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Health & Fitness

Cam Winton's Comment on Mayor's Budget Proposal

Cam Winton's Comment on Mayor's Budget Proposal: 

Today, Mayor Rybak proposed his 2014 City budget. (The City finalizes the 2014 budget in Dec. 2013; Mayor Rybak will leave office in Jan. 2014.) 

As always, I'm grateful to Mayor Rybak for his leadership of our amazing city. Talk about big shoes to seek to fill. 

I was glad to see the mayor's proposed budget include funding for the priorities I've been describing on the campaign trail, including investments in transportation infrastructure (including road repair for the benefit of all users), 311 service on Saturdays (which helps the City deliver essential services more effectively), and new firefighters and police officers (with additional protocols to ensure that all police officers reflect the highest ideals of the force). 

The mayor also announced his intention to LOWER property taxes by 1%. That of course sounds great and as a homeowner I certainly hope it's possible. 

I look forward to digging into the details, though, to understand how the City intends to make the math work. Based on the preliminary data available, I have two key concerns: 

1) The City is able to reduce property taxes because of an increase in Local Government Aid from the state. In turn, the state was able to give that LGA money to Minneapolis because the state has raised taxes compared to last year. In short, the government has taken money out of the left pocket of certain Minneapolis taxpayers, is now putting that money back into their right pockets, and is seeking congratulations. Let's not get too excited. 

2) Just two weeks ago, Minneapolis lost its credit rating because of too much debt, underfunded pension obligations, and too-high fixed operating expenses. Nevertheless, I heard nothing in the budget presentation about making hard choices to live within our means, enacting bold pension reform, or consolidating back offices of the City and County to save overhead expenses. Furthermore, the current City leadership is already poised to commit the City to significant new debt and expenditures, including for the proposed Downtown East park and now for not one but *two* streetcar lines. (A new announcement in the Mayor's speech.) Adding more debt and expenditures -- as the proposed budget would do -- is a step in the wrong direction towards restoring our credit rating. 

In closing, I look forward to continuing the on-going conversation across the city with residents about how to shape -- and pay for -- our city's future. There are certain themes I've been repeating in this race: Leaders must be good stewards of residents' tax dollars. We must live within our means. When spending citizens' money, must measure twice & cut once. To reach our full potential as a city, we need fresh eyes in City Hall. As we set the first budget of our city's next chapter, these principles are more important than ever. 

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