At the December city council meeting the review of the 2015 budget
was conducted. The good news is the levy
rate decreased slightly, 0.223%. The
rate for 2014 was 44.389%. For 2015 the
estimated levy was determined at 44.166%.
This may not seem that significant but it means the tax capacity of the
city has increased. This is a far cry
from the last 4 years where we saw the decreasing of tax capacity on an annual
basis. The tax capacity moved up from
$3,945,459 in 2014 to $3,976,874 for 2015.
Another important accomplishment noted included the early
redemption and pay off of two bonds. The
debt instruments included the 2005 and 2008 Improvement Bonds. With these bonds being paid off the city
retains only one debt instrument, the 2012 Advanced Refunding Bond. This bond was used to pay off the 2004 and
2007 bonds held by the city. In doing so
the bonds were combined and refinanced to achieve a lower interest rate.
The city developed a public works project in 2014 that
included sanitary sewer and road construction and rather than incur debt we used
existing funds on hand. A “loan” from
the sewer fund was used for construction and the costs were assessed to benefiting
properties. These assessments will be
used to pay off the loan. It is also the
intention of the city to move forward with improvement projects without
incurring debt. This may mean slow
progress when it comes to paving roadways but it also saves the cost associated
with debt service.
In terms of expenditures, Public Safety carries the highest
cost at 31%. Other General Government comes
in second at 23% and Public Works carries 17% of the expenditures of the
city. Debt service was 20% of
expenditures in 2014 and for 2015 it will go to 12%.
In reviewing tax rates for area communities, Breezy Point is
somewhere in the middle of the pack.
Those communities with higher property wealth see a lower tax rate. Those communities with low property wealth
see higher tax rates. With Brainerd
estimated at 71.17% and Baxter at 53.23% I think Breezy Point at 44.17% is
doing well.
The final levy was adopted at $1,758,080. This is $5,000 higher than the levy made for
the 2014 budget.
