11-14-1988 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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HIGHWAY 12 - The Ad Hock Task Force, that has been exploring improvements to Highway 12, has established a meeting with the Commissioner of the Department of Transporation, Leonard Levine, for the latter part of November. The purpose of this meeting is to request Commissioner Levine's support and direction to MnDOT so that MnDOT Engineers can work to undertake the necessary short term safety improvement plus work to help determine longer range improvements to the highway. As you may be aware a petition has been submitted to both the Orono and Long Lake Councils regarding safety improvements from downtown Long Lake east to the Luce Line. Additionally it is our understanding that another petition is currently being circulated regarding the entire corridor. Your input on these matters are greatly appreciated. 1989 BUDGET/MINNESOTA PROPERTY TAX SYSTEM - In October the Council adopted its 1989 Tax Levy which will result in a less than 1/2 of 1 per cent increase in your property taxes which wi 1 1 continue to provide services at our current level. Off -setting that good news however, are changes the Legislature has made to the property tax system in 1987 and 1988 Legislative sessions. While residents will see little impact because of City taxes, changes in County and School District funding, which make up 80 to 85% of the typical tax dollar will cause a substantial rise in the property taxes for 1989. Prior to the 1988 legislative session people in the Metropolitan area were paying twice as much in property taxes as someone having the same income outstate. If the suburbs were segregated from this comparison the difference would be even greater. Subsequent changes will increase this disparity, in part because Aids to Local Governments are based on their past spending patterns. This is the result of various property tax relief efforts which benefit outstate residents but only seem to exacerbate the problem in the Metropolitan area. In 1987 the Metropolitan area, which has about 50% of the state's population, paid 64% of the taxes to the State but received only about 46% of the money back. Based on estimates this disparity is growing 2 percentage points a year. As a result of these problems the City Council has recently taken two actions to help rectify the matter. The initial one is a resolution to our State Legislators outlining our concerns and the second is the contribution towards an effort to help develop a realistic data base and proposal that would help suburban tax I