Transcripts

TOM FUDGE: Past mayors of Minneapolis have used the annual budget address to the city council to put forth a detailed plan for setting tax levies and providing services. By contrast, Sayles Belton offered little more than a series of broad statements of goals, which she says will form the basis for a budgeting process that will continue throughout the rest of the year. She did make it clear, however, that she wants spending cuts and no property tax increase for 1995.

SHARON SAYLES BELTON: We could choose to face this lean budget framework as a problem, but I choose to see it differently. I see it as a necessity that provides an opportunity for invention.

TOM FUDGE: But while Sayles Belton seemed to set a hard line on property taxes, she left the city with some wiggle room by authorizing a maximum 3% tax increase with the city's taxation board. The mayor said it would be irresponsible for her to close the door on the possibility of higher taxes in 1995.

SHARON SAYLES BELTON: Should I commit in August to a zero-increase tax rate and, as a result, in October due to unforeseen circumstances, the city is in a preventable financial bind, then that would reflect very poorly on us as the fiscal managers of our city.

TOM FUDGE: Sayles Belton said the general financial state of the city is good. She says state aid to Minneapolis is expected to go up next year and the city's commercial real estate values are finally on the upswing. Her broad policy goals include more emphasis on violence prevention as a public health issue and the deployment of more police officers on the street.

Minneapolis Police Chief John Laux says it will take some time to reassign more officers to enforcement duty. He says he's prepared to implement the mayor's call for a 3% cut in his department's base budget.

JOHN LAUX: It's not a surprise. We've been talking about this for weeks. So we didn't just hear it today. So we've already set up a series of meetings to address how we're going to do that. As a department head-- all department heads have been instructed to do that, and that's what I will do.

TOM FUDGE: Although reaction among city council members to Sayles Belton's first budget address was generally positive, Council Member Jim Nyland says he thinks the mayor is putting too much emphasis on spending cuts.

JIM NYLAND: I think we really have to look seriously at all the needs that exist in our neighborhoods, and I think saying zero tax increase is simplistic. I think we really have to look at what are the true needs and make sure that we do have the revenues necessary to address them.

TOM FUDGE: On the other end of the political spectrum, [? Danny ?] Shelstad, the city council's only Republican, says he's not pleased that the mayor is allowing for a possible 3% property tax rate hike next year.

[? DENNY SHELSTAD: ?] She's not talking about a property tax increase of 3%. What she's talking about is a rate of increase of 3%. Home values go up by the value of inflation. You cannot have both an increase in the value of the home and an increase in the rate of assessment and still stay within the inflation.

TOM FUDGE: Minneapolis Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton says she'll present her final budget proposals in November. City budget officials say the city's share of property taxes makes up about a quarter of a Minneapolis residents' total property tax bill. This is Tom fudge, Minnesota Public Radio, Minneapolis.