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By Art Hughes, Minnesota Public Radio
August 9, 2001
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Minneapolis Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton is proposing a 2002 budget that barely keeps a popular neighborhood development program alive. In outlining her budget for next year, the mayor is recommending a property tax increase of eight percent, that would bring in almost $11 million more than this year.
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SAYLES BELTON lays the cuts to the popular Neighborhood Revitalization Program at the feet of the Legislature, which this year limited how cities can use tax increment financing - TIF, a development tool that funds Minneapolis' NRP.
"The change in TIF means a loss of $27 million in development-related funding effective next year," she said Thursday.
Sayles Belton says the NRP "won't die on her watch," but the program that funds park projects, home restorations and policing initiatives will have to make do with barely half of its previous funding level. In addition, the mayor is cutting the city's contribution to the Minneapolis Community Development Agency by up to 50 percent. She proposes reorganizing the MCDA staff to work more closely with the city's planning department and the NRP.
Sayles Belton says there will be some cuts in other departments as well. "Based on our current financial projections, to achieve the balanced budget within our property tax-supported funds, we will need to reduce our cost or identify alternative revenue options next year to the tune of about $7 million. I've held meetings with each department head to provide targeted direction toward that 2002 budget," Sayles Belton said.
The mayor says she will consider fee increases for some city services. "When the cost of providing fee-based increases, we haven't, in the past, adjusted the fee. We simply placed a greater burden on the property taxpayer. The user of fee-based services, in my opinion, should pay that bill," she said.
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13th Ward Councilmember Barrett Lane, the council's only independent member, says he agrees with the refocusing of the MCDA, but Lane says the entire budget needs the same kinds of discipline to avoid significant problems in the future. "This is going to take some very concerted resharpening and refocusing of what the city is all about to get us through this. That's what I was hoping to hear today and frankly didn't," Lane said.
Lane maintains the city government needs to cut its budget by as much as 15 percent.
The budget address did not satisfy Councilmember Jim Niland's concerns. Niland is not running for re-election, but is an ardent supporter of Sayles Belton's opponent for the DFL nomination, R.T. Rybak. Niland calls the budget outline "unacceptable." He says the mayor should have done more at the Legislature to try to save NRP funding.
"It's going to have a tremendous impact on the good work NRP has done out in the neighborhoods and it really makes you question the mayor's priorities," Niland said. "It seems she's more interested in corporate subsidies downtown than keeping alive the most important program that's benefiting our neighborhoods."
The official who's, perhaps, most directly impacted by the changes proposed by the mayor is MCDA director Steve Cramer. He says the agency is not out of business and will remain active in affordable housing, small business and commercial corridor revitalization, and brownfield cleanup, but to a lesser degree than before. "What we won't be able to do as much of is respond to individual project opportunities that come along. I've used as examples the Grainbelt Brewhouse in northeast Minneapolis or the Portland Place housing project in south Minneapolis near Honeywell. We won't be able to do as much of those things as in the past," Cramer said.
Cramer says the agency will have to put more of an effort forward to gain outside grants to make up for some of the cuts to the MCDA. The City Council will debate the details of the mayor's budget proposal starting in November.
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