Politics & Government

City Eyes Nearly $300,000 in Budget Cuts in 2012

The Inver Grove Heights City Council took its first substantial stab at the city's 2012 budget on Monday night.

The message City Administrator Joe Lynch heard loud and clear from the Inver Grove Heights City Council on Monday night was ‘No new taxes.’

In the first substantial round of 2012 budget talks, several council members spoke out against raising the city’s tax rate, a move that will likely lead to $292,000 in budget cuts in 2012, Lynch said.

“I just see the tenor of the community is not to add things, it is to take things away,” Councilor Rosemary Piekarski Krech said during the council’s work session. “How do we justify [a tax rate hike] to people that are losing their homes, have taken cuts in their salaries?”

Find out what's happening in Inver Grove Heightswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

On Monday, Lynch presented a series of budget recommendations to the council as part of the city’s annual budgeting process. On Sept. 12, the council is expected to approve a preliminary 2012 budget, which will be finalized in December at the city’s annual Truth in Taxation hearing. Over the next several weeks, the council is expected to review the city’s proposed departmental budgets and will hear presentations from department heads on proposed budget line items.

In 2010, the Inver Grove Heights City Council approved a 3.38 percent tax-rate hike for most private and commercial property owners in the city. The council chose to collect the same amount of levy dollars in 2011 as in 2010, but to do so, the city again had to increase its tax rate by 1.41 percent to compensate for declining property values.

Find out what's happening in Inver Grove Heightswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

But if the council chooses not to increase the tax rate this year, declining taxable market values mean the city will actually collect less money—to the tune of $292,000, Lynch said. To make matters worse, the city doesn’t expect to recover any Market Value Homestead Credits from the state this year.

“We need to take a look at being very conservative,” Mayor George Tourville said during the council’s work session. “There are people that watch every dollar that we spend.”

Here are several budget highlights from the 2012 budget proposal presented by City Administrator Joe Lynch on Monday:

  • Lynch recommends transferring $500,000 from the city’s Host Community Fund to a new economic development fund to be used as seed money for the city’s new Economic Development Authority.
  • Because of new technology implemented across the city’s departments, Lynch recommends hiring a new, full-time technology technician to assist in the set up, repair, maintenance of hardware and software.
  • Lynch’s proposal includes a 1 percent increase in compensation for all employees, with the exception of the police sergeants' union, which may get a larger pay increase after settling for a zero percent increase in 2010.
  • Because of the expansion of city hall, the city may need an additional maintenance employee. Lynch included $50,000 in the budget as placeholder to either hire another maintenance staff person or pay for a contract with a cleaning business.
  • In 2011, the council authorized the money for a replacement police officer position to fill the slot opened by the creation of the school resource officer position. The city attempted to fill that position, but to no success. The additional position is still in the budget for 2012. Lynch proposes adding another officer, which will help the department fill the gap left by the retirement of former Police Chief Chuck Kleckner and police Lt. Jerry Salmey. The anticipated cost for another patrol officer? $70,000, including salary and benefits.
  • The city considering adding an assistant fire chief position to the Inver Grove Heights Fire Department roster, but Lynch recommends the city delay hiring that person because of the request for cuts in the 2012 budget. Instead, the fire department budget contains $25,000 for the possible creation of a new paid, on-call position.
  • The council approved hiring another employee for the city’s Public Works Department in 2011, but the position was never filled. Lynch included the cost of the position, approximately $73,000, in the 2012 budget.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

More from Inver Grove Heights