let's say the numbers rather than so we'll call the meeting order for the workshop for july 5th uh jennifer take the roll council member thorson here councilmember peterson councilmember wong here council member cole here mayor furlong here quorum is president motion to adopt the agenda uh moved by can uh council member peterson second taken by council member wine wang all's in favor signify by saying aye i propose motion carries so we have looks like one topic and i'll turn it over to uh interim city manager frandl thank you mayor so the topic tonight is the 2023 levy and budget goal setting workshop uh this is a kick off of the 2023 budget process in this workshop the city of council will have the opportunity to discuss and set the 2023 levy target and to identify your goals and objectives for the 2023 budget items for consideration tonight will include 2022 budget and city-based property tax levy driving factors for 2023 preliminary valuation changes 2023 potential property tax impact hra and eda property tax levy and the budget calendar and as always director winik has been very busy and putting together a good packet for you all and he's i'll let him take it over from here doesn't it seem like we just ended the budget and it starts all over again it absolutely does yeah it's just like yeah i didn't even get to catch my breath from the last one but i just want to know that you know there was a there's a little bit of uh deception that was made today when i when i had put this item out on the workshop there was another item so i thought oh you know the other item probably be about a half an hour or so and i figured i could fill about 45 minutes to an hour you know hopefully you know at that point in time and then when it got published it was gone and i'm the only item so you know what ends up happening with that you get you get us for an hour and a half i hit you for an hour and a half and so i was looking at this and this is actually a workshop so we're going to do some work tonight perfect and and we need your help actually okay and uh so after i go through the material that's been presented then we've got some questions and some post-it notes to get your feedback and a number of questions and then we will be looking at bringing a preliminary levy budget which includes the general fund the eda and hra hopefully as soon as two weeks from tonight so we can start to have that more of an authentic dialogue on exactly where we're at and i think it went well last year we'll prepare some options some options may be increasing some may be decreasing and and you know kind of talk about the impacts that those would have and again it's it's up to you you know to make the decision and ask any questions but i kind of wanted to to walk through some of the material and um today and and kind of want to there's some areas that i want to remind that the city council did a fantastic job last year and there's there's a kind of an overall theme i want to present to everybody is that we positioned ourselves through what we did last year to be able to do the 2022 street road projects in addition to that we prepared ourselves to levy money this year and not having that huge of an impact on our taxpayers and i think that's crucial to know and where that comes in is is fiscal disparities and when we get that into the presentation i'll kind of describe that a little bit more but if you can if you recall when we were looking at refinancing some of our debt last year it was actually market value debt um we refinanced it with net tax capacity debt so what that does is in essence is it raises up our local rate doesn't have an overall impact for the taxpayer but that local rate then gets utilized the prior local rate gets utilized for the next year's value of fiscal disparity dollars that we receive back and north st paul is considered from the fiscal disparities perspective a winner um i think we're ranked like about number six of all the cities saint paul being the highest winner in the fiscal disparities and so if we don't levy and our rates go down the subsequent year even if we were to have a zero percent levy in that subsequent year the taxpayers will pay will be hit with an increase because we will lose fiscal disparity dollars so i kind of want to want to set that out there kind of as a separate message and we'll cover it as we go through the materials but to begin the 2023 i think we need to to start with where we left off last year and i can move this other screen down here the purpose of this workshop tonight is to provide an opportunity for the city council to discuss and set the 2023 levy target that'll be a question that i'll be asking later on so let's not jump and everybody goes zero percent we will go through the materials and later on we'll we'll discuss that it's also an opportunity for city council to identify their goals and objectives for the 2023. part of hearing from you and finding out what those goals are and objectives will help us align better the development of our budget to make sure that we're achieving those goals and achieving achieving those objectives some work that i think the city needs to do in the future is really to define a city-wide mission vision and to have your goals established and reviewed on an annual basis so we can align our budget to those goals and making sure that we're planning for the future the best that we can for the residents of the city of north saint paul items for consideration tonight we're going to start with the starting point of the 2022 budget we're going to look at some of the driving factors that we are already aware of that are going to impact our 2023 budget we're going to look at preliminary evaluation changes and that is just amazing news and i think we were all we're kind of anticipating it just because of the residential home sales in the market but they've gone up very very high for the residents and then we're going to talk about looking at that i've made some estimates of what that 2023 potential property tax impact would be then we're going to take a look at the hra and eda property tax levy and then just kind of a high overview of the of the budget calendar after i get through all of that stuffy kind of stuff then we're going to have some fun we're going to do a few exercises and again it's really to to help brian and myself understand where the city council is coming from so we can bring a budget back to you that meets your goals and meets your objectives it is also a part of our process this year that we're going to do is that we are going to bring all the departments heads in here to talk about their budgets and to make sure that there is that ownership component to it for what they're asking for and what the impacts if if a financial decision isn't made whether it's a staffing level whether it's you know a line item in their budget and we're looking at not funding it fully so the starting point the 2022 budget some highlights from that 2022 budget our revenues composition property taxes compose compose the the budget in the general fund 56 so we're heavily reliant on the property tax uh intergovernmental makes up 20 a lot of that's the local government aid and then other financing sources are transfers and that's really what we're getting from basically our enterprise funds our expenditures composition by category our personnel and benefits make up 64 percent our professional services 14 internal services 12 percent composition of our expenditures by department our public safety including police is at 43 fire and code enforcement at 14 so you can see 57 of our budget is for public safety street maintenance makes up 14 and if you remember our 2022 levy increase was 5.99 percent and our past 13 years the average has been 5.32 so really last year when we went up to 5.99 coming off of a zero levy we really weren't all that far outside of what what has been uh the norm in the past 13 years some years have been lower some have been been higher in the general fund just kind of looking at you can see where the the ad valerian taxes property taxes is 55.78 percent the 56 percent you can see other financing sources intergovernmental special assessments is zero percent we we no longer do special assessments that's something probably in the future that we probably will end up having to have more of a discussion about on whether we want to reverse that decision and and charge special assessments on street projects uh right now uh the city does not um expenditures by category again you see personnel costs are are almost 50 percent of our cost and you can see you know well actually personal costs are higher than that because if you take personnel and benefits um you know you're arriving at 63 63 of of our budget is is just the personnel to keep running on a day-to-day basis expenditured by departments again you see the police the fire code enforcement street maintenance the rest of them are pretty pretty low you know you've got administration at six point two four percent finance at four point seven eight percent um so there's there's really not a big um driver outside of public safety in the street and maintenance you know really coming down to the basic services that that a city provides again here's kind of a history of the levy looking at it both from a debt levy and a general fund component to it in a total levy perspective if you look what we did last year again just by the the great decisions that the city council made last year we actually lowered our debt levy portion of our levy um allowing us to to increase a little bit more on the general levy component to it which allowed us to to add some some new positions if you remember we added back a director of public works a very valuable position to have in the city we added a sergeant's position to the police force in addition to a part-time cso and then we moved um a part-time employee and community development to a full-time position so we we did um you know did a very good job of adding some some fte positions um i think um you know the unfortunate piece of our city manager who was just here for a relatively short period of time there's some walkaways that we we i think that we've learned from from from him i mean this time being here one of the things from day number one that he was talking about is that to achieve that zero percent levy that was done in 2021 that there were four positions that were cut um and public works director being one of those positions and that i think that there was a matter of fact there was a very good support because it was prove approved mid-year of this year of adding a community development director so i think one of our walk aways from from our past city manager's time here was that you know we do really need to look at our staffing levels to make sure that we're we're building those redundancies in addition building up the succession planning and also making sure that we are doing a better job of planning for the future within our within the city um and so and there's some other walkaways that'll kind of intertwine as we're moving through the presentation but i think that's one thing that i would really like to to talk about that you know it's really a look at that that staffing levels and and we'll hear a lot of about that when we when we bring up the the department heads themselves and the conversations some driving factors for the 2023 budget so our total personnel costs are going to increase 314 000 or 5.4 percent of the levy um existing personnel is increasing 136 000 or 2.35 that's actually pretty good the reason why i say that's actually pretty good because you got a cost of living in there you know that's a three percent increase and there's insurance increases um we're able to be underneath that three percent just because of some of the attrition that is that has happened where we've some of the higher salaries have been replaced with lower salary employees and then two decisions that were made mid-year middle of this year or earlier first quarter of adding a new community development director which would have approximately fifty thousand dollars or a point eight seven percent levy increase um the total cost of that community development director including all benefits is approximately 168 000 um the new police officer cost is about 127. that's all from the general fund or the levy that amounts to a approximately a 2.2 percent levy increase debt levy we're increasing it just a modest uh 7 000 or 0.1 percent local government aid and we had a little bit of a discussion um on this earlier this year right now just like last year we're poised to not get the supplemental local government aid which would amount to about 119 000 loss or a two percent um you know uh loss in our are or would require us to do a two percent increase in our levy to to compensate for that hundred nineteen thousand dollar loss um brian and i met with metro inet um are you saying we are having 119 000 loss we're gonna lose we are going to lose that for sure right now position but again last year we were at this position and it appeared that we were going to lose and then we ended up getting the supplemental but right now by statute and what's out there um that we're going to lose it there's a workshop tomorrow that i'm going to tune into that's going to talk a little bit more about the local government aid so i'll know more if there's a chance at all that we could get that back so then um in two weeks we'll i'll have a little bit more information if it if it really does look like it's going to happen brian and i um had a meeting with metro inet metro inet has gone through a number of changes this past year they've hired a new head kind of a ceo of metro inet metro inet has been kind of a i look at it as kind of a quasi-roseville department they're moving out into their own entity and by them moving into their own entity and having new leadership they have a whole different look or perspective of how they're looking at delivering of their services and there are some positions that the city of roseville had been providing like administrative support that they would end up needing to hire um i think they were looking at for 2023 five additional ftes um and they've got you know graphs to show that they've their compliment has been well down in consideration towards the industry itself in addition they need to build up some fund balance um and so they're looking at like uh they they came up with three different options to pay it all basically in one year two years three years it'll be voted on by all the members of metro inet so we're not sure exactly where it'll fall out this represents the worst case scenario at option number one which is in in one year um and that would be a total of 72 000 increase a little over 30 percent increase from where we're at in 2022 the levy portion to it or the the impact that it has on the general fund is 54 000 or almost a percent um of a levy increase to cover those additional costs so the items above here that i've just kind of talked about um you know what it's almost 500 000 or an 8.5 percent levy increase just to get to cover those basic needs i think as we're all aware we are in some very high inflationary times from may to may the increase right now is at 8.7 percent increase so to achieve an 8.5 levy increase with what's included here and we definitely will have some options that we can look at in in our next presentation you know in two weeks but at an eight point five percent levy increase here to achieve that is going to be just a struggle and what do i mean by that it means that all of our other line items have to be coming in at zero percent um yet we are we too are are being faced with this inflationary you know item here so coming in at 8.5 will will be a struggle um right here just with the information that i presented you know of what we know today so that's the bad news so let's get past that bad news part to it um i just i put together just so you're fully aware and and the residents know this is what our debt levy summary is for 22 and 23 and the incremental changes and part of that's just on the debt schedules themselves as you can see on the very bottom line the 2022 a we had that covered and budgeted for in our 2022 levy already so that's why that street project is not having a big impact um you know on the residents we've already absorbed that in there and again the credit goes to city council because we again we cut we call debt early and we refinance to allow us to be able to do those projects preliminary valuation changes now here's the good news here comes into the good news this is the highest total market value increase in 10 years the increase is across all property segments that means industrial property commercial property apartments residential it's the second highest median residential market value increase in 10 years only 2020 was higher than this so that's the good news we're driving on good news now so here's just to show where that north st paul market value trends have been and what they're looking at so the median value home right now again these are estimates they can change they're not final valuation numbers but you can see our overall assessor's estimated market value went from you know um geez what is that that's a big number is that 1 billion 160 million and it went up to 1 billion 365 million and the median value home went from 237 to 273. i think that's somewhere as we we see here the median value of home rolls 15.5 percent our total estimated market value increased by 17.8 percent those are huge numbers um so when when we're looking at the market values you know it kind of leads to when we see these these huge growth growths like this this is another indication that um at least in in my estimation in my opinion that it's a time that levying is okay to do in addition that fiscal disparities component that i talked about earlier those two factors combining it really is showing that we should be levying if we don't we will hurt ourselves with a double whammy coming in future years and we will see the impact coming in 2024 and i think we can probably all agree market values will not stay where these market values are i think the economic indicators are showing that we're potentially heading in for a recession and we could end up having problems 2024 and 2025 are probably going to be our more problematic budget years so i don't want us to look at it from the standpoint of cutting ourselves short today because our challenges are going to become just magnified that much more in in 24 and 25. so as you can see the preliminary market values um you know we're we're seeing last year the residential you know uh change in and the number of parcels was up you know 1.2 percent um they're pretty much this stagnant and apartments in commercial and industrial um going into from 21 to 22. but look at those market values residential 15.5 mark apartments 14.5 commercial 3.2 industrial 10.4 i think we have i think it was something like 50 million dollars of an of the market value increase is due to growth new growth new construction again those are things that this city council should be taking credit for um because those were the decisions to redevelopment that is causing our our tax base to to to move up in the future and so again we've positioned ourselves very very well for the future the potential property tax impacts i've kind of run some scenarios based upon this now the actual calculation for net tax capacities and so forth from ramsey county won't be done until august so based upon the little knowledge that i have of how property taxes work remember once upon a time i i actually did the property tax calculations uh many years ago so i i have kind of an educated look at how we're we would go about doing this and and so i put in some assumptions um for where net tax capacity would be and then thus what our fiscal disparities would would come out to be um for 2023 and then i also have kind of to show illustrate what that what i've been talking about is if we don't levy what's that impact going to be on fiscal disparities with no levy increase in 2024. um and so i ran it looking at you know giving basically given options of looking at a property tax levy increase from zero percent all the way up to 10 percent and showing what that is as far as a tax levy increase total what impact that has on the median value home as far as their total tax for the for the general fund component to it and then what's the change from 22 to 23. and if you look at that even up to a one percent levy increase there still would be a reduction in the property taxes that a resident with a medium value home pays from 22 to 23. that's absolutely remarkable you know why that's remarkable because it went up 15.5 percent in market value i mean it went from 237 to 274. again that's a huge indication that what we did in doing with our debt and fiscal disparities that we positioned ourselves to do a levy this year and as you keep going through and you're looking at those you can see with the impact and and i really wanted to break it down you know even even at a 10 percent levy increase you know it's a it's a 101 dollar increase you know on a median value home that's eight dollars and 42 cents um you know a month i'm not trying to downplay that and i'm not trying to say that that's not an impact and that i'm insensitive to the residents but i i understand and and we're living in some very tough times as costs of everything are rising again we're seeing inflation rates of 8.7 percent i'm just trying to illustrate and show that that impact isn't as big of an impact as one would think and part of that is because we've offset a lot of that through what we've done in the in the past year but i kind of want to show the illustration if that let's say we we did a zero percent tax levy and we gave every resident that on the median value home a 22 reduction from what they're paying today and then we go in the next year and we do another zero percent levy increase they're going to be paying 48 more in 2024 even with a zero and a zero because our local rate will be dropping down and our fiscal disparity dollars will be dropping down that we get and we will still have an impact on our residents so somehow we need to find that sweet spot to where we feel comfortable so we're minimizing the impact in 2024 with what our decision is in 2023 and again i honestly believe that we're going to see and i'm i'm going to probably say 2025 is probably going to be the roughest year i think by that point in time residential properties will be dropping i think we'll still be strong enough coming up here because remember when when we get ready for the payable 2024 um valuations they're done on january 2nd of 2023 i think that i think the residential values will still be good i think they'll start to drop drastically after that and at that point in time if our values are going down isn't really the greatest time in the world to start raising that levy up at the same time and we'll be having that as an impact and we'll also be having the loss of fiscal disparity dollars has an impact too hra and eda property tax levy historically we've we've basically we've we've levied based upon what the statute maximum will allow us for the hra at the .0185 percent of the estimated market value by statute if we were to do that that would be a 215 000 levy it's a 5.1 percent increase it would have a two dollar increase on the median value home and for the eda if we were to do the maximum of 0.1813 percent of the estimated market value again that would be a 5.1 percent increase and that would have a increase of two dollars per medium value home the budget calendar that we're looking at tonight is basically our official kickoff there's already been a lot of work that's that's been done behind the scenes obviously we've done the salary projections all department heads have been given materials have submitted we've already had some initial conversations after tonight and after we have some some questions answered and get a little bit more clear direction brian and i will be meeting with department heads to go through and kind of firm that up so we can present something for you on the 19th and we'll be having continuous meetings all the way through the time that we adopt the preliminary level levy in september and remember in september you know we're going to be adopting a maximum levy which means it can't go up from that point but it can absolutely go down so from now until then we'll really be focusing a lot on the levy component to it we'll also be looking at the cip the 10-year cip plan and then after we ask answer some questions tonight will help us determine what other discussions that we want to have to help you be able to make a decision and to help us um develop a budget that meets your your goals and your in your needs and so with that um see that's that's where that other item would have been very handy because i've already through this part um it's really opening up to to discussion as far as the material that was presented so it's really kind of a question and answer period i think it was a good good presentation i'm [Music] looking forward to what uh anticipation of what's going to happen inflation's a big deal it's huge it's a big deal right now and i think market values i think you're correct i think we're at the high peak and you know they just keep going up and up and up they can't sustainable at those levels uh so i think you're kind of correct in the next couple years there will be a correction in the market and yeah that's when we're going to be hit but i'll open it up to council any questions that's my mayor thorson just looking at this schedule i'm not noticing because there's another component to our budget and that's the enterprise funds and uh in years past we've kind of you know talked about the general fund separately but you know they can be a part of each other and you know we're in a unique position where we have our own electric utilities and so you know monies from that have been used to finance projects in the past and to supplement general fund operations so i'm just kind of curious what are we planning on having discussions on that uh in the future here or is that what's what's the outlook for that that is that is a question that'll that'll be asked later on so we certainly can have some preliminary discussions on the enterprise funds we're working on those as we're working on the general fund too so yeah we certainly can do that too and you're absolutely right one of the options that you know will be presented in two weeks is is you know again depending on the comfort level level of setting that levy target um you know an option is you know you transfer more from your enterprise funds to offset some of those increases and that'll be something that we'll from the staff level will be presenting so yes we definitely should be taking a look at those and and and they're a little bit more subject to change because there's some other components that we don't end up getting i'll use the electric fund usually it's not until the latter part of the year that we actually find out from mmpa is that brian is that great uh what they're positioning for a rate increase um for the next year which has obviously has a great impact on on our rate for that but we definitely can have preliminary numbers ready for you to take a look at because i've been trying to encourage us to adopt like a uh fun balance policy with those funds because i think that can help guide us in our decision making for the general fund as well and also i can't remember the the dollar figure off the top of my head but didn't 2020 was it 2021 we ended up in a positive so we we you know we try to balance we pass a balanced budget but we ended up with a positive you know we didn't spend as much money as we were anticipating and then that money per our policy gets put into other funds do what was that do you do you happen to know what that number was at the top of our head yeah that uh the number for the general fund was 824 000 um and when we look at that from a budgetary standpoint this is where it kind of it kind of gets a little bit tricky and and really comes down to a dialogue on where our comfort level is from an expenditure standpoint we're a little over two hundred thousand dollars to the positive on our expenditure we already know there's a hundred thousand that we've already taken out for this year in 2022 and and that was in the parks um the contracted lawn service and we're doing that in-house so we already reduced that so if we were to just play out that the expenditures were in line with what they were um in 2021 um you know there was a hundred thousand um dollars so the bulk of that 824 really is coming from from revenues increased revenue sources and and the biggest one is permitting um and per permitting went a lot higher than we had anticipated earlier this year permitting was close to what we would normally see in a predictable year and then all of a sudden we ended up having the storm that came through and we're seeing permitting in the last month um since the storm go up significantly that's kind of that unpredictability to it not to say that that and it's definitely something that we'll be having the discussion with might be that if we all feel comfortable we could increase the the revenues and part of it there's an expenditure that increases too because we do not do all of the the inspections ourselves we hire somebody so there's a ratio that we could actually net out of that but that's definitely something that we can look at and it'll be an option that we will present um and and again the city council will have the opportunity to to adopt that but to answer your question that could be a way to to reduce some of that levy impact yes yeah that was another point i had about the the main 19th hail storm and kind of what i think the most common repair is the roof yeah and so are we seeing kind of just on average what what's the uh the building permit revenue that the city actually sees because we do contract that that out and then you know people have two years to make an insurance claim so that's potentially something we could see spread out over the course of the next two years having this increase in in building permits we also had some unspent i can't even remember now what the acronyms are but we had some money from the cares act and then something else where are we at with that and then what are the parameters and what we can spend that money on um i'll have to i'll i'll push down the road the the answer for the the original care funding to find out where we're at is that last year we had allocated some of that for some one-time purchases in the police department so i'll have to look to see where we're at if we're done what's left out of that one at that point in time i think we were looking at uh we i think we had about 160 000 left we had allocated most of that out to some one-time purchases um as far as um this next round the arpa funds we have just received our second half so we have approximately 1 million 360 000 but we had earmarked that for the 2020 street projects okay so how much 1 million 360 000 365 or something 66 or something like that and so we're getting some news about potentially reduction in lga what is our full lga allotment do you happen to know that number isn't it like 1.8 million or somewhere around there yeah so in uh in 2022 our full allotment was one million six hundred and fifty five thousand um a little under 1.3 million was allocated to the general fund um approximately 266 000 was allocated to street maintenance fund and 100 000 to the park fund so there's another area where you know if we wanted to we could make modifications to help but i'm just you know obviously where there's going to be also there's a million ways to slice the pie i'm just trying to off recollection you know some of these things that we've we've chosen to do but it sounds like obviously we'll have more more discussions i'm chuckling a little bit because i wrote down these numbers um towards the end of the day anticipating some of the questions they make out yeah and yes that's already brian and i had talked about that that is an option that we will be presenting um for so i'm just kind of laughing because i i love it well we're on the same wave yeah great um and then you know that that i think you know we it was presented to us earlier this year about the creation of the um community development director position and we all agreed that that obviously there's some staffing issues and need to be addressed and now absent the city manager i me personally i think that's a decision that the new individual would need to make if perhaps they want to go a different direction so i think for now i would be apt to say let's put that on hold until that new person is on board in you know september october hopefully at the earliest and then maybe they can make a determination on that because i don't think we're not proceeding forward with interviewing and hiring someone for that are we no no we're no we're not it is on hold however however from a budgetary standpoint we do need to include it into our budget so that brings me to my point number two of my walk away is from our past city manager and again it does tie into the staffing level and it's you know as we're looking for a new city manager we certainly don't want to put ourselves in a position where we've you know tied their hands and we haven't levied enough or we haven't put the correct staffing levels in there um because then it creates a mid-year shift and it may just totally discourage somebody from even applying if if they're looking at the compliment or seeing that there's difficulty getting a levy increase so those are some factors that we we absolutely need to be aware of so um you know as far as the community development position i mean a new um city manager may come in and say hey you know i'd really like to change the title of that and having a you know a an assistant city manager and and they would do community development some development and some other functions but the bottom line is is that we would have at least the significant amount of the dollars already in the budget and would be a a smaller increment that would come up and then i guess the last comment i had was the for the hra and eda budgets are we going to see any kind of like anticipated car or like how they're going like an individual budget within those and maybe like a recap of how monies have been spent in the past um and and kind of going along that whole idea of you know just because we can levy should we and you know so i'd like to see things like the current fund balance of each and then uh you know if we're going to levy why are we living why do we need those dollars and what are we going to spend them on sorts of things that i would need to see before i would want to support something like that so that's all i have i would say for the hra eda budgets it'd be nice to go back to the uh committees and get a recommendation from them absolutely just to see what you know what their plans are for spending for the year you know we did talk about some sort of uh position in the eda and again it goes back to i think that uh that new city manager you know what is that title going to be maybe it's part of the eda maybe it's part you know it could be a whole lot of things so i think uh you know getting some sort of recommendation from hra and the eda or at least have discussion in those commissions to uh bring back either a recommendation or a uh you know some sort of thought process for why we would raise that levy to what it what they wanted to be yeah and and and to play off of that i and that was a part of what i had sent out when when our past city manager was still here and sent him he he got a little bit more detailed um budget schedule that went out to all the department heads um and so forth but there was a second page of the document and it and it listed all of our commissions because we really should be talking to every one of our our our commissions and and getting their recommendations and bringing that forth um to the city council so that's including planning arts and um you know parks and rec and and so forth to make sure that they all have a voice um in this budget process you didn't say one of the positive things here was uh you have a year's experience now within our budget pretty close i have to be on you know rather than just jumping into the middle of the budget and i still have to be on good behavior for another week before i hit my probationary period over but uh and i would say part of that is you know your the position that you're asking for uh in the past you know is that also part of part of this budget that that's you know it really comes out of some of the discussions that were we're going to have a little bit later um you know to me i look at things from the standpoint of what's the best for the city and i look at it as steps and increments in getting there and so i believe that there's some other needs um that are to me that i would prioritize higher i'm not going to say what they are until we get into that part so i certainly could defer that you know request um a little bit longer um it really comes down to some other needs and where we're gonna you know really kind of target our levy at um and and that's really i think more critical for me um to see again almost a year into this this job here i am still thankful to have this opportunity i'm still amazed at this city council i'm still amazed at all the people that work here and dedication and i still i know it's hard to believe after a year i'm still glad that i made this decision so um yeah so i i just think it's just a great environment i just think that there's some other priorities that we that we really haven't been discussing as far as staffing is concerned in some other areas so i know you feel pretty comfortable in your office now because you're when you started your desk was only a few papers on it now it's buried uh two feet high yeah uh any other comments or concerns for presentation otherwise part two of the part two ready to move on ready to move on all right so part two these were the budget objectives and outcomes that were in the 2022 budget it's the focus on basic services and funding these activities at adequate levels demonstrate a commitment to existing infrastructure and proactive repair slash replacement sufficient funding for equipment replacement building maintenance and information technology ensure city operated public safety programs meet the needs of our residents balance residential market growth with tax increases that's a key one i'm going to play off of because that's kind of my overall message that i've been saying over and over again and then adhere to a balanced budget and i think that's you know that's the principle that we totally believe in i want to back up to the the third to last bullet and public safety again a lot of compliment um i have to give a lot of compliment to to the city council because um last year and this year well in the year that i've been here you've made a significant investment in public safety and that is something that just shouldn't be overshadowed in it and it's not just the increases in staff it's also the increase in the commitment to funding of needed equipment um in both the police and the fire so more a little bit more heavy on the police side and i think that we need to make some attention this year on the fire side but but yeah i think that you you've done just a remarkable job on public safety so i'm bringing these pub budget objectives and outcomes that were in 2022. here's my question do you agree with the budget objectives and outcomes and i would also like to ask you to take a moment and write down any additional budget objectives or outcomes that you would like to see and then we will have more of a discussion on that could you go back to the previous slide please thank you i'll leave it there appreciate it remember your responses need to be in the form of a question what was the difference between the two uh some like lines they like you is everybody ready pretty good i'm gonna randomly just pick on one can you read any of it i think there's some yeah um most of mine fell underneath i mean my mine were more mine were much more specific than the general budget over and i jotted those down as we were as we were sitting here so the majority of mine fall into the big buckets you already have so we're looking at downtown landscaping and road projects preparing to make sure that we have the right positions community development director the building maintenance of all of our facilities so really a lot of investing in a lot of planning items is is what you're identifying a lot of mine is now let's invest now to potentially save in the future we're playing catch up on a lot of things let's continue to build on that so i didn't specifically put items in there that uh and and you and you and you don't have to have specific items that are in there you know to me to me my walk away is is really investment um because then there's going to be a dialogue that's around that investment especially when we come to the capital improvement project then we'll get into the specific then or do you want to details if i can yep you want to take it or you want me to explain it to you you explain it well i i agree with the uh objective [Laughter] i agree with the objectives and outcomes that you had listed uh i believe these are instrumental for our core services uh also giving our taxpayers the greatest amount of outcome for our assets and services in other words greatest value for our services uh we need to keep updated we need to keep things updated okay something of that sort i'm going to take it because i'm going to take this after we're done and and make sure that it's all compiled and that it'll be the first thing in our next workshop to make sure that we're in agreement with what's there can i put tim's name on here i said i answered your question with a question and i said well what what current city services are not at adequate levels right now and i think that you know once we get feedback from the department heads um you know we can talk about that um just to stress the continued import importance on focusing on the capital improvement plan and our aging infrastructure because it's just as the years go on we're seeing more and more water main breaks and more and more super backups things like that that are just going to keep getting worse and worse the longer that gets delayed so if we fall off the schedule kind of like we did this year it's just going to be a compounding problem in years down the road and then i just you know last thought was you know try our best to make an attempt to keep fees and taxes as low as possible due to the current economic uncertainty and and current market inflation levels you know it i understand what you're saying by you know trying to plan ahead in years into the future but it's it's hard to do because of all those uncertainties so what we can do is just focus on the now and uh it's just gonna be a tough pill for people to swallow when you know their their taxes are already gonna go up with this large adjustment in their market value on top of it and then if we tack on adding increasing fees and in taxes it's just kind of a double whammy especially when prices of everything are up so that's just quickly my thoughts i'm going to come and grab those candy well the water tower you know i think we're going to need a water tower at some point so just kind of put that in your back your mind um the community center how we going to repair it and when we're going to repair it and where the funding is going to come from that and then just keeping a good balance for equipment and replacements you know because that those things things come up and it's important to be ready for that and not to rely on the lga i mean we do rely on it a lot but maybe in the future we might have to not really rely on it so if it's gonna you know decrease every year that's all i have thank you very much last but not well least you for your presentation first of all um so i completely agree with my colleagues here about infrastructure cip and maintenance maintenance of existing assets that we have additionally i think providing adequate funding to enhance the livability through multimodal transportation parks and rec arts and culture and then invest equitably so each department's needs are met and that's distributed in a way that is reflective of the needs but also balanced in the budget i think you're already on roll with this but an inclusive process and staffing i thank you very much i'm going to come and grab that here in a second but i'm going to go back over here and get you started on the second one and definitely definitely some of this can be overlap but the next one is city goals please take a moment to write down city goals so we can better align the 2023 budget and that's that's where what i kind of stated earlier um you know at some point in time we really do need to develop a citywide mission vision and those goals and that we are and and we don't want a ton of goals you know four goals we want to be able to make sure that all of the department heads are in alignment with those goals and that we're actually budgeting and putting our money into achieving those goals in other words they have to have measurable results and i i hear so much of of what would fall into that very easily when you're talking about the capital improvement planning the infrastructural needs of the of the city um you can definitely see that that would fall into one of those high high goals that that the city has and and you know and and with that it it intertwines with the you know multimodal transportation and making this a more livable community so i mean there's there's things that have already been coming up that intertwine with with the goals but you know if we can get a couple of of level goals of your thoughts that we can brian and i can convey to the department heads that that's kind of our direction to make sure that when we come back with options that we're also talking about the impact of those options whether they're funded or they're not and making sure that they're in alignment with your goals you you if it helps dan at the end if we have time uh we did a workshop earlier in the year for the council and we wrote down a lot of what we're talking about and i don't know if that was ever ever given to you or staff or anything so i think there's a document out there but i did write them all down oh fantastic so i do have good i could do you have it okay you do have it okay perfect perfect and i think that kind of overlaps with some of the stuff that absolutely absolutely yep did we ever do anything with that and you know what they always say whoever makes eye contact gets picked on first go yes please well affordability you know we want to keep the town you know people want to move in here so we want to keep our taxes low but we want to deliver services public safety is number one i know we talked about that before good roads and maintaining the roads and staffing thank you very thank you very much mayor uh councilman peterson all good uh i would agree with that also uh i believe you know staffing levels we need to get to where we were to optimize the organism to benefit the whole organization i think the last couple years coming out of the pandemic now i think we're short staff and we need a staffing level capital improvement plan with the streets i think we're we need to get those uh keep those going uh development and redevelopment with the lilly building community center also highway 36 and 120s that's what i have perfect thank you very much and councilmember thorson so this is pretty general and big and i've said this before but i think just to have a renewed focus on providing basic functions of local government so public safety public works general city services and and looking at the needs versus the wants because every department's going to have you know a long list of things that they want to have but you know we got to look at the big picture and you know sometimes we just can't fund everything just the continued focus on the capital improvement plan just sounding like a broken record but it's just it's important and uh more specific things just a goal to at least by the end of 2023 have the downtown landscaping completed um and then have the new city manager review staffing levels because that that was discussed at our council retreat it's been brought up here obviously uh several times so that clearly is an area of focus your comment of broken record i actually like hearing that because it it's giving us a constant theme at really where we should be prioritizing you know our resources um so noah actually thank you very much i'm going to grab that in a second um lisa or yeah mine are quite um vague as well but i would agree with many of the things that have been said so far um i would like to see and this is what bigger picture than maybe that this was intended for but invest in the city particularly infrastructure to mitigate impacts of climate change wow very big and then invest in the capacity of city staff so the services can also reflect the changing needs of the community and then i would refer to the comp plan as well there is a vision statement in there as well um should i read it let me read it sure yes please north st paul is your favorite small town we promote community stewardship through an involved and informed citizens citizenry we preserve neighborhood value with diverse and maintained housing and active neighbors the city engages in creative place making that fosters an environment of economic and employment opportunity north st paul builds systems that connect people to places and promote active lifestyles very good it's very good work's been done thank you very much council member cole the beauty of going last what they said uh again to dan to tie into your earlier comment a lot of its consistency i think across most all of us here it's all just said potentially a different way um but it's making no it's continue to make or make north st paul a desirable destination for new residents and new businesses uh very similar to what what lisa just just read and a lot of that ties in uh to provide the city amenities and services the residents are seeking to continue the downtown development with businesses and services that residents want continue to make north st paul livable walkable community enhance the parks enhance additional ways of usage uh and potentially uh incremental parks throughout uh as well as just you know increased rate of repair for city infrastructure the cip fantastic oh two down two to go oh look at the time next one is quicker and easier to do the last one will take a little bit more time please take a moment write down the range you would like to set for the 2023 levy target i don't think that's a fair question there's so many unknowns right now absolutely there's a there's a lot of unknowns part of the presentation it was kind of what we know today and but this can change it's something for us to at least the budget that we give to you in two weeks it may not meet that but then it'll give you options to get within that range um and then that's really where the dialogue really begins um because you'll hear from department heads you'll be able to ask those tough questions it'll be able to weed out is it is it a want is it a need um you know if we do this how do we balance this um are we giving out on some of our goals um that you've just very articulately you know put together so it's really just to get us that where are we on the the correct page um frankly if there's a lot of zeros that are on here there's not a lot that we're going to be able to to have a it's going to be a very tough tough budget discussion in year and again i can't emphasize we're going against what we've already set up and against one of our budget outcomes and objectives so with my final piece to it i'm starting off with council member thorson zero to 5.32 percent [Music] [Laughter] nine percent keep going down the road oh i'm going to four to seven point one six five i'd go with councilman with harrison's give it a little point one six five six to ten percent goal is to stay in line with historic average but let's see what that looks like when we're done so i said not to exceed six percent but that doesn't get us there a lot of unknown you got a couple minutes a couple couple minutes uh left for this next one here and they didn't think i could fill up an hour and a i'm excited half these things so please take a moment and write down what budget topics or additional information would help in making your final budget decision some of those i think yes you had councilmember thorson had brought up earlier um you know things like the enterprise fund and so far those are the type of topics work your way to left and right no you're going first uh i mean first thing i did is the first thing i wrote down was big picture and fun on my way down it's kind of the way my thought process goes but um enterprise funds cip park dedication funds and how to utilize the funds what can we use it for i you know we're we're building funds i think it's time that we start to to reinvest um review city-owned properties and discuss usage transfer the ownership of said properties to the 88 eda to expedite development thank you we're gonna we're gonna go this this way this time okay you're not gonna go around so i said an overview of when the department heads make their um presentation the functions and activities of the each department and then also kind of an assessment of where they are at in terms of their budget and their programming and then also it would be helpful for any budget allocations to have some data and trends or some charts to have some level of justification at least quantitatively i'd like to see some qualitative as well if possible and then to ask the question of how it's consistent with the comp plan um and then also like to know a little bit about staffing in each department and projections even and then to council member cole's point a little bit more about you know our existing funds and potentially some of the limitations and privileges of each one thank you well i should have never asked this question like a lot of work [Laughter] a lot of good ideas my recommendation is uh for the eda hra to uh kind of bring it to their commissions to get levies you know what what they would like to see that uh i think we get a lot of information from the department heads when they have their meetings with you in regards to the needs needs for the city and the wants and i think that pretty much sets the the general levy is what we hear when we do hear from them uh what's really interesting is i want to know what how we come out of this pandemic you know as we come out of it what have we learned what what uh now we have open gov we've got other things in place that we're working with now that we didn't have before and you know and i think according or you know working with the budget roseville i.t you know what what are they giving us for that amount of money that that's a big dollar amount that we're using with uh roosevelt i'd like to find out you know what what value do we get out of that uh and how business is done differently than than it was before and how do we you know how do we how do we learn from it and grow from it and determine there's things that i think that coming out of the pandemic that we've learned that we might do things a lot differently and it might be better for us thank you very yeah much inner enterprise funds too i'm kind of interested on that one budget percentages scenarios you know different things that you can say dan that if we do this it impacts that options yep um and then this is kind of a want but is there any extra money for swag i mean we've talked about this before and it's been voted down on it we have pins and we have that's all we have is pins but like we have like guest speakers or something we can get maybe a water bot or just some little thing i mean i'm not talking big money if there's any extra money somewhere because these other cities that i deal with they they really have a lot of stuff and i mean it's just it's just probably a want but but you're you're hitting on the the point of promoting the city i like the sign that they put up while i just noticed that on the fire department that was cool that was cool i took a picture of this that's all i have thank you councilmember thurston yeah i would say kind of touched on some of this stuff earlier but maybe seeing more historical data on each department kind of line item stuff uh if there's trends you know for example if we're budgeting ten thousand dollars in office supplies out of finance every year and they're only spending eight to nine hundred dollars we can probably bring that down but just not saying that's what's going on but just an obvious example um enterprise fun detail fund balances it'd be nice to see some 2022 year-to-date actual revenues and expenses versus what we were projecting and and how you know close we are department budget details and and details on the capital improvement plan [Music] i think that wraps it up i thank you very much i thank each and every one of you very much for for your patience and in going through this i think we've at least for me i've gathered a lot of information a lot of good direction that i can share with our department heads and and and the first step will be brian and i will try to digest all of this um and then meet with the department heads but i thank you very much um i i didn't think i'd be able to fill up the hour and a half it was awesome but i thank you very very much and i would say and i would say get that list from our yes workshop or retreat that we had there are a lot of things on there one of the things was you know a backdrop for for here there's your swag or if that's part of that or not it is it's about promoting the city and those are really low cost items to be able to to do that so it's all about branding good good well thank you dan i really appreciate it good workshop thank you turn over back to interim city manager randall hey come here that includes our agenda items for the workshop okay anything else anybody add anything if not uh motion to adjourn moved by councilmember peterson second second by council member cole uh all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed uh meeting adjourned we'll take a couple minutes and okay