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MINUTES OF THE ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING Monday, September 28, 2020 6:00 o’clock p.m. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Page 6 of 9 Olson said that would be any of the cities surrounding Orono, some of them are in the 70% range for property taxes. Crosby said the comparison to other cities might be something to put in the newsletter to show the public that Orono is holding their Tax Levy down. Seals noted they’ve hesitated to do that in the past, and her Dad showed her what he gets from Edina and they have no problem putting it out there; she reported Orono was the lowest, so she thinks they shouldn’t be afraid to, because the numbers are a data point. Crosby said they do strive to keep taxes down. Johnson said Orono is 53% of their budget at a reduced percentage compared to neighboring cities, on top of that. Olson noted some of those other cities receive State aid and Orono does not, other than for Police State aid. He summarized the expenditure budget by department, pointing out the Police budget only increased $16,000, which is only approximately one-third of a percent. He stated he wants to give Chief Farniok credit for keeping his budget under control and noted he’s worked for some cities where Police Chiefs were very egotistical and just want to see their budget increase and increase. He said Orono does not have a Chief like that. He continued saying street maintenance is budgeted to increase $32,000 (with wages and benefits driving most of the increase); Parks wage, step increases and the new position split between janitorial and parks are $49,000; Golf course is $13,200, noting in the 2020 budget they didn’t have part-time wages, and this is just making the budget match the reality of what is happening. Crosby asked if the Council got a raise. Seals replied no, but you do occasionally get a sandwich. Crosby asked why the Mayor/Council budget is up and has increased. Rief believes it was related to one of their memberships. Olson continued in talking about governmental services and wages, and that wages are basically the budget as there is very little discretionary spending that doesn’t involve personal services and especially when adding in the $1.5 million in professional services. He noted $7.45 million of a $9.2 million budget has to do with whether people are employees of the City or services that are contracted out. He likes to point that out because two departments have money that isn’t wages (streets as they have street supplies; and Police because of training, uniforms, etcetera). With many of the other departments it’s pretty much employees and some training. Olson continued the presentation saying if they look at the school, County and City portions of property tax bills, normally it’s right around 27-29% and they’re all pretty equal. Looking at the City’s portion in Orono, it’s only 15% of the property tax bill. Olson noted there are two resolutions tonight. The first increases the tax levy to $6.485 million which would keep the tax rate pretty much equal (decreasing it by .009%). The second resolution has an additional $125,000 in the levy, 16.512% to 16.821% (increasing it by .3%). Olson explained what that means for a home; if they go up to $6.485 million, and the levy is at 16.503%, people would actually see a slight decrease in their City property tax, assuming that their property value did not change. The second resolution is $6.6 million and on a $2 million home, that would increase someone’s City portion of property taxes by $73.00; on a