Continued Discussion on 2025 Budget

Continuation of the discussion pertaining to the 2025 General Fund Budget and tax levies of General, EDA, Pavement Management and Debt.

The attached documents reflect a 9.8% levy increase.  The reflective items that were reduced/pushed out to 2026 are also attached.  Staff reviewed the requests in the first draft and have made adjustments to capital requests and personnel requests to reduce the total levy increase per council's direction.  The adjustments do push out equipment replacements, but staff feels a one year delay will not jeopardize future equipment replacements.  This version of the budget continues to focus on wage adjustments being implemented fully in 2025.  All personnel wages have been updated using the average value of the full metro area (prior budget reflected just north metro), due to the request of all unions.  Including the full metro for the wage adjustments merely reflects an estimated highest impact since negotiations are ongoing with the four union contracts.  Non-union wages continue to be reviewed for accurate comparisons.  Future budgets will reflect adjustments based on staff's continued work to provide comparable wages for comparable positions.  One difficulty in wage comparisons is determining if positions within the City of Ramsey reflect position duties with other cities even though they may share the same or similar position title.

The city has received fiscal disparity numbers from the County.  They are shown in the attached tax capacity calculation.

The tax impact on Ramsey residents, using the draft proposed increase of 9.8%, will be brought to the Monday, August 12 worksession meeting.

The preliminary levy is proposed to be adopted on September 24, 2024.

60 minutes

Finance Director and City Administrator

Continued discussion of the 2025 budget and levies.