2.0. SR 09-04-2001 - Laserfiche WebLink

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out of the general fund budget and finance these with an equipment certificate tax levy. Equipment certificates are outside the levy limit and this funding technique was used in all the previous years when levy limits existed since at least 1985. About the only other comments to offer at this time before the budget figures are presented on Monday is that the prosecuting attorney will be an additional expenditure for the city. We may very well have up to $35,000 in expenses that exceed revenues. Additionally, somewhere around $15,000 will have to be spent in 2001 to fix up the office for this position and support staff and this expense will have to come out of either the city council contingency or the government buildings reserve. Finally, in July the Council added a drug task force police officer to the department but this was done without knowing the impact of levy limits. It is recommended that the city delays the hiring of the CSO for at least a year in preference to this drug task force police officer. I don't think that we can afford both additional positions in 2002. Please bring your budget material from the July 2 meeting to this September 4 worksession. If you cannot locate this material, attached are some of the summary pages that were used during the July 2 meeting. The final attachment is a summary page of some of the changes that are briefly outlined in this memo. This last attachment shows the budget deficit going from $382,300 to $111,600. This takes into consideration keeping the general fund within the levy limit and moving $273,500 in equipment out of the general fund and into an equipment certificate program (one year levy). It should also be noted that this revised budget gap amount includes the CSO position being removed from the budget. In order to further close this budget gap, some additional cuts will have to be made and some additional revenues will have to be identified. The Council is meeting on September 4, 2001, because the proposed maximum levy has to be certified to the county by September 15, 2001. Actually this date is a Saturday, so we need to certify to the county by sometime during the workday on Monday, September 17, 2001. To a certain degree we will be making tax levy decisions in the dark, as we will not have a good understanding of how our decision will impact the property owners in the community. At this time the Council should seriously consider certifying the maximum levy allowed along with moving as much as reasonably possible into equipment certificates. Then as more information becomes available we can make tax and budget adjustments prior to the end of the year. No public hearing is required for the budget this year and Sherburne County has requested a waiver in sending out the required tax notice information.