line item consists mainly of um fines and forfeits, um investment income, some transfers from the enterprise fund, and just some smaller um miscellaneous contributions and donations. So now if we switch over to the general fund expenditures budget, um as you can see, it's a balanced budget. So our budget is 63.9 million, which is an increase of 3.9 million or 6.6 6% from the prior year. This budget does maintain prior year services and it also includes some additional funding which I'll kind of walk through. So for administration, the budget is 5.6 6 million, which is an increase of $339,000. And that increase is due mainly to the um additional cost of $176,000 for elections as 2026 is an election year. For community development, the budget is 2.8 million, which is a small increase of $10,000. And that is due to an open position we had in planning that we did not budget for in 2026. For the police, um we are budgeting $22.8 million, which is a increase of 2.3 million. And this increase is due mainly to the um normal um increase for wages and benefits. And there's also some additional facility costs due to the police expansion remodel. And then there's some additional cost um due to a contract that we have with Henipin County um where we received an additional social worker in 2025. For fire, we are budgeting $9 million, which is an increase of $900,000. And this line item two, again, the normal um increase for wages and benefits, but it also includes some additional funds um for the hiring of um some additional full-time firefighters. Um and I also want to mention that in October, we were notified that we had received the safer grant, which stands for staffing for adequate fire and emergency response. And so we received this grant. um it's $2 million and it's for three years and we were one of six um cities within the state of Minnesota that received that grant. And so with this grant um for the first two years um the federal government will cover 75% um or 75% of the cost of wages and benefits for eight additional firefighters. And then in the third year, um the federal government will cover 35% of those wages and benefits. Those eight firefighters that we are hiring, um it's not any more than what we had originally anticipated to hire, but what the safer grant helps us with is it allows us to hire those firefighters sooner than um we would have been able to without that grant. Um, for public works, the budget is increasing 6.7 million, which is a decrease of $260,000. And this is due to the reallocation of of the equivalent of approximately two full-time employees um to the enterprise funds. And then for park and recreation, the budget is $16.6 million, which is an increase of 598,000, which is just the normal increase for wages and benefits. Tammy, I'm sorry. Did you mention under administration that it was elections? >> Correct. >> You did. Sorry. I was paying attention then down the line. And that would every other year then do this, you know, go down next year and then up the Yeah. >> Yes. >> Perfect. >> So, this chart is just a breakdown of the general fund expenditures by department. And as you can see, public safety, which includes police and fire um make up 50% of the budget and then followed by park and recreation at 26%, public works makes up 11%. Um administration 9% and then community development makes up the remaining 4% of the budget. So for that $63.9 million budget, if you were if we were to break it down by different categories, um you can see that wages and benefits makes up approximately 69% of the budget and as you know um the city is a serviceoriented organization and so the majority of our budget is going to wages and benefits. The next category um is facilities that makes up 8% of the budget and these expenses um pay for the upkeep of the over 30 buildings within the city. The next area is the um information technology and fleet services and they each make up 4% of the budget. And so the information technology budget of 2.5 million really pays for all the computers within the um city and the software and the phone systems. And then for fleet services, that $2.4 million pays for all the um vehicles um for the purchases and the repair and maintenance on all city vehicles. And then we have other contract services um which represent about 3% of the budget at 1.8 8 million. And then the electricity for the streets, traffic, lights, and parks makes up about 2% of the budget at 1.2 million. And then we have the other category which makes up 10% of the budget at 6.3 million. And this category um accounts for like the legal fees, dues, conferences, and training, um instructor services, etc. So, if we were to look at the $3.9 million increase in the budget from the prior year, um this just gives a breakdown of the the different categories. And once again, as you can see, wages and benefits makes up about 55% of the increase in the budget. And the wages and benefits does include a 3% um base increase for employees. And it does include some step performance increases as well. It also includes those additional firefighters um that um we want to bring on as full-time staff. And it also includes a 22% increase in our health insurance. And as you've probably heard on the news and have heard from other cities, um health insurance is just on the rise, just not in the state, but nationwide. Um, and then it also includes um 128,000 for that new Minnesota paid leave um that will go into effect on January 1. And then to kind of offset that increase, we did see a decrease in our workers compensation premium of about $680,000. So prior to CO, our premiums for workers comp were going up on average between three and 5%. But once COVID hit, our premiums had skyrocketed to about 30 to 40% increases. And now finally, in the last two years, we have seen those come down. And so this year and last year, we saw a 20% decrease in those premiums. So facilities um is increasing $600,000 and that's primarily due to the police remodel expansion. And then other contracted services is increasing $59,000. And then it is increasing 350 um $357,000 which is due mainly to the new s um to new software and just the maintenance of all the um software. And then fleet is increasing 152,000 just due to the increased costs of vehicles and repair and maintenance supplies. And then for electricity for the streets, traffic, lights, and parks, we did see a slight decrease, and this is due to the city just um becoming more energy efficient. And then the other category is increasing $142,000. And so now if we switch over to the property tax levy. So based off of this um budget that I just went through, the general fund levy um we are proposing it to be $49.9 million which is an increase of 2.7 million or 5.9%. for the capital improvement fund. Um, we will not be levying this year and we have a fund balance policy and each year at the end of the year we compare it against our fund balance and any excess revenue that we have, we will transfer that over to the capital improvement fund. And for the last couple of years, we've been able to transfer money into that plan. And so for this um for 2026 um we are not going to levy um for that um fund. And then for the debt levy um the levy is 2.8 million which is an increase of 493 um000 and which I'll go into more detail on the next slide. Um but for the total property tax levy for the city we are proposing $50.1 million which is a um increase of 2.6 6 million or 5.6%. And so for the debt levy, um the city has two debt issuances that are backed by a levy and those are for the 2021 um tax abatement bonds which are for the was for the pool expansion and then for the 2025 um police remodel which we just issued this year. And so just to give you a little bit of history on the police remodel, back in 2017 when we were updating our 10-year CIP, the police came forward with um a project to remodel the police station. And so at that time, we looked and we knew that in 2025, we were going to have some debt that was going to be retired. So we worked with the police department to um push off that remodel until 2025. And so that when we issued that debt um we were that debt was able to absorb some of the costs that were um that we were seeing reduction from the retirement of that old debt. And so now five CIP processes later the police department is finally seeing their police remodel. So now if we just move over to the market value. So for 2026, the estimated market value for the city is $14.7 billion, which is an increase of 1.39% from the prior year. And so if we look at the makeup of the 2026 um value um residential property um consists about 10.7 billion or 10.7 billion of the total um value which is about a 3% increase from the prior year. commercial and industrial make up about $2.5 billion dollars and um or 2.5 billion of the value and they have seen a decrease of approximately 6% from the prior year and then also multifamily is at approximately 1.4 billion of the value and they also saw a decrease of 4%. So the shift is it shifted more towards the residential from the commercial and um multifamily in 2026. So based off of the proposed property tax levy and the estimated market value, um this chart just shows what the um city's tax portion would be for a median value home. And so for 2026, the median value home is valued at $558,800. And this value may be um and there can be properties that are valued higher or lower. Um but this slide is just meant to represent the typical value um home in Eden Prairie. And so for that median value home, the city tax impact would be $1,865, which is an increase of $142 or 8.24%. For an apartment um with an average value of $18 million, the city's um tax would be $73,26, which is an increase of $411 or.56%. And then for commercial with a value of 3.8 million, the um city tax would be 14,663 um which is a decrease of $542 or 3.56%. So, if we were to look at the overall property tax, um, which would include the county, the school, the state, and the city, and some other smaller, um, entities, um, the overall tax for a residential property would be $7,112, which is an increase of $56 or 7.7%. For an apartment, it would be $270,411, which is a decrease of $22 or.1%. And then for commercial, the tax would be $115,131, um, which is a decrease of $1,474 or 1.3%. So this slide just gives a breakdown of the overall um tax um for a median value home. And so as you can see um the school district makes up 35% of the overall tax followed by the county at 32% and then the city at 26% and then other um jurisdictions at 7%. And then for a commercial property, um you can see fiscal disparities makes up 34% of the overall tax with the state um tax at 18%. Um the school district at 16%, Henipin County at 15% and then the city at 13% and then others at 4%. And so if we go back to just the city's portion of a median value home, their tax of $1,865, if you divided it out onto a monthly basis, their tax would be $15,5542 with $14,869 of that going to the general fund and then $6.73 going to the debt service fund. And so with that, I'm going to turn it over to Rick. All right. Thanks, Tammy. Um, so I think Tammy did a really good job of kind of walking us through the budget and the details of the city's budget. I want to take a step back. I want to talk a little bit about the process again and and get into a little bit of what this all means and kind of the impacts and kind of how we compare and and what we're looking at. And then I'm sure after that all the um commercial property and apartment property owners that are seeing a d tax decrease want to come up and talk to the city council. Just kidding. Um the um where we're here right now, we're on December 2nd, obviously. We're we're sitting here right now. But if if we want to take a step back, and I think the mayor mentioned this a little earlier, um in the opening comments, uh April 15th, uh the quality of life survey, that's something that we do every two years, and and it's one it's one piece of the process. It's but it's something that the city takes very seriously because it's a a statistically valid survey of our residents. It gives us a really good sampling of um what people in the community feel about the services that they receive. We actually ask about each and every city service, the characteristics of our community. And also what's really interesting, the company that we use uh can benchmark us against um about 50 50 other cities in Minnesota, many of our peers uh surrounding us in four or five other 400 or five other uh 400 500 other similarsized cities, suburbs that are similar to Eden Prairie um in the region and in the country. And um without me getting into a lot uh further detail about it, we actually were able to encapsulate a lot of the survey results and how we did in the survey. Here's just one little slide in terms of how our rankings and benchmarking came in um in a in a small video that we did that has been shared internally and at a few different presentations that we've done. But we definitely wanted to um share the results of our survey in a a short video that we did about a 5-minute video. And again, this was back in April and this played a part into the preparation of the budget that we did. So I just want to briefly share uh the video >> case mayor of Eden Prairie. Every two years the city conducts a survey to gather opinions from a random sample of residents about the quality of life here in Eden Prairie. The survey is critical to providing me and other city leaders with a snapshot of how you Eden Prairie residents feel about living here in our community. It helps us identify current and future needs so we can align the city's priorities accordingly. I'm proud that our latest quality of life survey once again confirmed what so many of you already know. Eden Prairie is an exceptional place to live, work, and dream. Over the next few minutes, I'll share some highlights of the 2024 survey results and the many ways in which our city continues to lead the way. In 2024, Eden Prairie residents reaffirm what they've been saying for years, that Eden Prairie is one of the best places to live in America. An impressive 90% of residents rated their overall quality of life as excellent or good, putting Eden Prairie ahead of other communities in Minnesota and across the nation. From peaceful neighborhoods and excellent schools to vibrant community spaces and a strong sense of belonging, Eden Prairie is also a city that feels safe. 93% of residents say they feel safe overall. and our police services were impressively ranked number three in the nation and number one in Minnesota. Emergency services, including fire and emergency management, also earned top ratings. City services continue to impress. From street repair to city planning, Eden Prairie outpaces other cities across the board and ranks number two among Minnesota communities in the overall quality of city services. Of the survey respondents who contacted the city over the last few years, nine in 10 gave top marks for courtesy, responsiveness, knowledge, and followup. Residents also rated Eden Prairie's economic health is strong. It's a great place to work, build a business, and invest in the future. The city's economic ratings outshine communities both in Minnesota and across the nation. What truly sets Eaten Prairie apart is its connection to nature. 92% of residents rated the natural environment as excellent or good, making it the highest rated aspect of community life. With top ranked parks, natural areas, recreational amenities, and over 200 miles of trails, our community enjoys one of the best park systems around. Residents also gave Eden Prairie top marks in Minnesota and the nation in these specific areas. in every category that matters. safety, services, quality of life, environment, and community. Eden Prairie doesn't just meet expectations. We set the standard. So, a couple thoughts. One would be if you um if you go to the city website, you can actually read the entire survey. or the complete results. It's like 3 400 pages, but you can go through the whole thing. Also, I mentioned that meeting in April. You can watch the results that the third party consultant came in, presented to the council, the results of that survey um that evening. But what's important is that that that survey and the results of that survey led to the creation of the budget and the direction from the council um that the next slide here that the goal for the the budget process that they set was we want to maintain that level of service and we want to do it at what what's a reasonable tax impact. So, uh, you know, the direction to to the staff to to in preparing the budget was we want to continue to have that level of service at a reasonable price. And in terms of the the finance position that we want to be at, and you've heard this, is we need to have a balanced budget. We need to have um conservative estimates of revenues and expenditures and to annually review everything we do and and have long range capital planning and policies. Um, in terms of, you know, there are several examples that that Tammy gave of that. Um, one of the reasons that we do not need to have a capital improvement levy is because we were um we exceeded our revenues the last several years and we were below um our expenditures. So, we were able to transfer money to our capital improvement fund without having to have a capital improvement levy and without um having to put excess dollars over there. So those those were important goals of the budget. Also, you saw in some of those charts that Tammy had, and you're going to hear this quite a bit, is we are a service organization. We are a people organization. Um over 70% of the city's budget, um our people, our wages and benefits. So a big part of what we do is related to pay and benefits. um hiring and maintaining a good employees um providing them with the training, professional development, um the skills and wellness opportunities for them to succeed. So that's a huge part of what we are and want to be as an organization and those are the goals of our city budget that we want to maintain. Um a few examples I think that you heard that I just want to share about this particular budget. Again, I think Tammy touched on those. Um there are a few examples of um in different areas of the budget of of when there were open positions, we did not automatically fill those. There are positions that we reallocated in certain areas to save money. Um we already alluded to areas of where we budgeted conservatively. Um I'm also going to mention what I'll call and the council's talked about this what's a zerobased budgeting concept. And what that means is um we don't necessarily say uh in a certain area or a certain division of the city, well let's just raise that 2% or 3%. Uh we will look at almost every single line item. So if you remember back to when Tammy went through each department, there are some departments that are actually decreasing their budget next year. Some that are flat and some that may be increasing for all types of different reasons. So we evaluate um each area individually on its own merits. Um and and again under the employee wellness and and safety area there are these examples of um decreasing our um workers compensation uh premiums. So you know kudos to our uh human resources staff and others that um find ways to to focus on our employees and our employee safety. Many many examples. um we could do a whole workshop on how the city saves money on energy and energy efficiency. We we have won many awards um for sustainability and and energy sustainability as well. And um I think there probably is an example in each department. Tammy gave um one with the the fire safer grant with the employees. We recently um received some federal dollars, almost a million dollars for a piece of a piece of police capital equipment. Um we received a major grant for um what'll be a geothermal project at our water plant. We have received um some major funding for um some park erosion projects almost you know more than $7 million of grant or other funding that we're able to um put into our budget in terms of savings and efficiencies. So overall, um, what we've always said is this is a value proposition for the city of Eden Prairie. And I'm going to share those examples of maintaining highquality city services at what is a reasonable cost or tax. Our our our revenue budget that you saw is not all tax, but 77% of it is. Um some of it is captured through uh charges and services and licenses and fees but local government is set up as an entity that it does maintain most of its revenue through taxes. Um we would say that we are fiscally prudent budget conscious but also pretty innovative and forwardinking. And the other fact I would give and I think you saw this in um in Tammy's charts is this particular budget is public safety focused. So if you took out uh the spending that is nonpublic safety um the entire uh general fund of the city's budget is only increasing 2%. Uh Tammy provided a breakdown of the uh spending uh citywide. This is a breakdown by department. So, if you just think about people like to see this kind of cost of if I were to get a monthly bill for what I get from the city, uh there's kind of an impression of what that would be per month. And and she mentioned, you know, public safety is 50% of our budget. And and obviously when you think about, you know, an operation, police and fire, um something that runs 24/7 around the clock, um an operation that could be to your house within minutes when you call obviously um comes at a cost, but um as you also saw, it's rated one of the best in the country. Um so something we're pretty proud of and something that I think we deliver at a reasonable price. Um, also when you think about the city as a whole, it isn't just the general fund and the tax operation. The city as a whole is actually uh when you add in all our enterprise funds, water, sewer, storm water, um, all of our operations, the total city budgets actually about $110 million. So that includes debt. Um, this we talked about downstairs when we had another topic. We are assigned the highest uh possible bond rating that you could have. Um the highest rating that an agency could give you AAA u but also you everyone pays utility bills and you have um you know water bill, sewer bill that you get from the city. I know this chart is really hard to read, but when we had a workshop in November to talk about the utility bills that were presented by our public works director and finance manager, um it was shown that we have the 10th um lowest average utility bill in the metro of those similar cities. So that is another cost um to the to the resident of the city. So it it doesn't factor in to your property tax statement, but it's another cost to our resident that is part of the city budget. So moving to the uh property tax impact piece. This shows a little bit of a history of uh I'll call it the three levers that play into what a property tax is. That is tax capacity, your levy, and your rate. um the tax capacity as a function of the value of the property in the city. So Tammy talked about um the val I just say if if we were to put the city up for sale uh someone wanted to buy Eden Prairie, they'd have to pay about $15 billion. And if you factored in what the taxable value of Eden Prairie is, it's about $154 million. And if you divide that by what we're asking to levy for next year, $50 million, you get a rate that you're going to pay your taxes, your home value on or apartment or commercial property, and that's 32%. Just remember the 32%. Um, that 32% tax rate, keep that in mind because we're going to have some other slides relating to that, has actually been the same since 2022. It went down. it kind of went up. So, this chart shows our tax capacity or value has gone up. The levy's gone up as well, but our rate, what you get taxed at, has stayed the same as um everybody should be aware. It's what we've been talking about since the summer. And the reason that average valued home has increased um 8% even though the levy is only going up about 5 and a half% and your home may have only gone up on average 3%. Is because commercial property on average in Eden Prairie has gone down about five or 6%. in the metro closer to 10%. Is um office commercial property um has gone down and the burden has shifted to residential property. This article that I took a picture of um actually came out in June. So this is um from the summer. This, I'm sorry, is uh probably too difficult to see in this room, but this is from our city assessor, and this is a value notice um that was provided to me to give to the council that um basically talked about all the different value increases in property in Eden Prairie in 2025. That's for your 26 taxes. And it basically says that the value across Eden Prairie went up to 14.7 billion. in that the average, you know, the the single family detached homes went up about 3%, town homes up 2%, commercial property down um about 6%, industrial properties flat, um multifamily property down about 4%. So, it kind of shows you those trends. Median valued home up. So, when Tammy showed the median valued home is 558, that's up from about 530. So when she showed that what is that the the median valued home tax is up about $142 total the tax or whatever. Well the home value went up too but this shows for the last 10 years or so that median valued home I don't think anybody has a median valued home maybe close to it um has gone up um almost $200,000. Um ju does anybody remember 2022? There were this this room was pretty full in 2022 because the average um that year and this is metrowwide went up about 21% that year. Um that was following COVID but that was again this is all based on sales of property. This isn't anything this well the city had to do this but the city had to follow sales of property. So that brings us to um back to this chart and what I want to illustrate in this chart is for now this year we are at a point in time where residential property is bearing um the largest weight ever I think ever. I guess I didn't look back prior to 2019, but I think ever um the it's bearing the most um percentage of capacity by class. 63.3% of the capacity in Eden Prairie is in residential and the lowest of commercial capacity right now at 27.8. And if you look at the co the covid year um that was the year uh 21 when the I would say the what we know um the office market uh began its descent um in that given year. So that kind of plays a part in the burden that the burden article that I shared um in the residential property burden. And you saw again those examples of the average valued commercial property seeing a pretty large decrease uh in their tax. And so these uh these are things that the city in terms of setting their levy or budget, we do not have control over this. These are just impacts. These are results um that are being seen all across the state of Minnesota, but it just it's a good um explanation of what people may see. The control that the city council has is setting their budget and levy, but it's a pretty good explanation of what people are seeing. Um again, I think I covered this explaining um you know, how how uh property tax bill is calculated. So, if anyone's ever interested, if you just think about the the value of your property, so just take any value. I'm going to use that median valued home. So, take 200,000, 700,000, 800,000, just if you're curious. Um, take that for residential property. Actually, I'll go back here. what this list is, there's about 50 different percentages for um 50 different types of property in the state of Minnesota that the state of Minnesota sets different rates for different types of property. So there is a different taxation rate that the state sets for cabins, airport property, rural vacant land, condo storage units, residential, nonhomestead, manufactured home parks, marinas, just all those. The list is all different types of property that are taxed at different rates. For homestead residential property, the first $500,000 of your home is taxed at 1%. Everything over that is taxed at 1.25%. We've talked about this that the median valued home in Eden Prairie is over is over 500,000. So the even the median valued home is skewed because that's over 500,000. So that shows a higher um tax than what it used to show. Uh so there you get your tax capacity. So you take when I talked earlier about taking that $15 billion of property in Eden Prairie, multiply it by all those different rates and you get your tax capacity. Multiply it by that city rate. There's the property tax. There's the median valued home property tax. I'll get back to that in a little bit. But before I do that, I want to share uh what we're seeing around us. When I say around us, uh this is something I was shared with the council in the spring. Um comparisons to to other levies around us. Uh these are similarsized cities. I don't share Minneapolis, St. Paul and smaller surrounding community levies. But it's my understanding that I think I saw in a League of Minnesota cities publication that the average levy increase for all cities in the entire state of Minnesota is somewhere around 8%. Um so we're still below that. I do believe St. Paul has a lower proposed levy than Eden Prairie. Um Minneapolis does not, but we're still below all of uh these cities as well. Also, a couple of these slides I want to illustrate uh before I wrap up is something that the city council has talked about and that is um some different scenarios with with the levy um under a median valued home scenario. And that was so if we're looking at a 5.6% 6% levy increase and the median valued home impact is um the $142 increase annually over a year. Well, what if we did something else? So, the example that was shown to the council over these workshops this summer is well, what if you reduced the tax levy to 3.6%. Just these are just, you know, theoreticals. And that would mean that the the about a million dollars would have to be cut from the levy. And then the reduction would be about $35 um in the levy increase, but it would still increase 6%. And what if you went down to a 0% levy? Just the levy went to zero. Well, there'd still be a tax increase. it would not zero out the median valued home. Now, that being said, everybody's tax statement is different. You may not have an increase in the value of your home. Your taxes may be only going up 2%. You may have had a home improvement that you did. Your taxes may be going up 20%. Everybody's statement is different. This is just um an example for illust illustrative purposes. And in terms of um again that scenario, the council asking me if we had a 0% tax levy and we eliminated $2.5 million from the budget, you know, what would that look like? And and the conversation we had was in the short term and I would say short term if we were in a recession or if we had a difficult period to get through being a serviceoriented people person um organization we would do what we did in 2010 2011. Um you would have wage freezes. You would adjust contracts. you would find ways in your budget to um you know freeze things and temporarily temporarily use your fund balance to get through. But that is not a long-term strategy. Uh if you needed to make a major cut in your budget and uh for a long-term strategy, you would be reducing staffing, you would be reducing services, and you would have to adjust your service level. >> U Mr. Gro, can I just add go back to that slide just for a second? You and I were chatting about this before the meeting that if we were to go down to a 0% levy increase and cut $2.5 million from our city budget, which likely because we're 70% staff, would either be freezing salaries or eliminating police and fire positions because they are twothirds of the staff. That $155 that the average $558,000 home pays today a month for all those city services. 155 would drop $7. That's all that's all we could save you as we eliminate seven police officer positions and five. It's just that's not that's not where the money is. that's not where the viability is because of all the state formula and all the complexity of how taxes get set in the state say Minnesota. I just wanted to add that that it may sound appealing then cut the budget. Cut it two and a half million bucks and lower that levy to 0%. Save you seven bucks a month average obviously right some people 10 bucks some people five bucks but just want to point that out. Uh two more slides I promise almost done. Um, this one of my favorite slides and it I saw it in another city. So I'm like, can you please send me a copy of the slide? Um, because again, comparable cities cumulative levy increases over the last 10 years. So um, again I think this is like what 12 comparable cities of similar size. Manitonka, Maple Grove, Bloomington, Plymouth, uh, Edina, Lakeville. Add up all of the levy increases in all of these cities over the last 10 years and um Eden Prairie has the second lowest increase um added up over 10 years. So that's a 10-year timeline. Again, the re the back to that value proposition um attempting the direction of the council to maintain a high service level at a reasonable cost. Uh and then finally do remembering back to what um I said about the tax rate. What is your tax rate? What is the value of property in your city divided by the levy uh that you put upon the residence equals a tax rate. And then when you get that tax rate, you take an individual's property tax capacity uh multiply it into that tax rate, you get their tax. Um, again in a comparison of those cities, we have the third lowest tax rate of I think this is of all cities over 10,000 people in Henipin County. And then again, if you remember that sample calculation I did, I just ran of these cities in this list, I just did four from kind of the middle and I did go to the bottom. So again, to that $1865 for a median valued home, I took four cities um four cities that I think you can find a $558,000 home in. Um in those four cities, that is the city tax you would pay. So it's $1865 here. That is the tax you would pay in 2026. in those four cities under that scenario. So, Maple Grove and and Plymouth are the only two cities if they keep that if they keep their levy the same that they propose or their rate. And those are just the four city examples I gave and I could run them on every single one of those that are um above us. And that's just the city tax. Obviously, you have county and school and other tax. Um finally um again you could do a whole workshop on what the cityst state fiscal relationship is. Um local government aid, state aid, aid from other governments. There are many cities I I used to work in a city where when you went the revenue a big portion of the revenue that you receive is local government aid from the state of Minnesota because there are there are small cities in the state of Minnesota that that cannot rely on property taxes alone. They do not have the valuation or the tax base to do that. They need local government aid. Um we get none of that. We get no local government aid. We get very little money from the state of Minnesota. Tammy mentioned that we get um some public safety um aid, but we get very little from the state of Minnesota. Um we actually lose money when it comes to um a tax base sharing program called fiscal disparities. We um without getting into too much detail in the 7count metro area, all of the cities in the 7count metro area pull our commercial tax base and we actually give up some of our commercial tax base um to other cities. We're considered a loser because we do pretty well with our commercial tax base. So the point being we run this analysis that if this taxbased sharing program didn't exist that median valued home uh taxes would be 6.8% less in Eden Prairie if that program uh did not exist. And we always like to say when we talk to our legislators, um, this program that came about, I think it was about 30 years ago, that was going to be so groundbreaking and was going to stop cities from trying to compete for commercial businesses. Um, is the only one in the entire country, I believe, that exists. So, it hasn't really taken off in in other countries. and and uh we have we have actually lobbied for changes to the program because it does affect our our taxpayers. But the point being that we do not rely um very much on state aid and we are sometimes hindered by other programs and in some ways it's good. In some ways it's okay to to rely on yourself and not have to rely on other funding but but we do not. Lastly, um there are other programs out there individually for people that um can apply for and receive a credit and and aid for property taxes. And and there are three and you can find them at the Department of Revenue um website or you can contact anybody at the city. And um two of them are income based. One is for um seniors. So, there is a property tax deferral program for seniors and um that is for people 65 years or older who make $96,000 a year or less. You can defer your property taxes or a portion of them. And then there are two other programs and they're through you have to do them through your income taxes, but one of them is no relation to your income at all. And that's um that's based on if you if your taxes increase from year to year year to year um more than 12% or at least $100. So that applies to anybody or there's another program um for those that uh made less than 100 approximately $139,000. So, we we'll have that we have that information on our website, but we always want people to be aware of the state programs that are available um for property tax credits or um deferrals or refunds. And I believe uh mayor, that is the last slide we have. We're certainly available for questions. Uh but there is still the public hearing. >> Sounds good. Thank you. Um thank you, Tammy, and thank you, Rick. That was um really thorough. So, so council, at the end of the public hearing, we'll be voting. If you have questions or comments, do you want to save them to that point and we can jump right into the um public hearing part. >> Just wanted to one comment and uh I think you mentioned Tammy and Rick, it's a really good analysis. I think kind of summarize the journey we took last quite a few months and then it's good job of describing uh the process. Thank you. So to residents in this room, uh this is a public hearing and so I'm going to invite you up um and come up please and speak and you u please obviously keep your comments to the fact that we're going to adopt the resolution tonight certifying the 2026 property tax levby. We're also going to approve the budget of 66,847,000 and also approve the HA tax levy of 230,000. Um I I don't know how many people want to speak. Um I'm not going to time you this evening. We've done that in the past. One meeting four years ago, we had 78 people sign up to speak. Um but tonight, if you can keep it uh concise and if you hear someone make identical same comments you make, maybe just piggyback on that and then um let us know. Um keep in mind again that we've been at this for two years. We really understand, but we want to hear from you uh this evening as well and we'll take notes. Uh, and again, we do have experts and staff out in the um atrium area there to address additional questions. So, when you come forward, give your name, your address, and then if again, if you can keep it concise to a couple minutes, that would be great. Please come forward. >> My name is David Ringsmith. My address is 13166 Bive Court in Eden Prairie. Um, just want to first of all say amazing. I I feel the marketing impact of the quality of the presentation you've done and I think you know what you've done shows you've really done a good job. It still hurts as a citizen. There's one question I have. If you can answer what the mayor addressed $7 a month difference. I couldn't find that on the page that you were showing. I I could I looked for it. Can you show me where that is? Just is it okay to get that? actually derived that tonight from data he had given me. If it dropped 3.6, we saved three bucks. I did some extrapolation. So, you're not going to >> I was looking for that. >> Yeah, you're not going to find it, but I I I think it's pretty accurate, but again, we can you can email the next Okay. tomorrow or we can >> Okay, my last comment I'm trying to be brief. >> So, my last comment is regardless of how excellent of a job you guys are doing and I I thank you for what you're what you're doing. It still hurts with all the taxes that are going up in the state, in the county. There's a lot of pain and I think that's what you're seeing here tonight with the people. Thank you for the job you're doing. Great job, but it's still hurts. >> Appreciate both of your comments. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Next. >> Well, I'm the better half. And that >> David, I assume, not just in life in general. This is Maria Rinksmouth from 13166 Beehive Court. And I just want to uh again applaud the excellent presentation by Rick and staff. But I want to key in on something Rick said. Well, what if we could do something else? Well, what if we could do something else? $5 gift box from a little thrift agency. And I love her. And every Democrat, Republican, and independent I've met, they like it, too. And I'm just asking you to consider a new idea that is not in Rick's presentation. And I'm sure you've never thought of this before. So here it is. In 1975, Representative Phyllis Khan did something nothing no one ever had done in America and it came from Minnesota. Minnesota led the way and she presented the Clean Air Act. And I come from a Democratic family and I'm just asking you to consider because when these notices come, they're very painful. Okay? Nobody likes getting these. Do you like getting these? Do you like getting these? Okay. Now, we love our police officers. We love our firemen, men and women. Excuse me. I am still learning how to speak properly. But I'm just asking you to be like Phyllis and do something never done before by any city. And I'm asking Eden Prairie to lead the way. because the increases and our home was a perfect example, Rick, in your presentation. That's our home. And when we started here, our tax bill was 4,200 44,500 back in our son was injured. We came here because we would be close to hospitals in 2006. So, my little home that you listed there, cuz all I could hear tonight was, "Oh, this will only cost me $7, $146, maybe $500 more a year." But the pressure on the little taxpayer, the little family, okay? And it can be two of these or one of these, you know, the families Our tax bill has doubled and the beautiful city we live in, the pressure is still on the taxpayer. So what I'm asking you to do is maybe just it's never been done before. Make the increase optional per family, per taxpayer. Just make it optional if you cannot afford this the cost if the $500 because ours would be uh and by the way, you will consume the 2.8% increase I get from social security. You will eat it all up. It will be completely taken by the Henipin County city taxes if you'll just do something nobody else has done. Phyllis had to speak up and say it. I need clean air. She said, and there is pain in this room. It hurts for my taxes. I've been here 19 years and they have doubled. So all I'm asking you to do try try it see what would happen if you would allow the individual homeowner to say I for whatever reason hasn't it been painful since co hasn't it been painful and then the tax burden just keeps I keep getting to pay more for all these wonderful services, but it's painful. So, I'm just asking, would you consider if a family cannot afford it, would you trust that family? Just trust them. I can't afford it. I need that $500 for whatever the the reason. And that's what I came to say and I thank you so much for hearing it. I don't think this has ever been done before, but I know Minnesota has done some beautiful things and I'm just asking you allow them allow the homeowner to opt out of this year's in increase and just I I really can't afford it. And just trust them. Don't make them go through hoops. >> Maria, thank you. So I mean you you we get it. Thank you. And it's you did well presenting that. So, thank you. Appreciate you coming. >> So, I take my $5 box >> and I take your words, Rick. >> Well, what if we did something else? >> Now, I just want to say one more thing. My pastor has reduced his department budgets, not the salaries. And our budget is not is twothirds your budget. Think of that. A church and he is not cutting salaries, but he is reducing the budget departments by 30%. And he's been doing this for 45 years, and he's making hard cuts. And if my pastor can do it, we can do this. Thank you. >> Thank you, Maria. >> Thank you. Next. Good evening, Larry Ziski from 18803 Magenta Bay. Uh, I would say Eden Prairie, yes, is a very good place. One of the best places to live if you can afford it. And each person's world is their world. And I don't have an average home. My uh assessment went up $110,600. My taxes for EP 15.5% increase. Henipin County 15.5% increase. 13% increase for EP schools and they've already said that their school district is full and they expect to be over full by about 500 students next year. And so that would only mean more funds needed. So, and as she said, my increase in income is only 2.8% only on my social security otherwise. So, I'm better off than most, but I'm in the situation where I'm being taxed out of my home. And this isn't just this year. This has been a gradual thing that's been going on for many years. and I've run out of fingers to count the number of friends and acquaintances who have moved out of state as such. So I would ask you to yes look at things and you talked about that you through your staff departments and thing go line item by line item. Somehow when I was trying to print out the uh agenda for this evening, I got this printed out of all the fees, services, activities that are being looked at and done. And I could see things even with my limited knowledge that I think we could use to get more revenue from services, fees and uh uh licenses and things like that. And indeed it certainly was admitted and we all know that the shift of burden of the revenue has gone to the uh private property uh residential taxes and uh there was an article in the St. Paul editorial about one or two Sundays ago about when will the property owners have enough? I don't know if anybody saw that or enough, but it was in the Sunday editorial one or two Sundays ago. So, that's what I would ask. And I think across the board wage increases is not the norm in the private sector. Hasn't been. and that we should look at controlling the budget as best possible and not having wage increases go beyond the cola increase. And I think indeed we don't need any more new fancy signs in Eden Prairie. And uh and as far as we've of course built a nice new uh expansion on the city center and the police department and all of that and maybe it is too late already to say well let's be a little more thrifty. We don't need the platinum version of a remodel or a new building or the furnishings and these sort of things. bronze probably is good enough and very adequate. So that's what I would uh have to say and that uh I think the staff the council is doing a good job but it has to be pushed it has to be improved. It has to be better or of course there will be you do what you can do. Thank you. Thank you, Larry. Next Good evening. My name is Julie Baker. I live on 8700 Braxton Drive. Thank you. Repeat that um to everyone. You put a lot of hard work into this and we all see it. Um I'm a single mom. I own my home. I am I work full-time in corporate America. I have a demanding job. I have gone three years without a merit increase because budgets are tight. Um I work really really hard for my paycheck. The last three months I have started living paycheck to paycheck. I cut everywhere I can and there's not a lot more I can do to cut. I have a dishwasher that doesn't work. I wash my dishes by hand. So I am asking what can we in Eden Prairie do that is more creative? You are all so bright and you have worked so hard and it comes down to that $7 is a matter of principle. It would be nice to see the city I raised my children in that I have poured my hardearned money into show me some respect and understanding inflation is high. We are paying taxes every time we turn around. We pay income taxes. We pay taxes on food. We our utilities are up. Our health care is outrageous. And so I'm asking you as a matter of principle, please don't raise our taxes. We are living in a state that had an $18 billion surplus two years ago and that's gone. The money is gone. We now have a $5 billion deficit. Where is my tax dollar going? I don't feel like our state, Henipin County, I don't want to throw Eden Prairie in there because I feel like we do a pretty good job, but they're not being good stewards of my tax dollars. And I think that's what everybody here is saying. Great. We love our police department. Does it need to be updated? I could use a dishwasher. It's great that we can get eight new firefighters. Can we do with six? It would be nice to see a budget adhered to. I can't just increase my budget because I want more. I have to adhere to my budget and I am asking you to give Eden Prairie taxpayer payers a break even if it is $7. And Rick, while I very very much appreciate Eden Prairie, I love this city. Um, I don't compare my city to other cities when it comes to budgets. I compare it to what I have in my bank account. So, respectfully, I ask you to consider all the hardship that people are going through. I have neighbors that are without jobs, layoffs that are happening left and right, small business business owners that can't afford to keep their businesses running because of the regulations that we have in Minnesota. My adult children cannot buy a house. I have a 3% mortgage rate. I I can't afford to move. I can't afford to downsize because home values are so inflated and interest rates are higher. So asking you guys to dig a little deeper, see where else we can cut. Let us keep our $7 if just for this year until we start seeing a better economy. Thank you. >> Thanks, Julie. [Applause] >> Anyone else? I don't want to cut you off, but um once we close the public hearing, it'll be closed. So, is there anyone else that wishes to speak? Okay. Council, could I have a motion to close the public hearing and then we'll um just get some response from us, any of you, to each other um and then make a motion on the whole motion at some point. So, could I have a motion to close the public hearing? >> I'll move to close the public hearing. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> All those in favor say I. >> I opposed. All right. >> Uh, first place, um, those people that, uh, got up to speak. Um, thank you. Um, we all know that can be a little bit difficult. Um, maybe even intimidating. Though you all did fantastically and did not show any intimidation. Not I hope you would never be intimidated by us but just the whole process TV that whole thing. Um we've struggled I'll just speak for is it okay if I speak for a little bit and then you all can take notes and add anything in. uh we as individuals we we have open meeting law so we can't talk as a group but um I can I can talk to one other person or I can talk to Rick who talks to others and I I know that um well I know the people up here the quality of people up here on this council that you all elected uh we we've struggled with what we've been not only seeing um in the papers about the stress level that's rising across the state of Innesota as this shift has occurred onto uh residential uh property taxes. Um and we've struggled with what that means. You know, obviously for us in Eden Prairie, we have very much uh tried to make our levy be as low as we could. And I think the proof is in the pudding that we're the one of the lowest in the entire region. But I understand if your tax went up 18%. Us saying that, hey, our levy is 5.6 six, the lowest in the area. Who cares, right? The complexity of why someone's tax went up 18%. Is is incredible. I mean, we've I've been at this 29 years now and mayor 7 and I still, you know, try to process through what's an easy way to say why our budget went up, you know, four and a half% but someone's tax up 13%. h how do I how do I communicate that and explain that? And of course, again, I think Rick's presentation and Tammy's presentation was excellent that it's incredibly complex with state formulas and the shifting of responsibility from office commercial on to to uh home residential and the school, you know, the fact that we're only 25% of your tax bill when you see this this large property tax bill. Not to pass the buck, right? That's just what we are. I I will also say that four of us up here I won't give ages. I have done that before. I I'll not do that tonight. Four of us are on fixed incomes on social security. So you can probably guess by looking at us what what's not. Sorry. Um at least the young one over there. Um so yeah somebody uh I think it was Larry you mentioned that you know you have other sources of income too but nonetheless um social security which is probably a large piece of many of it is a mine of many of our monthly revenue streams um went up 2.8 8 was it this year something? It was bad. And if you've checked your Medicare Part B, um it hit 80% of that. So, we're not getting really a raise this year with Social Security. Um you know, not everybody was able to build their 401k in a certain way to buffer some of this. It it's I read an article this week that said, you know, 40% of the baby boomers are not prepared going through the next 101 15 years um for an economy where inflation's rising at 3 to 4% a year. I don't know what that means, right? I mean, it's it's we're heading into um some national and state crises here that are incredibly problematic. The question then as you know we as council appear trying to make responsible decisions. Do we want to hit 65,000 people with a drop in services which are the most impactful in our lives? Obviously if I understand completely from the people that spoke tonight if if if there's financial issues and it's hard to pay for no we don't. But I don't know what the percentage is but probably 90% of Eden Prairie people are not on fixed incomes. Um, and if you heard on NPR last week, um, corporate, even though I worked at United Health Group, and I do understand that there are times you don't get raises, completely get that. Across the United States of America, the average private sector raise exceeded CPI. That doesn't help if you're on fixed income to hear that kind of statement, right? It just means that there are there's a a variance across Eden Prairie of of how people can cope and deal with a tax in or all the tax increases that are hitting us. Um, so I do just want to say mainly that we whether you believe it or not, I mean we get it because we live it. Um, and we struggle with it and we do want to make sure that Eden Prairie remains the city that people want to move into because then your home prices go up. I mean, one of the most important parts of your tax bill is to look at in the last whatever seven, eight years as your property tax doubled, what did your house do? I mean, I'm guessing if it's like my house, it I I think most of our house has probably doubled in the last 10 years in value. If I'm wrong, talk to me later. But but in other words, if my property tax went up this year a certain amount, but my value went up tw I think I checked this out 22 times. Now, granted, there's a huge difference between assets and cash flow. I mean, we all get that. But nonetheless, someday somebody either we sell it or we make our kids wealthier um that that comes back to us. But it's painful in the meantime. Um I don't think 70 knowing that 70% of our budget is um public safety. I don't think the average resident out there, whatever that means and in here, but out there in the city wants to see police cut, wants to see fire cut. I I don't think that's true. Yes, we could pay a lower raise which would make us non-competitive. Right now we are maybe you know this. We have a police officer opening. We have 20 applicants. Minneapolis has an opening. Well, they have a hundred openings. They can't fill them. There's reasons that people want to work here. We we do put uh openings and we have just dozens and dozens of applicants. We're the place to work. We have super quality staff. And I think if you've had interactions with them, you know that that is not because we pay them the lowest salary around. Doesn't work like that. And you know that I don't think we pay the highest salaries. I think in some areas we might, but in mostly we're just trying to be competitive. Um, all right. I'll stop for a little bit. I've got other notes, but I'll um Do you want me to go down the line, Council Member Fryberg, or should we just go start and that's we'll go down the line? No, I don't know. Any Okay. Anybody want to speak next? >> I'll I'll I'll speak. >> Okay. Council member Tumi. >> I agree with the mayor with M with Mayor Casease on what he's been saying. And I'd also like to say that um we are very aware. I mean, obviously, like he said, we're very aware and we've struggled a little bit. And um but when it comes to things like the police department and the fire department, the they do need to the police department needs to um be they need to have a new one. Um the one that they are currently in when they moved in there were 35 officers, sworn officers, and currently there's 73. There's no room. We are probably one of the only police departments in the entire state that doesn't have indoor parking. So, um in the long run, we will save money on vehicles and things like that during the winter months that don't that will not need um as much care, you know, uh maintenance. Um so, I I think that we do right we're doing the best the we're providing the best services with, you know, um reasonable taxes. That's all. >> Let me add one thing just to clarify too that the $26 million police department renovation is mostly um bonded. Um and it has um I don't know if we could find the number out of our heads, Rick, but has a small impact on the levy. It sounds like a big number if it were like assessed back onto homes in the levy. Do you want to add anything to that? But >> right, I think I think we covered that. I one thing we talked about was we had planned this for the last decade you know when we when we would fit this debt levy on and um we actually anticipated I think it was last year the year before that we were probably going to have a levy this year that was between six and 7% because of this debt levy coming on and we were able we we council worked to get this to 5.6 because of that debt levy. So, you did some work to get to this number because of the debt levy. Um, again, I didn't share the 27 numbers, but um because next year's debt levy will be lower. We're anticipating a lower levy next year because this is the first year of the debt levy. And the other thing is our interest rate was low because we have a trip AAA bond rate and because we've been so responsible through 50 years, but especially the last 20 years here in Eden Prairie with um our budgets and and with our reserves and we just we we budget conservatively and that pays off then in lower levies because of lower interest rates because of the AAA bond rating. and someone else. >> You want to go down the line or >> No, we can do anybody >> want me to go next. >> Go ahead, Kathy. Cath council member Nelson. >> Um, okay. Yeah, I was going to start off with the AAA bond rating. That really does help cut your taxes and it has for years. On the other hand, if you don't start paying your bills on time and stuff, you lose your AAA bond rating and so things actually go up. So there's certain things that make financial sense once you get down to the levels of our accountants and things that you can lose if you do it even though you don't believe it. Um, also I've got to say that we have wonderful employees and we've discovered over time that some of our people who have been here a long time are so good that when they retire, you can't replace them with one person. It takes one and a half people often to do the same job because they don't know it back and forth and in and out. And the fact that we can do that does help keep our taxes down. Um, and when you have some of the best people in their fields, there are other people who would really love to employ them. So, we like the fact that they've stuck with us for so long and stuck with your homes for police and fire and stuck with your water, with public works, stuck with the cleaniness of your parks and the safety there for your children or just yourself if you're walking around or if you're into pickle ball or whatever. Um but the quality of our um department people really does make a difference and it makes your taxes difference and can take a make a financial difference that the first time I discovered how big that difference as a council member was. I was flabbergasted. I didn't really believe it was true. I went back and got all the information and it was so thank you to some of our best people. We have a police chief over there. He's one of them. But our public works people and other such people. You know, they make a difference. Have you noticed fact that there aren't any potholes around? We can make our streets go longer and that really check cuts the amount of money we have to spend on our streets. It's that kind of thing that Rick didn't necessarily tell you, but it's some of our people that did that. Um Rick did mention earlier that there are ways, especially if you're retired, that you can defer some of your taxes if you need to. And I expect that you should find out about it if that's something you need this year or next year and see how it in fact would impact your budgets, your values of your homes, what you expect to be able to do with them. Um, if you're in the right category, not everyone is, but if you are, there's no reason to feel guilty about finding out more about it. Our people are very nice. They're not going to say, "Oh," or anything else. They're going to help you and take advantage of doing it because that's what it's there and there. That's what we want it to be. Um, but our parks are important to families as and so are our trails and especially now when a lot of people are dealing with less money because what they can do with their kids is not take them on vacation or go some other places, but they can go to a different park every three every week. And assuming the parents are home and aren't working so hours, they can't. But they do allow people to live well without spending quite as much money. And that's important. I think um I've been told by a lot of families that that is what they're doing right now. And I commend them for finding ways to work around what they can have and will cost them less. doesn't work for everyone and some people are working long hours and I think one of the people you had talked about the fact that it was long hours and it's not necessarily going to allow for such things but um you know we staff did work very hard to get us the lowest in the Twin Cities increase and they work very hard on our AAA rating and I'm very proud of a lot of our staff who keeps our actual costs up and I think you should be too if you knew all the stuff they were doing. I can't guarantee I know all the stuff they're doing, but I do know it's made a difference in our costs and we look for all of those. We ask them to look for all of those and the fact that we're the lowest in the Twin Cities partially because that doesn't necessarily help you when you see your tax bill come in. And quite frankly, mine went up too and I sort of looked at it and said, "Oh." But I knew I had something a little more to say. So all I could say to myself was, "Did you do what you could?" And the answer came back, "Yes." Our staff has done what they can. >> Council member Nar, are council member Fryberg, you okay going last? >> Okay. Council member Ran. >> Thank you, Mayor. You know when you said it's uh painful I understand when I got that bill I felt same thing. I said, "Wow." You know, it's it's went up percentage wise. Then I talked to Rick maybe two hours uh more to understand more. Um it it's just give you a little background. Before this had a job at the state of Minnesota. I was managing $120 million budget. Budgeting is not easy. It's extremely complicated in the the city budget. I realize it's more complicated because we don't have full control is take dictate lot of formulas and ratios and how how much from commercial goes to residential. It's all kind of fixed that formulas right so so we little bit control over that. Um but the other side is our survey. The guiding principle we have is our survey. Survey said we want a good police. We want good service. We want good parks. We want people you know bring their children play in the playground. They all want that. So how do we balance the both and try to get that going? It's very difficult. That's the reason we had I don't know how many hours of meetings we had for the whole year on this subject. So it's not new. Um you know I give you a story. My uh wife uh in a party passed out and too much it was too hot. She dehydrated and we called 911 and the fire and police were there within two minutes, two minutes, two and a half minutes, something. And probably that saved her. And so when I think about increasing cost to the fire and police and an incident something happened and you said you know what happened if it is 5 minutes or 10 minutes she could have passed away. So it's having fire and safety and when that situation comes that it's so important they you want to be there. I think we can now pretty much everywhere in Prairie that people you know fire and and and police get there in very short period of time when you have a heart attack or we have a lot of you know over 60 people in Prairie um it it it's again it it's hard I don't I don't have I really feel bad I feel really sad that you know your situation and I don't I really don't know what to do, you know. I I I just because we thought through this all the possibilities and and somebody the lady was saying think out of the box. Boy, we thought through I mean I think we are pretty smart group here and on top of it uh our our city manager and the staff they are really smart as well, right? So we we we try to dissect these things to solve. So we don't need want to hear a situation like you know somebody could not afford something because the tax went up. It it is difficult very difficult uh is is you know that that delicate balance of high quality service you know and same times that how do we help everybody. Um, also I really recommend I mean not recommend I really uh think Rick and Tammy did a great job explaining very complicated situation in few slides and and it's hard for somebody brand new to understand all that. Uh but but I would say we do understand you. We do hear you. Um we I talk to the residents. We hear the good part of it and also the tax situation comes you know nobody want to pay tax because always it is going up. You're right. Um but I just wanted to say really that we have tried we tried different without harming the city. How do we continuously you know raise our kids here and they be turned out to be good? They have a healthy life like playing in the playground. We really tried. So it's not like we all sat there and rubber stamping this that we tried. So I just want share that thought with you all. Thank you. >> Can I just cut in one thing Mark before you speak there? Um Julie, you had mentioned um rather than eight firefighters, why don't we go six? And I just wanted to underscore it wasn't arbitrary that we went eight. We had a study actually that we contracted with a firm to come and look at all the city's needs over the next 30 years. And as we transition from volunteer to full-time, it's all about response times. It is all about response times. to PG's point with his wife, it's about getting someone to that person in an emergency and every minute counts. By the way, a house fire doubles every mennet and if you have a response time of eight and now it's nine and now it's 10. So this eight was not in any way arbitrary. Um and and it well but I know talk to us later afterwards. Absolutely. But so I understand the symbolic idea like just like find these cuts and and PG what PG and Lisa said we really and staff has really worked at this to find the cuts and brought back uh a lot. Did you want to say something quick? >> Just that the firefighters are under the safer grant. So we got a grant. >> Absolutely. That that that's absolutely true. But I'm just saying that was a symbolic thing. Um, and even like the $7 symbolic concept, just cut a $7 that would require $2.5 million of cut out of the budget. You that's severe. Our residents would feel that for seven bucks. And that's the point. Again, we study this. Um, and and we struggle with it. Um, and we try to do the very best for the people of Eden Prairie and keep taxes as reasonable as we can. Council member um, Fryberg, >> thank you. >> Bring this home. You know, you're all sitting out there and you're wondering, is anyone listening? Um, I think many times we look at that and at all levels of government, you ask that question. I do. I read the paper. I read the paper about misuse of, you know, fidiciary responsibilities. It's rampant. It's horrible at all levels. We try. We try really, really hard. Is it right that you're being taxed out of your property? A gentleman. No. SP. That happens a lot as far as people getting to the edge. It's wrong. It's wrong. Do we have an answer as we sit up here? No, we don't. That doesn't mean we don't feel it. I felt your pain as far as that's as true as pain as I've heard. I mean, on it. I understand that. I found myself in that situation before. I think different facets of life. Uh you look like you don't have any avenue to turn to itself. You know, can we change the taxes right now? I agree with everyone up here. What they're saying is right. Their hearts are all in the right place. We do need those services because the people have told us that as a whole um from our first responders such um but that doesn't mean going forward we should always say yes first rather than no. Let's think deeper deeper and deeper. Expect more of ourselves you know and look at do we really need this? We're good at it. We're we we do go through a lot of uh discussion about what level of whether it's a service, a facility, whatever it is, we ask ourselves a lot of questions. I want to assure you that that we all do, you know, because we take what we're doing very serious. We're all feeling it there. And you have our commitment. You have my personal commitment. My colleagues, I mean, I know their hearts as far as that. That's what the way we'll approach it going forward. the way we approach it now but putting an extra level of expectation on us for you to see if we can do a better job we will these answers as far as taxation there should be programs at higher levels I don't hear anything coming from the state I hear other states as far as freezing you know certain tax you know um real estate taxes long time as far as in a property you should never be taxed out of a property you know Um, and if you really look at it, it's really easy to do. I mean, uh, what's happening now because everything's being escalated with inflations and stuff. Um, I believe there should be something like that. I mean, I don't have the answer for it, but I'd like to hear some discussion up in St. Paul a little bit about that for people because it's real. It's very real. Um, something more as far as it was brought up as far as being able to opt out, you know. Well, you know, thinking be I'm going to interpret that a little bit different to thinking beyond the box. Another scenario that maybe uh at a higher level again it can be discussed cooperation with cities. Maybe there's a way uh for those who can't, you know, pay that difference off on it. Um maybe there's a way of doing it. Work hard towards that solution so that we can maybe get into a better world on it. You look at our food shelves, it doesn't even matter how much is being donated to our food shelves. It's being a very generous community and stuff. It goes out as soon as it comes in. We all know that it's it's these are different times and we're many things we do are based upon past histories as such on it. And I think the matrix it's changing very very quickly. I see it on there. So that's just a commitment that you know to you that I'm making for myself to expect more out of myself and I know with the hearts of the people that are sitting up here have that to work towards no one has to be able to you know sit there and ever be in those situations and I hope it comes true on it. That's all I want to say. Thank you. >> Well said Mark. Thank you. Um just just just a a quick note about the idea of think outside the box. There have been well there's been a hundred years of taxation in America with property tax um probably goes back to the 1920s maybe before but a lot of ideas have been tried a lot. I mean it's not like it's not like we can't come up with some really novel ideas just by checking elsewhere. And and one of the best that I think is an utter failure, but it it gets really close to Mark, what you were saying about come up with some new idea, state legislature, or what Maria you were saying about think outside the box. Prop 13 in California, a horrible idea. Freeze property taxes. The moment you buy your house, it's frozen. 30 years later, you've got this couple that are 85 years old living in the house. Maybe they are multi-millionaires with 401ks. They're paying 2,000 bucks a month for for or a year for property tax. And then you've got this young couple, two little kids, they're 30 years old and they're paying 10,000. That's exactly what's going on in California right now. So if you slide money from someone and it's a zero sum game, you're pushing it on to your neighbors. If somebody volunteers not to pay it, you just raise the tax for everyone else around you. It's just complicated. I guess that's the thing I want to maybe all of us can leave all of you tonight. It's complex, very complicated there. In fact, that old adage or whatever that if you come up with a simplistic answer to a complicated problem, it's always wrong. Always because it's complicated and there are complicated solutions to complicated problems and we struggle with it. I I I think you've picked up now from everything we've all said that we've been thinking about this a long time and it's very difficult. We get it. Um, but we believe we've arrived at the best solution for the good of 65,000 people to keep quality of life high so people want to live here, want to move here, want to keep your houses high high valued because people will pay it and try to keep taxes as reasonable as possible and being one of the lowest in the entire area proves that we're at least working on that. Doesn't help you if you've got the 18% tax increase. I get that. But it does prove that if you pick up an Eden Prairie house that's valued at 558 and you plop it in 20 cities around us, there's only two where you're going to pay lower tax. That's not insignificant. So, and again, that's more than the years of us up here in this council uh building up to this point of just a really well-run city with amazing staff. Okay, council, are we ready to vote? We need a motion. We need to make the final three bullets of the motion, but are we ready for that? >> If someone could make the motion then read all three bullets. Adopt a resolution certifying the 2026 property tax levy to be 52,844,814 and approve the 2026 budget of 66,847,061 as reviewed by the council and approve the HA tax levy and budget of $230,000. >> Second. Is there any other discussion or comments that any of you want to make? All those in favor say I. >> I opposed. >> I want to underscore how much we really do I mean that appreciate you coming out tonight. You were respectful. Thank you. It's not always been the case here in the last couple years if you have paid attention last year's truth in taxation. So, thank you. Uh we appreciate you as our neighbors. um talk to us when we're at Cal or Kowalsskis or wherever. Uh come up and introduce yourselves again. But thank you again for coming. You can stay. We still have other agenda items, but I just wanted to thank you for your participation in this public hearing this evening. Mr. Gro. >> Uh yes, Mayor. Uh the next item is uh the next two are related to fees. Um the fees in item B are fees by ordinance. So, uh, we do this every year and the ordinance fees are related to, um, fees in city code. So, for us, and you see that in the packet, and that was referred to, um, by someone who testified, uh, mainly, uh, building permit fees and fees related to development. So, there aren't there aren't as many in this as there will be in the next public hearing, but you can see in the packet, we set these annually., We review these annually. Um adjust as needed. Um we we analyze our our cost recovery. We look at um what our peers are charging. We see if we're um doing a a fair cost and adjust as necessary. And we also it's our tradition to um hold a public hearing for all of our fees even if we don't it's not necessary or required to hold a public hearing. Um so also because this is an ordinance we're asking that you uh we would need actually unanimous approval if we are going to do a first and second reading and update the fees by ordinance. So again we would actually hold a public hearing and need unanimous approval for first and second reading of the fees by ordinance. So, council, are you okay if I open up the public hearing and if we have questions or So, I understand that you may not even know what this motion is about, but if you wanted to or had the chance already, it's all listed online and you can look at every one of our fees. It's pages long and our staff has painstakingly set them appropriate to competition in the whole area. We want to be competitive at least with fees and and um structure of fees from other cities around us. Um so um let me open up the public hearing. This is a public hearing then. Anyone wishing to address the council on this ordinance that updates the fee schedule for administration and official controls. Okay. Seeing none, uh, council, could you close the public hearing? And if it's okay with you go, I think it's fairly straightforward. We've done this every year. And the fees are just slightly adjusted uh, based on what's happening out in the market. So market meaning our competitors around us and community center fees, etc. So, is there someone that would make the motion? >> Close to the close the public hearing and approve the first and second reading of a ordinance updating the fee schedule for administration and official control and adopt a resolution approving the summary of publication. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> So, council, any uh questions, anything you want to say? Are we okay voting? All those in favor say I. I. Opposed. All right, Mr. Get. >> Uh, thank you, mayor. So, these are fees by resolution. Uh, these do not require adoption of an ordinance. So, these would be examples of these are your community center membership fees, all of your cars in the first. That's I wasn't going to correct you. >> Okay. >> Um, these are all those park and wreck registration program fees. um a lot of our business license fees, a lot of our administration fees, rental fees, um a lot of, you know, copy fees, um fees that the council um can adopt by resolution. So, again, several pages in the packet, every fee is listed, every fee is analyzed and updated annually. So, simply um again, you choose to have a public hearing each year. Um the action is to hold the public hearing and simply adopt a resolution. >> Okay. Is there anyone wishing to address the >> Oh, sure. Come on up. Wasn't sure what you can speak to this too if you want. Anyone wishing to address you bet uh address the council um on this fee resolution 2026 fee resolution issue. Seeing no one council, um could I have a motion then to close the public hearing and go ahead? >> Move to close the public hearing and adopt the 2026 fee resolution. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Any further discussion? >> All those in favor say I. >> I. I opposed. All right. Moving on to payment of claims, which if there are any students still here, thank you by the way, students. You've um I don't know if you picked a good or a bad. I think it's a good meeting, but it's a longer one. Um, at any rate, the payment of claims are all the um metaphorically all the checks that we cut um between the last meeting and now. So, all the expenses and we we look at them and we question or approve. So, council uh any items or expenditures that you wanted to question? If not, is there a motion to approve the payment of claims? >> I'll move to approve payment of claims as submitted. >> Is there a second? >> Second. Second >> and students, we do a roll call because it's that important that each individual one of us has to certify in a sense publicly that we approve these expenses. So, roll call. >> Council member Fryberg, >> I. >> Council member Nion, >> I. >> Council member Nelson, >> I. >> Council member Tumi, >> I. >> Mayor Casease, >> I. All right. Do we have anything else to come before the meeting this evening? I'm looking quick. You're looking at >> No, mayor. No, there there isn't. I was just going to mention um that you know because the budget was adopted tonight you there's no need to hold another meeting in December. This is the last scheduled meeting. So the the next time you will meet will be the first Tuesday in January of 2026. >> All right. >> So happy new year and merry Christmas >> and all the other um holidays that people celebrate. Absolutely. >> And we can move to adjourn the city council meeting tonight. >> Are you moving? >> Yeah. >> Okay. It's been moved and uh is there a second? >> Second. >> Any further discussion? >> Um I Well, okay, hang on just two seconds. Thank you, council, for all of your thoughts and comments and dedication I think that you showed tonight and I I hope that people pray realize what a high quality council they elected. So, I just wanted to point that out each one of you. I'm proud of all of you. So, thank you so much. So, with that, all those in favor of adjourning the meeting say I. I >> I oppose. This meeting is adjourned >> and students