Dear Mr. Brandt,
I attended the Ward 13 DFL convention and was frankly horrified by your support of an income tax proposal in Minneapolis.
Yes, times are hard. We have an authoritarian regime in the White House ready to punish all things Minnesota and cut federal funds on every front.
We have a shrinking tax base downtown.
Our policy decisions since 2017 in this city have literally killed small businesses with Uptown a shell of what it once was. It is an absolute crime and there should be all hands on deck from every city official to fix that. I just don’t see it happening.
I am personally impacted by tariffs as an importer of wholesale goods and my job is at high risk.
I already have had to deal with an 87% increase in property taxes since 2017. I have not had an 87% increase in wages. We have 3 kids to get through college. On paper we may look like that family that you can’t wait to attach an income tax to. The reality is quite different, and we work far too hard to have even more taken away.
For what? I can’t tell you how much time I have spent trying to locate a publicly available line by line city budget. Oh, there is a vague general document – yes. But worthless for actual auditing or questioning.
At what point is this city and state going to do the hard work and take the political risk of doing the right thing? That’s looking at every single expense and making tough decisions. The fraudsters and the grifters have already figured out that Minnesota is a cash cow to take advantage of (Feeding Our Future as just one example) – when are our elected officials going to take a critical (and even unpopular) look at the city and state budget and make CUTS?
It is far too easy to just tax more.
Do the work.
We have options. We don’t have to stay in Minneapolis. We can move, in fact we already have land out of state, where we will not be so taken advantage of. It is just a shame that policy decisions like what you are proposing will guarantee our spiral to becoming the next Detroit.
Think about what you are doing – driving out the last vestige of a tax base. It’s textbook Detroit and I am not here for it.
Colleen Kepler, Ward 13
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Related: Opinion: Minneapolis needs revenue, and it needn’t all come from property taxes. One alternative is a 1% city income tax on households that bring in more than $200,000 a year. “My concept is for a modest 1% tax which would be paid only by households with incomes of at least $200,000 annually” (Steve Brandt, Star Tribune, April 2025)
Related: Interview: Steve Brandt on a Proposed 1% City Income Tax. Is Minneapolis ready for another tax? (Better Minneapolis May 2025)
Related: Minneapolis ought to diversify its income. The burden of narrowing budget gaps shouldn’t fall regressively on property taxpayers. “it’s time for Minneapolis City Hall to take a serious look at diversifying how it finances city services, including seeking the power to impose a municipal income or wealth tax.” (Steve Brandt, Star Tribune, August 2024)
We need a true independent audit of the City Budget. That needs to have an intense focus on duplicative expenses as pointed out by Zubby and a real focus on reviving revenue. It would be valuable to call back former CMs who ran the city in the heyday. But that would require an “open to listen” from CMs that simply does not exist from many of them. It’s a shame because there are so many who love our city that have experience to share that could help. Such a task force should be welcomed.
Thank you! Agree on all
Agree, it would be extremely helpful if there were more focus on how the city spends its money.
I would like to see Council Members that are capable of thinking critically about money, and our annual budget. Very much not wanting to see what happened this last year.
In terms of monies spent here, it should be noted that each Council seat costs the taxpayers well in excess of 1/4 million dollars, with the cost of their aides. Add that to the time, ( money) many of them TAKE AWAY from our City staff to work on personal projects these CMs happen to like, or the DSA would like to SEE from them, AND we get some idea of how ridiculous and extreme this situation is for the City, financially.
So, before we go looking at taxing people even more, we need to look a little closer to home, at ” our own house,” one that seems completely OUT OF ORDER, in terms of priority setting.
https://minneapolistimes.com/2025-budget-city-councils-values-display/
Excerpt
Another big group of proposals is the “Duplicating what other government is already doing.” There is teaching people how driver’s licenses work, something that the state DMV does. Transportation for seniors, something that Metro Transit does. A navigation line for seniors, something that the state Department of Human Services does. $25,000 for some group to tell us how to implement mental health services for gay and lesbian folks, something Human Services also does. Paying for post-incarceration services, like the State Corrections Department does. There is providing free immigrant law advice, something already done by the Immigrant Law Center, which is funded by government. The biggest duplication of work is taking over services for the homeless from Hennepin County. It is just baffling that the City would spend millions duplicating what is already being done instead of working with other jurisdictions. It is also baffling that the City Council thinks the City can somehow be more effective than larger, more experienced, and older programs. These programs are usually handled at the state or county level because many of these populations move around, and Minneapolis ends up shouldering the burden for the whole region.
Another major theme is budget chicanery. That word means deception or trickery. Each of the three reasonable property tax reductions rely on a $5 million one-time savings, meaning that the property tax levy will need to increase, or services cut by $5 million next year. At least 11 of the proposals use one-time money for on-going costs. For example, one proposal cuts planning staff for one year to fund grants for senior housing, then the planning staff are added back. What the unfunded staff do for that year is unclear. Several proposals cut the funding for community police stations, which signed leases in November. At least six proposals just move an activity from one department to another, like moving the Crisis Response Teams from the Neighborhood Safety Department to the Fire Department. It isn’t clear what expertise the Fire Department has in mental health crisis response. Multiple proposals appear to cut the same civil attorney.
Perhaps the most egregious chicanery is the proposal Council Member Osman sponsored for $150,000 from the federal opioid settlement for an Indigenous and East African Communities Opioid Response Program. The problem is federal law clearly states that responses based on race or ethnicity are not legal. This was brought up in the meeting. Council Member Chavez said the City would blatantly violate the law because he wanted to. Then he dared the state to stop the City. Saying this on television is … unusual… given how many fraud investigations are happening at the state.
One of the worst and most vindictive council micromanagement actions was to remove Community Crime Prevention SAFE from the police department. I was the 5th Precinct Inspector 92-94. We had 4-5 robust CCP/SAFE teams for the precinct, each a team of one crime prevention specialist and one police officer. The all had their sectors. They came to know the problems in their areas very well and were quite effective in handling crime and quality of life issues. Today, we have fewer and fewer officers from the city (in my 1975 rookie class 28 of 29 were city residents). That is just how it is in part due to POST Board requirements. The other important thing the CCP/SAFE teams did was establishing relationships with the people and businesses in their sectors. They in turn, relied upon the patrol officers on the shifts to help carry out their problem solving. This led to officers who knew a lot of people in the precinct, regular folks and businesses, not just people they arrest. We are now trying to figure out how we get cops that know the communities they serve. Duh. I guess the wheel must be reinvented.
The rank corruption is so disturbing. It seems like openly fleecing the taxpayers has become priority #1 for this smug City Council. It’s hard now to remember when this city mostly felt like a functioning, lively, well-run place.
Under Mayor Frey’s amazing leadership, our city’s budget increased from $1.55 billion to $1.9 billion. I’m sure there’s some to cut, but this isn’t Brandt’s fault. He’s doing the responsible thing exploring other ways to fund the city. It’s not really his job to do the cutting. I don’t know what other options would work other than an income tax, higher property tax, or increasing fees on city services. None of the options will be popular. But if an income tax only starts at incomes above $200k, most households wouldn’t be impacted. Only about 13% of Minneapolis households earn that much, which is a quite a lot of money no matter how anyone wants to spin it.
First, let me say Steve Brandt is the person we want on BET. In his 40 years as a reporter he was the one who would spend hours pouring over city budget documents and calling out questionable decisions.
That said, the city income tax seems a huge red flag. Steve knows this and is just tossing out ideas to deal with our decreasing revenue and the never ending need or desire for more tax dollars. No other elected official seems willing to get serious about our fiscal tsunami. Plus, we would need legislative approval for a city income tax. That is doubtful in the foreseeable future. That $200,000 suggested base figure is off in my opinion. Yeah, it sounds like a lot of money, but that family might have 2 or 3 kids in or near college and a recent high interest mortgage. Then there is the speculation that a city income tax might drive taxpayers out of the city. The whistling past the graveyard part is assuming they will just be replaced by new people of similar income.
Hi Greg, did you catch the “Related articles” above? He’s on record multiple times calling for an income tax, including BET meetings. At the risk of being labeled as a single issue voter, this would be catastrophic for the city and reason to vote him out of office. For me anyway.
What we really have is a spending problem, something not a single elected official or candidate for office has been brave enough to utter. We should actually cut programs & headcount to maintain current spending levels.