jim well let's get right to it the first question is for gail the city council held the budget hearing on monday december tenth the budget document and tax levy increase of three point seven eight was approved retreat this set the stage for the budget document and early projections were that the levee increase would be a levy increase of between three and four percent would be needed to finance what was agreed upon in the through those processes multiple workshops are hel with the council and based on these workshops and discussions with the council the proposed levy we had brought forward and staff was three and a half percent now in september we need to adopt a maximum levy for the year the council because plenary tax amount cannot be increased it can only be decreased the council wanted to ensure that they had sufficient funds to cover everything and there's a lot of activity between september and december when we adopt the final levy so the council included  additional one percent to the levy increase a levy the maximum proposed levy by one percent to four and a half percent which included fifty thousand additional for fire department personnel as requested by  and fifty thousand dollars for a new fire station project to help reduce future anticipated debt and just over seventy eight thousand for debt service to help minimize future debt levy increases now we also held a workshop on end of november where we discussed the general fund and the one percent levy increase and the council had directed staff to only include the fifty thousand dollars from fire department personnel so this brought our final proposed budget down to three point seven eight percent which is what was discussed with the council on monday night and on december tenth and what was approved by the council at that time yeah well i know you have a power point presentation to people don't have to write real quickly but you know the that was just the night before last and i found it interesting that we had a public hearing it was advertised published it cetera et cetera and i believe  two city residents and one person outside the city attended the public hearing and actually spoke and and i thought that was kind of indicative of  professional job that you and and chuck of putting this budget together and the transparency that has taken place over the year so check the council has some goals that were established earlier this year how did that impact the presentation of the budget that the staff recommended i appreciate you included me and in that you know all the professionalism most of that scales work but really the process when we talk about the process  and what we do gayle talked about the final numbers there really is is probably a ten month process that we really follow and obviously the first thing we do council sets the goals for the city we you know as you're well aware and the staff operates the city but it's only based upon the goals that the council set and so in our retreat we see this broad vision that the council has for the years and says ok this is what we want to accomplish here is where we want  all and so one of the things that we have an air cut on the screen the show i mean the biggest thing is our number one priority that the council gave us this year is that our police department they did a study we'll have forty four percent of the space we need for the police department we haven't put a dime into providing them additional space since one thousand nine hundred six and so the council said we need to find a way to increase the funding but more importantly figure out a way to move some expenses or cut expenses so that we're not hitting our increasing the tax base dramatically so try to limit the cost but we need to find money to to increase our funding for a police department we also heard from the auditor during the year and the council heard they auditors that that came in and said our funding for the for the community center m c c were really pain for some of the call it it's probably not a great word but the sins of what happened in the earlier years we didn't put any money away for the maintenance and and so the building is starting to show its age we've built it in the mid ninety's so well all of a sudden we found out the building and there were all the equipment nearly twenty years old and it needs to be medicare is not increasing by what our costs are so we need to find a way to to solve that our debt service we for for nearly eight years have have done a lot of street work great beds project cost thirty forty percent below what we expected to pay but now we have to pay the bill and so that's really what we have to do this council is very very proactive in trying to find funding for a park development and so  that's us i was going to struggle to find that we kind of built the park system based upon development our development is slow down now we don't have the funding and so we've got to start tweaking in looking for a different direction for funding and obviously we said we were on an eight year program where we really advanced our streets the council and setting priorities said gee we're not done with our streets but we need to maybe start cutting back on what we're doing investing in streets because our dept is is  we still have a great debt debt ratio but we're getting to that point where we have to start watching it and finally the council said economic development we need to be need to get out in establish some goals whether it's a medical chor redevelopment of some of our areas start looking out that five in ten years so that that our our tax base from a strong as it is we're great city the got a great tax base in the city so make sure that we protect that neck anomic development is is that area so we need to start slowly moving in that direction and so i think the budget that to gail talked about that eventually got approved starts achieving each one of these goals and certainly doesn't solve the ball but i think we're on the right direction great  t the budget does is divided into three different sections operating capital improvement and debt service can you talk a little bit about those sections and how the expenditures are classified in the operating budget and there are three sections in the operations section is the biggest part of our budget it includes the general fund which is the main operating fund of the city that's where you know our police our fire our streets our parks most of those expenditures are in the general fund  operations also include special revenue funds which includes funds such as charitable gambling and our recreation programs and that also includes our utility funds the community center and the ambulance service fund and then some of our internal service funds like fleet management and  services center do but do work for other departments within the city our capital improvements projects funds are pretty self explanatory there are street projects our park projects our sewer projects includes artists districts and so forth and then debt service we have a sub account for each of our dead issues throughout the city so those are three sections of the budget and i do have a slide here that that shows the revenue and expenditure breakdown for each of those sections and you can see the revenues for the operations section are seventy nine percent of the total revenue budget and expenditures are seventy one point four percent of the total expenditure budget so that is the main driving force for the city now th one on the on the total revenues expenditures for the city by section is it's pretty general there's much more detail in our budget document which is on line on the city's website but you know this just gives you some general was just to show you that the operations section of our budget is you know the meat of the meat of the city if we go on to the next flight i have here it it really focuses on the operations section and shows that over fifty percent of the expenditures in this section are for personnel services and that's followed by contractual services that twenty eight point seven percent so this really does show that the city services our city is a service based industry and i think that's it's now fifty eight percent in contrast to picked up under contractual services but that is you know trying to find the most efficient and expensive way of providing services and i think service oriented organization that's what we do that's what government's about a combination of many people ok i wanted to ask jack about the tax rate two questions there the first is the the capital improvements and that takes care of the capital improvement bonds that the city issues and primarily want to cheat explain a little bit more chuck what projects are included in that because i think there's some there why there's a petition going out right now that i think there's been some misnomers attached to that and really if you look at the operation section that's really what it what we're about i mean that's that's our personnel that's where we go the deed the capital improvement section that's the the project the internal projects whether we're replacing chairs or carpet or the roof system or putting money into last summer i mean we had during the hottest week of the year our conditioning went out in two thirds of our buildings and we have to replace that with you know we had you know police officers and  personnel working in eighty five degree ninety degree rooms and offices and so we have to repair that and so that's what that is the bonding and the projects the money that we have set aside for the various projects are in the debt service section and that's you know that's our city debt and i always tell people or we're we're one of the great agencies in the state of minnesota because we have so such a great well planned that i mean people were were right  we get some of the best bonding ratings of any agencies in the entire region not just in in our area but the entire region and part of that is because we are keeping up on our infrastructure we are taking care of their buildings and our space although as you said the the expansion and police department there's a project where well it's going to be the cheapest for the community if we sell this bond it's called a capital improvements bond and but we're borrowing money at one point seven to one point eight percent is our most recent rate well that's i've you and i are old enough to remember we'd never see borrowing rates at that kind of level and that money in this budget and previous monies we've set aside so there's no tax increase oh we can fix our police department problem with that binding it's the cheapest way to do it sure there's other ways to do it but it's at that particular project where we can sell the bonds and tell the tell the taxpayers we're not going to have to raise your level we just need to use that tool and so the bonding is a tool but that's in this budget deal puts it together and said we've already set the money aside it's done we don't need to go and raise your taxes in thirteen fourteen or fifteen in order to pay for that that bonding for that police department project i think that's the important part of that discussion and really kind of what bothers cetera et cetera and and then on the same token we have a double a bond rating which i believe is one that is maybe the stairs or sixteen the other stuff  the loneliness i mean the sixteen government entities actually above us as in the state of minnesota and so you know that doesn't quite jive and then on top of it when you when i heard you explain that we've had this debt service study done as to how the debts being paid off and stuff like that it it just kind of goes over people said and so let's just take a minute and and her repeat that so we can get it on the record i think that's the important part in it and you know when you talk about the city's debt i mean you can be it's right now it's over eighty million dollars not that's it is a lot of money and certainly that's that's what it is but you have to stop and think about what it is i mean when w e we talked about an eight year celebrated streets program if we're going to build a street did last thirty five or forty years we don't ask our residents to pay for the one year we don't you know our houses that we don't pay for our houses that one year and that's what debt is and so we share the cost and as a city we participate we would pay as much as seventy percent we would build our streets well why i pay for something that's going to last forty years in one year instead we issued debt we borrow money at one point seven or one point eight percent very cheap in effect cheap money it's still debt but in my mind that's the right kind of debt because then a resident we typically get in fifteen or twenty years to pay off that particular street and for a new street for their house but that also is a service to our residents and so it's us again we go back to this is a service industry and so dept is is a majority of that and so the nice thing about maple woods dept is yeah we've done all this debt and work over the last ten twelve thirteen years ok now a lot of the debt is beginning to decrease in fifteen and sixteen and so our debt payments which are listed on here's the bottom line yes there are a lot of money but that's going to start decreasing and so we're just simply paying the bills paying me credit on the city and that that debt rating is looked at by our various other rating agencies and they basically come back and say where to go maplewood you're doing a great job so they give us that rating every year and every time we want to actually get it we increased to what two years ago yes exactly exactly we took a step increase a couple years ago simply because we're not one of the cities that you read about on a national basis where they've ignored their infrastructure they've ignored the expenses and  really not put money aside and plan for were well planned financial city and that's what moody's looks at that's what these national agencies say these are great they're they're a great city run financially and therefore they give us one of the top bond ratings of any public agency in the entire region and that kind of segues into my question with gail as you know all this information that we have what's happening to our tax levy and and it is increasing by the three point seven eight percent and you can see that the operations section takes the biggest part of the tax levy just over seventy three percent now the general fund remember is part of the operations section sixty seven percent of the levies going to the general fund so you know that's your fire your police your parks your streets and there are a few new tax levies this year the the e p a which is a half percent increase over last year we've never levied money for the  park development in the past we haven't for for number of years now we're i think we're allocating thirty thousand dollars for the park development fund which is in need of funding and you know it hasn't seen any because of the economic downturn we've had we've always had to take things off the table also redevelopment there's a twenty thousand dollars levy for that this year that hasn't been there for a number of years so you know that's how we arrived at the tax levy the tax capacity rate it's a very complicated formula but it's all based on our taxable market value in the city now in two thousand and twelve you'll see there was a there was a twelve percent increase in our tax capacity rate and a lot of that had to do with the program institut the legislature the new market value homestead exclusion program which took the place of the old market value homestead credit program what the exclusion program does is that it finds it reduces your estimated market value down to a taxable value and that taxable values what we use in the computation of our tax capacity rate so is that all fair well our tax capacity rate increased so that's why we saw such a big jump in twelve and for thirteen now the median value home is decreased over twelve percent the average median value home that's one of the biggest drops we've seen in a number of years and we do not anticipate that repeating itself but there's there's been some good news on the economic front as far as housing sales so we don't anticipate that repeating itself but with that twelve percent drop again the full taxable value in the city dropped well some of it was artificial with the exclusion you know with the exclusion program of the one that started all this where it was a shift in taxes from the homestead properties to non homestead commercial industrial and apartments but easy to remember back if you look back ten fifteen  years there's been a shift from commercial industrial permits to to homeowners and now we're seeing the shift to go back again to the pendulum swing so you know i don't know if you can go legislature and show you know how unfair this is because you need to look at history too and the how this whole thing plays out but yeah the departments have to there are apartments have very low vacancy rates right now so actually the the value of their property going up so yeah they will see the increase in their taxes and and because commercial industrial and non homes to do not get this exclusion from their estimated market value they're not going to get the benefit of that exclusion program either so their taxes will go up but one thing i did note on the slide is that even with the zero percent tax levy increase the city tax cut passed the rate would still have increased five point five percent over last over the two thousand and twelve rate just because where about yeah i think we're just under a third of the total tax bill we received this information from the county i mean what this shows that over seventy five percent of the residents this is for homeowners will see a decrease or no to take the biggest one of them but now we look at the effect on a median value home back and i have five years of information here and back in two thousand and nine the median value home was two hundred one thousand six hundred that's dropped one hundred sixty thousand seven hundred for thirteen but also you can look at the effect this is just city taxes now the annual city taxes have increased from six hundred fifty one dollars to seven hundred six dollars a year that's fifty five dollars a year over five years or less than five dollars a month and taxes on if if your home was valued at the median amount every single year homeowners have to realize that not all homes increase the same amount every year it depends on if they have any improvements to their home from a decrease more than the twelve point one four percent which means they may even see a bigger of the crease because that's done by the county right as for there the county sets the values on holmes we have nothing to do with that so it's all starts with the value of the home then the tax capacity is computed based on what our tax levy needs to be and what the assessor values the homes that and it all come when you get your tax bill but the monthly tax bill down on a median value home for two thousand and thirteen is estimated to be just under fifty nine dollars share the taxes which would be seven hundred six dollars for the years so you know nobody likes to pay taxes but i guess i'd rather pay that taxes and some of the neighboring communities and  right and the major cities that we have in the area we're just about out of time and i just want one question to check and basically we're a service orientated agency as you said give us a two minute spiel check on what the recent trend is on the employees are our handling that dale just threw up the slide on this where our total number of employees this is all our police officers firefighters plow drivers and all the support personnel full time personnel in the city we have one hundred fifty six that's actually going to be da one so we're decreasing and that in that kind of put trades a trend of what we have the the year with the highest number of employees was two thousand and six and two thousand and seven when we had one hundred seventy seven hundred seventy four so if you look you do the math we're down eighteen almost eighteen to twenty one full time employees over the last five six years so we've decreased that part of that is we were able to go through the recession when our revenues went down just like everybody else to hear people talk about we had a tar cut government by ten to fifteen percent do the math that's what maplewood has done we're down ten to ten to twelve percent in the number of employees in our ploy and expenses our employees got no zero raise zero percent raise last year in a one percent raise this year our employee expenses are our steady are going down simply because we have fewer employees than you talked about before how that that shift from the number of the percentage of employees to contractual and so that is a trend and certainly we're trying to provide the same levels of service we're trying not to do that with fewer people so we're we're in effect over the last five six years we are doing more with less that's the certainly the monitor of the we want to portray that's what people expect out of their government and i think this by and our trends really show that that's where we're going we're doing more of that we're doing more with less and and by having again the decrease in the number of employees continuing we were trying to provide that same mobile service and you know i think i think your guys are just doing a wonderful job and i think gail in particular is really done a bang up job and you know you just got another award the other what last month and so you know i got thirty seconds here you know tell us what that award was i don't think we've we've had that in the in the past but i think you recaptured it if the our annual audit it's called a comprehensive finance annual financial report the government finance officers association is a national association and it also includes canada but we're part of that association and what we do in a number of cities in minnesota do is we submit our our comprehensive annual financial report to them following their guidelines on how to put the document together we submitted to them there's a bunch of criteria we need to fulfill and they go through a think it's believed that goes out to three different raters people who go through and review the document make sure it meets all the criteria you get rated on it and if you pass all of those ratings then you receive this or ward and there's also one for our budget document in fact i am a reviewer for the budget program with jeff away so i actually get to review documents from other parts of the united states i've done you know in texas and so it's interesting for me also to see how things vary i get ideas from other budget documents i get to see how they put their budget document together how they section out their programs and you know things like that always help me with my job too crew is telling me that we're out of time so i want to thank gail and chuck for this additional spotlight and we will see you next month with another spotlight on me