2001-11-28 CC - Laserfiche WebLink

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. DRAFT LETTER TO EDITOR FOR CITIES LOSING STATE AID IN 2001 Dear Editor: The 2001 tax bill passed last spring dramatically changed how many government services are funded. Under the new law, much of the cost for K-12 education will now be paid directly by the state rather than from local property taxes. That means that your school property taxes likely will go down. To help pay for this new education responsibility, the state reduced or eliminated the amount of money it historically gave many cities to share in the cost of providing public services like police, fire, street maintenance, parks and recreation programs. In fact, _[city name here]_ will lose $ . Because this state aid has been an important part of our city's budget, its loss forces the city to increase the city portion of your property tax bill. The levy increase to replace lost state aids is not surprising. The governor and Legislature fully expected cities to increase their property taxes to replace them. In fact, the state's own estimates of how much property taxes would be reduced next year assumed that cities would increase their property tax levies, dollar for dollar, to compensate for the lost aid. No city official relishes the thought of increasing property taxes - especially when the levy increase is needed simply to meet last year's budget. However, many cities, like the city of _[your city name here] , has to do just that to maintain the services our community needs and expects. Citizens should always hold local elected officials accountable for spending and taxing decisions, and this year is no different. However, I also believe it's important that our community understands how property tax changes made at the state level significantly impacted our city finances and local needs and priorities. Sincerely, , Mayor City of League of Minnesota Cities November 2001