I attended the City Council meeting last night. The 2010 property tax maximum levy was passed at 0% last night. We received a good explanation of how that impacts us in Andover. The average decline in home value from 2010 to 2011 is 8%. Now, if your home value declines by more than 8%, you should see your share of property tax to the City go down in 2011. If your decline is less than 8%, you may experience an increase in your property taxes next year. It's expected that homes valued over $400,000 may lose more than 8% value into 2011. Homes under $250,000 may see less than an 8% decline in value, so property taxes could increase modestly for those owners. The City will receive the same amount of revenue in 2011 as it received in 2010, by not increasing the percentage of the tax levy.
At that point of the meeting, the Council was not opening up for questions or comments from the audience. They approved the 0% levy unanimously. I did have two potential questions to ask. I was hoping they might share what the preliminary expectations are from Anoka County and the two school districts - Anoka-Hennepin and St. Francis - but they didn't. I also read in the Administrator's report that after department consolidations and layoffs, a priority if money becomes available would be to rehire/replace one Public Works position that was laid-off. I would be interested to know from David Berkowitz what the impact of losing that person has been, and whether the City considered that position essential enough to efficient operations to have looked at a 0.5% or 1.0% max levy position, before completing the budget process and approving the budget and final levy amounts in December.
Personally, I'd have preferred leaving the room open to look at those modest amounts of property tax levy increases, if not doing so has a detrimental impact on city operations. But the question was not asked last night, the issue was not addressed last night, and only the Council members and Administrator know if and how it has been previously addressed.
Over at my Facebook page (Wes Volkenant), I've posted photos from our Labor Day 2010 weekend. On Sunday, Cheryl and I celebrated our 12th Wedding Anniversary. We were married September 5, 1998 in Highland, Minnesota - near Lanesboro and Preston in SE Minnesota - in the same church that Cheryl's grandparents had been married 75 years before.
We drove over to Osceola, WI on Sunday, and took a train ride! It was the Osceola and St. Croix Valley Railway, and we took a 45 minute trip back into Minnesota over the St. Croix River to William O'Brien State Park - and then back again to Osceola. Monday, we had tickets to see the Twins at Target Field for the first time this year! The Twins won 5-4, behind Jim Thome's monstrous 480 ft. HR off the flag pole in Right Field. It was rainy throughout the game - I have photos of us sitting under our ponchos during the intermittent drizzle and sprinkles.
We also keep working at the campaign. My business cards are ready for pick-up today. My lawn signs are finally approved and in production. I sent off my campaign literature to the printer yesterday. I'm working on ads. We're deciding if we'll have hand-out gifts, like pens or pencils. I'm printing a few shirts for my door-knocking weekends and evenings. I've answered questionnaires....
No comments:
Post a Comment