01-11-2021 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING Monday, December 7, 2020 6:00 o’clock p.m. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Page 1 of 15 ROLL CALL The Orono City Council met on the above-mentioned date with the following members present: Mayor Dennis Walsh, City Council Members Richard Crosby, III, Matt Johnson, and Victoria Seals. Council Member Aaron Printup was not present. Representing Staff were City Attorney Shana Conklin, City Administrator Dustin Rief, Community Development Director Jeremy Barnhart, and City Planner Laura Oakden. Mayor Walsh called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m., followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. TRUTH IN TAXATION PUBLIC HEARING 1. 2021 Budget Hearing Mayor Walsh opened the public hearing at 6:01 p.m. Maggie Ung, Accountant, said tonight is a very important night for the Finance Department that concludes 5-6 months of work preparing the budget. Tonight’s meeting is required by law to have a public hearing before the adoption of the budget. Mayor Walsh asked if any of the public would like to talk about the Truth in Taxation public hearing. There were no members of the public who approached the podium. Ms. Ung said the purpose of tonight’s meeting is to discuss the 2021 Budget and Tax Levy. She stated in the past people have showed up to talk about the valuation of their house that the County has assigned and she noted this is not a meeting to discuss that. There will be an open book meeting in the spring and if people have concerns regarding valuation of their properties, they will be able to discuss it with the County Assessors at that time. She explained how property taxes are calculated; the Hennepin County Assessors determine through their formulas what each property is worth and comes up with an estimated market value. Market value is then multiplied by the tax class rate which is 1% for first $500,000 of property value and 1.25% thereafter. This equals the property’s net tax capacity; Ms. Ung noted they will focus on residential as that makes up 98% of Orono’s property. Another number used to calculate property tax is the tax capacity rate, which takes the total property tax levy of the City divided by the City’s total tax capacity for 2021; this is the value put on each property by the assessors, multiplied by the property’s tax rate, and added up together. In 2021, the Council is being asked to approve $6,610,620; the City’s total tax capacity is $39,431,077, which equals 16.765% for the tax capacity rate. Mayor Walsh noted in looking at many cities, that is kind of the key number, that percentage of what they can charge; there are a lot of cities around the lake that are at 40%, 50%, 60% as they are taxing at a lot higher rate than in Orono. He stated going back to 2014, Orono is about the same number for roughly the last 7 years. Ms. Ung stated that does make her point that Orono has the fourth lowest tax capacity rate in Hennepin County. Mayor Walsh clarified that is out of 46 cities in Hennepin County. Ms. Ung then explained how property taxes are calculated: they take the property’s net tax capacity times