Oakdale's Preliminary 2012 Levy Down $100,000 From 2011

The City of Oakdale will levy $100,000 less in property taxes in 2012 than it did in 2011, however, one Oakdale City Council member said he’s concerned that still isn’t enough, at a workshop meeting Tuesday, Sept. 13.

At its regular meeting, the council certified an $8.3 million preliminary levy in a resolution that included an $11.2 million proposed budget.

Both could still change before the end of the year, however, at this point the levy can't be increased.

“I’m not going to support us spending a dollar more next year than we spent this year,” said Oakdale City Council member Kent Dotas. “I will support this as a maximum, but I want us to keep working on the numbers to get the expenses down as low as possible.”

In light of those comments, Council member Paul Reinke questioned whether Dotas still supports projects to fund ball field lights at and a veterans memorial at city hall. The council agreed to budget for both projects in 2012.

Dotas said he supports the projects.

“To me it’s just a challenge,” he said. “Let’s keep looking; Let’s keep surfacing ideas.”

Warren said the city’s at the point where cutting more would mean eliminating programs or maintenance efforts. She said she does expect to bring the council some more potential cuts, such as the city’s cleanup day—which could save the city $10,000.

Mayor Carmen Sarrack said he is satisfied with the budget and levy the way it is, and making additional cuts would mean going to “extremes” such as cutting the money for the lights and the veterans memorial.

“We can sit here and argue until hell freezes over about $1,000 bucks here $1,000 bucks there,” he said. “I think staff and every employee in the city is trying to figure out ways to save money and cut expenses and I think they’ve done a great job.”

City staff was able to cut the levy by $50,000 additional dollars from what was proposed in August because the public safety department secured $50,000 in funding from District 622 for school policing, city finance director Suzanne Warren said.  

The city is trying to cut as much as possible in order to soften the blow of property owners’ overall tax bills, which, for some properties, could increase due to the elimination of the state’s Market Value Homestead Credit program.

“We were looking at trying to come up with a slight reduction so we could come up with a bit of a soft landing,” Warren said.  “We are really going through and making a lot of reductions in the budget in order to keep the budget level because we’re having to absorb inflationary costs.”

Comparing the 2012 amount to the 2011 amount is complicated by the change in state property tax law. Under the Market Value Homestead Credit program, which the Minnesota Legislature eliminated for 2012, the state was supposed to pay the city of Oakdale $500,000 in 2010, and a similar amount in 2011, in the name of property tax relief. But, the state never paid that money, and so the City of Oakdale's levy in 2011 included money it did not actually receive.