Possible layoffs, disappearing departments and a double-digit levy hike are an awfully painful way to discover that “prioritizing” still requires somebody to get less. The city may have good reasons, but Frey, Payne and Rainville each need to say what stays, what goes and who pays.
Arlene made the mistake Tuesday of asking me to help cut $180 from the Up North Café’s end-of-summer supper. This is a little like asking a Labrador to help inventory bacon, but she had a yellow pad, a sharp pencil and the mistaken belief that a columnist ought to be useful once in a while.
The supper had several expenses, all of them reasonable until you added them together. Old man Henderson said we could skip the rented canopy, provided the weather agreed to sign something. Arlene suggested fewer blueberry pies, which I considered an unnecessarily personal turn. I proposed dropping the second coffee urn, and Henderson looked at me as if I had volunteered his truck for a demolition derby. Everybody favored economy in the abstract. The trouble began when economy acquired nouns.
We had saved twelve dollars on paper napkins when the morning paper arrived with news that Minneapolis may be preparing a much larger exercise in nouns. Mayor Jacob Frey is expected to present his formal 2027 budget proposal on Aug. 12, but preliminary reporting says the city faces a projected $33 million general-fund gap. More than 100 employees could be laid off. Departments or divisions could be eliminated, closed, merged or consolidated. And after all that, Frey may still seek a double-digit increase in the property-tax levy. The mayor’s office had not confirmed the reported details because final decisions were still being made.
I read that part twice. A levy increase is not the same thing as saying every homeowner’s bill will rise by that percentage. Still, a double-digit levy is not the kind of number taxpayers mistake for background music.
This also does not appear to be a simple tale of one fancy program eating the budget. Salary and benefit costs are projected to rise by nearly $36 million. Federal pandemic money is ending. Downtown property values have weakened. Revenue is flat or declining, and police overtime has repeatedly exceeded what the city budgeted. Those are real pressures, and some of them come from contracts, necessary work and costs that do not disappear because somebody says “uff da” with enough conviction.
But the consequences are real, too. A laid-off city worker has a family and a mortgage. An eliminated job may mean a slower permit, a missed inspection, less help for a vulnerable resident or more work pushed onto whoever remains. Careless cuts can cost more later. A substantial tax increase may even be justified if the city can show that the services are necessary, the organization is reasonably efficient and the less painful alternatives have been exhausted.
What the city cannot do is make the pain vanish by improving the vocabulary.
During an earlier Minneapolis budget debate, Council President Elliott Payne said, “I will be a broken record on this, and I’m going to continue being a broken record on this: austerity budgets aren’t about cutting; they’re about prioritizing.”
He is right that every budget expresses priorities. But prioritizing is the deciding. Cutting is what happens afterward to the position, service, department, program or household that gets less. Calling it prioritizing may make the meeting feel nicer. It does not make the reduced service, lost income or higher tax burden feel especially chosen.
Council Member Michael Rainville has been more direct. He has warned that the levy increase could reach roughly 11% to 13%, and he said, “This is painful.” He also asked, “What I don’t understand is if you’re gonna lay off people, why don’t you lay off until you get down to 4% or 5%? Nobody wants to touch that.”
That is a fair question, and I give him credit for asking it plainly. If layoffs and disappearing departments still leave a levy that high, Frey needs to explain why. What work remains protected? What staffing, management, duplication, overtime, organization and favored programs were reconsidered? The final proposal may answer some of that. The preliminary picture does not.
Rainville, though, has homework of his own. Four or five percent is a preference, not yet a plan. Which additional positions or services would he eliminate? What would those cuts save? Who would wait longer, go without or carry more work? A smaller number is not an answer until somebody brings the list.
Arlene tapped her pencil against the supper budget. We still needed $146.
I looked at the blueberry pies, which had done nothing to deserve this, and told her to cross off two of them. She looked up to make sure I understood what I was giving away.
I nodded. Not enthusiastically, but enough.
This is why there are a growing number of small data centers in downtown Minneapolis office buildings that would be sitting empty and unused if not for the DCs. The lefties have to realize that they are killing the goose that laid the golden eggs they keep trying to take away from the rest of us.
You can start with the protected unfilled positions in every department except MPD and Fire. You can disengage from all outside contracts that do not affect public safety. You can also combine the silos (yes, shockingly people can do more than one job). Provide real metrics and deliverables for services affecting the public i.e.. water, sewer, potholes and licensing. There are Director, Deputy Directors Assistant Directors managers and assistant managers and supervisor, assistant supervisors. The span of control should be manageable as the needs arise in deliverables, not because it would be nice to have an extra person in case. Offer incentives for departments that truly do more with less. Don’t give anything else to HR because they are inept and accountable to a director that works part time. And how about the Council pet projects and staff. sometimes the answer is in the small stuff. when this is done really look at what you’d like to accomplish. The discussions around George Flyoyd square, and the 3rd precinct should move forward, or the delays and cost should be taken from the Council budget. Stop harassing staff in knots with your legislative directives.
If we had a healthy downtown we wouldn’t need to be cutting services and raising taxes. But our business tax revenue has dropped off a cliff and data centers are the one thing keeping it from imploding entirely