By Dan Linehan
MANKATO — The Mankato City Council appears ready for a preliminary tax levy increase of between 4 percent and 5 percent.
As it stood before Monday’s work session, the city was about $300,000 in cuts away from not raising the levy at all — except for a $389,000 increase in scheduled interest payments.
The council, which has already agreed to millions in cuts over the past year as state aid have plummeted, agreed to go a bit further Monday. They seem willing to freeze their own salaries and that of the city manager for 2010, along with cuts to the parks maintenance budget and other minor staffing changes.
But to get to that $300,000 total the council would have had to make cuts it’s uncomfortable with. Those included slashing VINE Faith in Action’s grant to run the Summit Center, further library cuts and the shutdown of city offices for five days.
It was only a work session so no votes were taken and there was no definite concensus.
Still, it appeared the council wanted to add a bit of flexibility to what it cuts by raising the levy an extra $150,000 or so. That would result in a levy increase of 4.27 percent, to $13,178,182.
On a Mankato home with a value of $140,000, that would result in the increase of the city portion of property taxes by about $9.50. That’s assuming the home’s value was stable.
There’s no concensus on what not to cut, but the police-school liaison program seemed near the top of the list. The city is currently considering having one officer cover the whole district.
Councilman Vance Stuehrenberg, a retired Mankato police officer, said the program was very valuable. Still, he had one big caveat.
“If we can’t have two, which means one for each high school, I don’t think we should have any.”
A single officer would end up enforcing the law rather than building a relationship with students, he said.
But having two officers would mean replacing a patrol officer, which would add about $80,000 to the 2010 budget.
The extra $150,000 could pay that money. Or maybe not.
The council sets the preliminary levy during a meeting this Monday. It can be lowered before it’s finished in December but not raised.
