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Twenty-five percent of the city's total MSA apportionment can be designated to maintenance under state aid rules. Cities can apply to the commissioner to increase the maintenance allotment to 35% of the city's total allotment. The City of Roseville uses 25% of the annual distribution to fund maintenance needs. The other 75% of the annual apportionment is held by the state for eligible construction cost reimbursement. There are specific rules as to which construction expenses are eligible for reimbursement. If a city's state aid system is up to state aid standards, the population based allocation can be used for eligible reimbursable costs elsewhere on the city's road system or for eligible reimbursable expenses related to county road projects per local jurisdiction cost share policies. Roseville's annual allotment of state aid dollars is subject to the total revenue pool available from the state. As Roseville's population is somewhat stagnant, our share of the population-based revenue is declining, as the pool of revenue is divided among many growing outer ring suburbs. Property taxes have paid for the non-assessable portion of street reconstruction, as per current assessment policy. A portion of the city's tax levy has been designated for the retirement of bonds used to finance street reconstruction. Special assessments, as allowed by statute, have been used for many years by the city, as per the special assessments policy. In general, special assessments can only be used to pay for services or improvements that provide some special benefit to specific properties. Only those parcels of property that receive this special benefit may be assessed. The amount of the assessment must bear a direct relationship to the value of the benefit the property receives. Most assessment policies try to treat like property classes fairly and equitably regardless of location so as to minimize challenges. The City of Roseville has used all of the above resources to fund its transportation network. The result is that Roseville has one of the highest overall condition index street systems in the metropolitan area. The city has applied these resources under city policy and MSA rules to the benefit of the entire network. Any change in city policy must be done with careful consideration of the impact on overall financing of the city's transportation network and the ability to maintain the overall condition of that system. In that regard, see the two memos from Finance Director, Chris Miller, analyzing the impacts of potential revisions to special assessments policy and an overview of the city's MSA funding financial activity. (Attachments 1 and 2) STREETSCAPE DISCUSSION Council discussion on April 8, 2002, seemed to indicate that there is some interest in possibly creating a streetscape special assessment policy. The current policy contains provisions to assess pathways and sidewalks, as well as restorative landscaping that is necessary in conjunction with the reconstruction of roadways. Individual council member comments indicated a majority of the members would be comfortable with an assessment to properties for a portion of streetscape costs. The preferred split of these costs ranged from 5%-25% property owner cost and 75%-95% city cost. One council member asked for a definition of streetscape and another suggested credit for existing improvements be given to property owners.