City Bean Counting Update

Wondering how the bean counting at city hall is stacking up? The city has had the budget solutions bean counter game on loan from the League of Minnesota Cities since the first of the month. I wrote about it in this post "Be a City Bean Counter". Players get six beans to distribute among 8 budget choices.

Here are the results from the “City Bean Counter.”

Police 93
Clean Water 61
Parks & Recreation 54
Streets & Sidewalks 46
Sewers & Garbage 44
Libraries 44
Economic Development 42

The traveling display has to move on, but the city manager has announced that Bemidji will create its own model and continue to encourage citizens to participate in the budget balancing activity.

Be a City Bean Counter

Going to city hall to vote or pay a bill? Take time to play the “Be a City Bean Counter” game. It’s your chance to tell the city how you would like the city budget spent.

The setup includes eight receptacles labeled to represent various city services. Your job is to choose where to spend your beans. Just one catch; you only get six beans.

What is most important to you? Or, put another way; what is least important to you? The rules are taped to the counter at the city hall reception desk:

I’ll give you a six bean budget that you can choose to spend on these eight services that many Minnesota cities provide. You can spend it however you like. Put all six beans in one jar or spread them out. Thank you for your participation. Your opinion counts!

Choose among these services:

• Police
• Economic Development (business recruitment, business retention, south shore development)
• Clean Water (storm water, water utilities)

• Parks & Rec. (maintenance, improvements, recreational activities)
• Libraries
• Fire (medical emergency response, inspections, education)

• Sewers & Garbage (wastewater, garbage services)
• Streets & Sidewalks (street sweeping, plowing, maintenance)

How often are you asked to give budget feedback? The city manager asked the League of Minnesota Cities (LMC) to bring the Bean Counter display to Bemidji. It will be here for a couple weeks and is one way to send a message to city council on what is important to you.

Recipe for a Budget Fix: Cut 10%

A little less here and a bit less there, pretty soon you've got a recipe for a budget reduction, right?  Unfortunately, it is going to take more that a bit here and there to find  $600,000 that is expected to be cut from the City's 2010 budget.  Word is that City department heads have been asked to recommend cuts of 10% on their budgets. Not sure if there was any mention of revenue enhancements--street light fee, anyone?

This exercise is going on all over the state as cities and counties scramble to prepare for the state aid cuts that will be coming out of the state capitol. The Association of MN Counties has put together a budget balancing recipe with a list of a nearly a dozen ideas and presented it to the legislature according to this story in the Pioneer Press.

Minnesota counties would give up all their state aid in exchange for authority to levy a half-cent sales tax.

The State Patrol would be cut in half, and county sheriffs and city police departments would patrol the highways.

Counties would take over plowing and maintaining all state highways, except for freeways.

Those are among a package of 10 cost-saving proposals that the Association of Minnesota Counties outlined at a Capitol press conference today.

They would also combine county planning and zoning with cities and townships and ask for home rule charter authority (the ability to make laws, much like the city can do now).

Can you help identify the ingredients for a palatable solution to our budget dilemma? What are your priorities? What DON'T you want cut? What are you willing to have LESS of?

Personally, I would like solutions found that don't include laying off staff. I also don't want park maintenance to take a big hit. I would be willing to have less salt on the streets and shorter service hours at city hall. I would also like to be able to pay my city utility bill online. I would be willing to sell the residential refuse route and the equipment that goes with it. Maybe we should delay the planned quality neighborhood initiative study and the $48,000 consultant contract that goes with it.

What do you want for your tax dollars? Call the council, or log in to the comment section on the city website and let them know what is important to you.

Like Trying to Stop a Toyota

Governor Pawlenty has proposed cutting LGA (local government aid) to cities by $250 million, including cuts to Bemidji of $581,323 in 2010 and $302,000 in 2011. That means we have to make immediate reductions to the city budget. But putting the brakes on the city’s budget is like trying to stop a Toyota. The tax levy has already been set and can’t be changed, so budget adjustments must come in the form of efficiencies, service reductions, layoffs, fee increases, or. . . ?

Got any good ideas? The city will need all the help they can get to reduce this year’s budget because all the low hanging fruit was picked last year.

Pawlenty’s proposed cuts come on top of the $485,688 LGA reduction that the city has already incorporated into the 2010 budget. While Pawlenty’s cuts aren’t yet law and some legislators have said that LGA cuts in the final budget won’t be that high, it is pretty much universally agreed that cities will be hitting another pothole on the road to balancing the state’s biannual budget. (The League of Minnesota Cities (LMC) provided insight into the preliminary 2010 budget and its impact on cities in their February 19, 2010 webinar.)

If past practice prevails, suggestions for cutting the budget will come from within. The city manager and department heads will put together their ideas for reductions to be presented to the council. Likewise, council members will probably have their own individual preferences for how to reduce the budget (as they did in 2009). Is this time-worn process of developing budget reductions—within the confines of city hall—the best way to carve out the cuts? Will it be fair to employees? Will it result in solutions that the community wants?

Last year’s LGA unallotment by the governor resulted in “out of the box” thinking by some cities. Spring Lake Park, MN implemented some creative strategies to reduce their budget that were the result of employee input and had community support. Each employee group was given a choice –whether they would be willing to take two weeks off without pay or make the decision to have someone in the group laid off. The choice was theirs to make. A variety of solutions emerged that included unpaid leave and the layoff of two part-time employees. City hall was closed for two weeks; once in August during the State Fair and for one week between Christmas and New Years. They didn’t receive any negative feedback from the community.

It’s time for Bemidji to broaden the process and get community buy-in by not only asking employees for solutions, but the community too.

What could community engagement look like? Listening sessions with council members? A community survey? How about asking for comments online? The legislature created a website for constituents to opt in with ideas and preferences for how to redesign state government. Bemidji residents can comment online at the city’s website.

It will take everyone on the Toyota team to get Toyota back on track. Engaging the entire Bemidji community in finding solutions to Bemidji’s budget makes sense too.