Council

hears

budget

plans

By RON LARSEN

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM-- "It's all speculation, are the words to summarize our meeting," Councilor Ron Fleischmann said after the City Council finished listening to preliminary 2003 budget figures with staff Tuesday afternoon.

He was referring to scenarios that were created by the city's finance director to cover possible reductions in Local Government Aid in 2003.

The 2003 budget summary, which was presented to the councilors at the meeting, calls for $12,654,898 in spending -- an increase of $845,000 over 2002.

"When you subtract the extraordinary items [one-time spending], you're down to a net increase of $138,000, or a 1.2 percent increase," City Clerk-Treasurer Gary Gleisner told the council.

These extraordinary items include the expense of bringing the Fairgrounds Community Center and the Senior Center addition on-line in 2003, as well as one-time and staff addition costs within the Police Department.

With the request for a second investigator, at least one K-9 unit, an additional police cruiser and a SUV 4-by-4 vehicle for use in drug raids and emergency situations, in addition to payroll increases, the department's 2003 budget request is about $165,000 higher than 2002.

In estimating the property tax levy required to cover that preliminary budget figure, Gleisner said the amount that needed to be funded locally was $9,287,473.

To do that, he calculated the amount of non-tax levy revenue available and came up with $3,506,076 as the preliminary property tax levy. This represented an increase of $437,574 over the actual 2002 levy, or a 14.26 percent increase. Gleisner said the community center and the center addition represented nine percentage points of the 14.26 percent.

He then calculated the city's additional levy capacity, which if needed could be levied. That amounted to $283,008.

Three of the resulting scenarios envisioned a reduction in LGA amounting to $500,000, and two scenarios were based upon a $750,000 reduction.

The first scenario made up the reduction by combining budget cuts with reduction in the capital improvement sinking fund without a further increase in the 2003 property tax levy.

The second and third scenarios eliminated budget cuts but retained the sinking fund reduction, resulting in levy increases of $175,000 and $275,000 respectively.

The fourth and fifth scenarios required budget cuts, sinking fund reduction and levy increases.

"This gives us some perspective, I believe," Gleisner said. "This whole process would have minimal impact on our bonding status, as well."

After considering the various scenarios, Council President Dan Beranek asked Gleisner to set up a scenario based upon a 17.2 percent increase in the property tax levy.

To re-enforce their budget requests, Police Chief Howard Zins and Commander Erv Weinkauf met with the council to introduce a police dog demonstration by Ramsey County Sheriff's deputies who train dogs for police work.

After describing the training that the dogs and their assigned handlers go through and the programs costs, Deputies Bruce Jerome and Mike Cook brought in Deputy Gary Pearl and his K-9 partner, a four-year-old German shepherd named Max.

Max first found a "stash" of actual drugs hidden by NUPD officers in a curtain divider in the Library conference room. Then, the animal shifted flawlessly from patrol dog to apprehension dog by biting and holding onto Cook's padded right arm.

While not cheap, a police dog is the same as an additional officer on the force, Jerome said. He estimated the cost of 13 weeks of training for dog and officer, as well as other costs associated with having a K-9 unit at around $9,300. Having a dog unit also requires revamping a squad car by taking out the backseat, Jerome added.

Jerome said smaller community police departments would benefit by having more than one K-9 unit because it makes the police officers more efficient.

Cpl. Jeff Hohensee of the NUPD briefed the council on the execution and expense of the recent drug investigation that resulted in the arrest of 25 area individuals.

He told the council that having a second investigator and the K-9 units would help the department considerably as it continues its efforts to curb the drug trafficking in New Ulm.