In$ight St. Paul is a group of St. Paul residents who are very concerned about the financial health of the city. We span the political spectrum, and, regardless of your political leanings, finances matter to everyone. Without having a sound financial footing, St. Paul will have difficulty providing basic services, such as public safety, fire protection, emergency assistance, street repair and maintenance, and recreational opportunities.

We were alerted to the dire financial condition of the city when the mayor sought the 1 percent increase in the sales tax to cover over $100 million in deferred maintenance for park and recreational facilities and rehabilitation of several major city arteries. Frankly, we were astounded to learn that, over time, our city leaders had let our major city assets fall into such disrepair ultimately costing all of us much more money than it would if these assets had been taken care of properly. Many of us voted for the sales tax increase, but were left wondering how we got into this position.

What made matters even more incomprehensible was that city leaders recently requested more than $100 million in bonding from the State Legislature to build even more facilities knowing full well that they couldn’t maintain and operate what we already owned. This doesn’t make any financial sense, let alone show responsible stewardship of city facilities.

Our group took a deep dive into the city’s financial situation and prepared a financial report using readily available data from the state Legislature, Metropolitan Council, Minnesota Department of Revenue, Ramsey County Taxation, the state demographer, and recent department budget presentations to the St. Paul City Council.

Our financial report shows that St. Paul has the highest effective property tax rate for all of Minnesota’s 20 regions and also the highest sales tax. It also has the most tax-exempt property and Tax Increment Financing (TIF) districts. Since these properties don’t pay property taxes for city services, the cost of the basic municipal services such as police, fire, emergency assistance, road maintenance and snow plowing falls upon all the other homeowners, renters and businesses. St. Paul has 17% of its homeowners, more than double the state average, with a property tax burden greater than 5% of income, which falls heaviest on those with lower incomes. This is a metric used by the state Legislature to note tax stress.

Despite this high tax burden on residents and businesses, the mayor’s proposed budget includes funding for many new park facilities. Adding in the actions by city officials to provide TIF to so many development projects leads us to believe that the city is on an unsustainable financial path.

Fortunately, the majority of our City Council members are new and can bring a fresh perspective to help steer our city clear of the looming financial disaster ahead.

First: streets

First, we recommend that the mayor and city council prioritize the reconstruction of the city’s arterial streets, sidewalks, and maintenance of existing park facilities and immediately stop any funding for new parks projects.

The proposed capital improvement budget includes $12M for planning and designing new facilities; let’s delay that until we know how we can pay to staff, operate and maintain them. We have one of the highest-ranked park systems in the country, so let’s hold the line on building new facilities until we can properly operate and maintain our existing ones.

Second: TIF transparency

Show us the data on how TIF districts are performing and the amount of money contributed by successful TIFs to unsuccessful ones.

The city’s website does not include any information about each one of the TIF districts nor an evaluation measure to note whether each district is meeting performance expectations. Why doesn’t the city have this on its website to show us the data? Could it be that the city has overused TIF and has placed an unreasonable burden on all of the other taxpayers?

We need more transparency, new standards and possibly a higher bar for creating a TIF district.

Third: payments-in-lieu-of-taxes

Let’s pursue voluntary payments-in-lieu-of-taxes for tax-exempt properties to ensure these properties pay their fair share of city services.

When the city was no longer able to assess for street maintenance services, which is the same as many other cities, many organizations were willing to provide support for the services they receive from the city, yet the mayor and council did not pursue this option.

Find a good way forward

Our financial report is meant to educate and inform our city, state, and county leaders and residents about the current financial situation of St. Paul.

Our report is not intended to assign blame but to find a sustainable way forward and we invite anyone to review it and comment.

Unfortunately, after repeated requests to meet with city budget officials, they declined to meet with us.

We invite others who feel similarly to get involved, contact your council member, and join us.

Gary Todd is Co-chair of In$ight St. Paul, Chairperson of Save Our Street and retired senior project manager from Thomson Reuters. Carl Michaud is a former Hennepin County Assistant County Administrator for Public Works,

In$ight St. Paul (InSight.St.Paul@gmail.com) is a group of residents who have come together to ask our elected city officials to make needed budget changes to provide for a more financially affordable and stable future with high-quality and responsive essential services.