After meeting with the city’s department heads for 2½ hours preceding their Aug. 28 meeting, Grand Marais city councilors said theywouldplanfora3percentlevyincrease in next year’s budget.
City Administrator Mike Roth recommended the increase of at least 3 percent, saying he had looked through the line items “very carefully,” but numbers for the city’s debt service/risk are still unknown.
“We should set it at least that, if we’re all comfortable with it…and we can always lower it when we have more information,” Roth said.
By law, the city must set its maximum preliminary tax levy by Sept. 15; councilors plan to vote on the draft budget at their Sept. 11 meeting. The total may be lowered, but not increased, between then and final certification at the end of the year. With a 2.94 percent increase, the property tax levy will be set at $839,026.44, up from the current $824,152.44. The draft budget also shows projected revenues of $611,927.35.
By comparison, a year ago the city’s preliminary 2013 levy increase was set at 6.3 percent, but reduced to 1.2 percent by final adoption at year’s end.
In other matters to come before council, permission was granted to the “Moving Matters Project” to hold a kickoff event on the library lawn Sept. 19. The project is designed to focus on creating policies and designs for public roads and public spaces that address the safety and accessibility needs of all demographic groups including pedestrians and bicyclists. Partners in the project include the city and county, Grand Portage Reservation Tribal Council, the West End townships and the Active Living Steering Committee.
The day-long kickoff event is designed to raise awareness of the project and encourage public input and participation.
Council also received the proposal agreement for design services from LHB architects for a public works facility schematic design. Roth said that phase of the project should be done relatively quickly, but stressed that it’s important to put “a lot of effort” into the design to get it right. For instance, he said, if city officials learn they don’t like a chosen site for some reason upon completion of the survey, they ought to look around for another location until they find one that’s more suitable.
The total set-aside for the schematic design service is $47,241. Work includes surveying and boring to look for the presence of rock. Total cost of the project is about $3 million, with the facility tentatively going in a yet-to-bedetermined lot in the business park.
Leave a Reply