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Regular City Council Meeting Monday, February 28, 2011 Page 24 Councilmember Pust opined that such a process had been done for several years now, and continued to get Councilmembers focused on which line items to pursue or remove. Mayor Roe opined that, when doing the prioritization process, no dollar amounts should be included. Councilmember Pust opined that, if Attachment A was to be relied upon, the levy limit should be set before prioritization. Mayor Roe opined that they could be done either way from his perspective, that they could be done concurrent with each other, and that the City Council should be setting priorities of the things most important to provide to the community and based on available resources. Councilmember Pust disagreed, opining that the levy should be set first, then ser- vices and programs prioritized. Councilmember McGehee opined that the levy should be based on the minimum it would take to provide essential services, just the minimum, without any extra programs at all; what it would cost to have a zero levy. Then after that is estab- lished, Councilmember McGehee suggested those items needing to be removed could be addressed. Councilmember McGehee opined that the idea that every year the previous year's levy and budget was increased with additional items ap- plied, was not right and not getting the City where it needed to be. Council- member McGehee further opined that the incremental budgets over the last 8-9 years were not sustainable. Councilmember Willmus opined that the proposed list was a good place to start and he was in agreement; however, he opined that each individual Councilmemb- er would have a different answer, as well as individual staff members, on what constituted an essential service. Mayor Roe opined that prioritization informed that discussion. Councilmember Johnson spoke in support of Councilmember Pust's proposed targeted levels; suggesting that by April or May, realistic scenarios could be made available; allowing time for the CIP Task Force recommendations to come for- ward and potentially affecting the levy and how it was approached. Mayor Roe noted that the proposed calendar didn't set the preliminary levy until the end of May; and that it may be appropriate to consider several different scena- rios and impacts to the community's programs and services with a zero percent levy; and several other scenarios.