10-12-2020 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING Monday, September 28, 2020 6:00 o’clock p.m. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Page 7 of 9 $250,000 home it would increase $7.27. Olson noted it would be a 1.87% increase in taxes with the additional levy, and even if they went with that additional levy the tax capacity is back where the City was in 2017, which would still be a significant decrease from 2014. He stated keeping the rate flat for four years is something to be proud of. Mayor Walsh added they should also be proud of paying off millions of dollars in debt and bringing the road pavement levies up at the same time. He noted on the slide onscreen, he asked Olson to use 2014 (his first year on the Council), 2017 (his first year as Mayor), and he wants people to understand in 2014 if they owned a $300,000 house, they were paying $534 in taxes to Orono, and in 2021 if they choose option B, they would only be paying $504. In essentially 7 years on the same value home, homeowners are paying less in City taxes. He noted the Council has lowered taxes, payed off $7 million in debt since 2014, taken the pavement management levy from $0 to $750,000, is starting the parks budget at $50,000 and is starting/supplementing the building fund as well as lowering everyone’s taxes. He said what people see in the paper, which can be a bit misleading, is that this might be an 8% increase in the general levy, but it’s less than 2% of their taxes going up. From 7 years ago, it’s still 5% less or more. Seals said she feels the City Council can do a better job of communicating this to the public, because she understands when people receive their property tax bill it has gone up, but they’re not just looking at the City portion, they’re looking at the County and the Total, which will change. On a good note, their home values most likely went up, but they may not be isolating the portion where they’re actually being charged less per their dollar. Seals stated they have multiple avenues to communicate and give the facts over and over. Mayor Walsh noted in his newsletter column, he points out often that they’re paying off millions of dollars and have not taken on any additional debt, while increasing fund balances to take care of the City. He reported past administrations have said they didn’t raise the levy at all…but they borrowed $2 million dollars and then they’d borrow another $1 million dollars and just kept adding up the debt load. Crosby said they really need to strongly identify the other pieces of the pie, i.e. Hennepin County and perhaps including graphs going back in time to see where the County has gone percentage-wise, noting he’d hate to see what happened in Minneapolis… Printup said one thing they’ve talked about are the utility bill postcards that go out and he wonders if there is something else, they can use rather than the same redundant postcard. He thinks they could explore what other cities do, and look at a full-size mailer with lots of information, including the graphs, the information on the debt and a look behind the scenes. Seals noted they could do a fact of the month, something super clear that catches people’s attention, but over time gets the message out. Crosby said it would be educating the public and giving them the facts. Mayor Walsh said people should know the success that their City is having. Printup said part of the reason he is comfortable with the levy is that they don’t know what next year is going to hold, noting Hennepin County is identifying a 0% levy and they don’t usually do that…he asked what does that mean a year from now; what will they do?