2021-08-25 CC Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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Assessing is up $1,600 based on the contract with our new assessor group headed by Mary Wells. We now have about $60,500 budgeted for the police contract increase and about $12,000 for the fire contract increase based on the latest budget proposals for those joint powers agencies. The police budget is down almost $10,000 from the estimate in July. Staff has adjusted the allocation between Building Inspections, Public Works, and Park departments based on recent trends. The net changes in salary reflect the overall increase in public works salaries. There is a rather dramatic reduction in Workers Compensation insurance in the Public Works. I have discovered that our formula for allocating the premiums did not distribute any to the utility funds. We will correct this in coming years and reflect that in the budget. There is a $2,000 increase in engineering fees in Streets to reflect recent experience. An increase in salaries and professional services in the Recycling area is offset by the increased SCORE revenue from Anoka County. This reflects our commitment to recycling activities. We also have an increase budgeted for transfers. Based on our capital improvement plan, a $3,500 increase in transfers to the Equipment Replacement Fund is required to fund replacement equipment over the next ten years. The total equipment transfer is $83,430. The Economic Development Authority has requested a total budget of $32,900. This will increase their transfer by $3,700. Based on our previous work session, the revenue side of the budget has been adjusted back to previous year's amounts for most items. We only have a $2,000 reduction in the fines and forfeits line item based on lower estimated fine revenue from 2021 experience. We also have an increase in the SCORE revenue from Anoka County which support our recycling efforts. This is a reflection of the experience of the last several years. The overall effect of these changes is an increase to the General Fund levy of $132,994. This levy is offset by a decrease in our debt service levy of $49,391. The net increase of $83,603 represents a 3% increase in the overall levy. We don't have information from Anoka County regarding our property value increases that will offset this. Staff is attempting to make an estimate with our new assessor group to determine what effect this will have on an individual property owner. The effect on a typical home will likely be lower than 2% based on the new commercial and residential property values that have been added in the past year. The table below summarizes the expenditure and revenue changes. When we subtract the revenue increase from the expenditure increase, the resulting number is the amount that the tax levy needs to be increased.