Thank you very much for your note; with all of the critical needs 2020 has brought, I am honored that you took time to contact me and share your thoughts.
In short, I agree: a safe, stable & promising community is the foundation upon which all other aspirations for our city must be built. That understanding is why my administration has worked closely with leaders on our City Council over the past three years to make critical investments that have brought our police department to its largest number of sworn officers in city history, and to make key innovations to help our fire department continue to provide the first rate public services our residents and businesses rightfully expect.
As your note suggests, 2020 has brought a set of unprecedented and unexpected challenges to our city. On top of the global pandemic, this historic economic downturn has left more Saint Paul residents unemployed, unhoused and unfed than ever before in our lifetime. The murder of George Floyd, as well as the compound trauma we endured from people who came to our city to cause damage and destruction only made these challenges more pronounced.
All of these factors work together to create a perfect storm for our budget situation. Unexpected - but unavoidable - expenses are high, as we have incurred significant crisis response costs that are yet to be reimbursed from higher levels of government. And because so many of our residents and businesses are working with less cash on hand than ever, the revenues we rely on have been down across the board: from property taxes to parking meters.
Because every family and business in our city is struggling right now, the 2021 budget proposal I presented to the City Council in August does not increase our citywide property tax levy. Because we are more reliant than ever on our front line city staff - from police and firefighters who protected our families and businesses during civil unrest, to the librarians and rec workers who are supporting students and delivering food to families in need - my budget proposes no layoffs of city staff. And because we have a world of uncertainty before us, my budget proposes to leave our city's emergency reserves - our "rainy day funds" - untouched, to maintain our ability to be flexible. While I am 100% confident these are the right steps for our city right now, they also leave us with a difficult set of decisions to make.
Nearly every single city department has endured a budget reduction from 2020 to 2021, with the sole exception of our Office of Technology & Communications, for obvious reasons. For our police department, that translates to a reduction of approximately $800k, or less than 1% of their annual $100M+ budget. This figure represents the smallest impact - both in terms of dollars and percentages - of our major city departments. The Police Chief will allocate these reductions as he deems appropriate. It is critically important to note that, because our police department is by far our highest funded city department, any scenario that spares that department from participating in our citywide budget reductions would have dire consequences for all other city services. In an era where our state's largest companies and government jurisdictions alike are scaling back and laying off employees, funding our police department next year at more than 99% of their current allocated budget is a critical indication of city leadership's high level of support for their work.
Moving forward, we are committed to building the most comprehensive, coordinated and data-driven approach to public safety that Saint Paul has ever endeavored. This will help us to expand our public safety framework beyond simply responding to emergencies after they happen, to making strategic investments to reduce the number of emergencies we endure in the first place. It will allow us to put in new supports our officers have long requested, including community-based resources to respond to nonviolent, nonemergency 911 calls, leaving our officers available for an immediate response to our most critical needs. Please check out the brief news story at the following link to more about this innovative work: (
https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2020/...ency-response/). Please do reach out if you are interested in being part of this work; we very much need the continued voice and engagement of concerned community members like you, to put Saint Paul on the strongest path forward.
While Saint Paul has not been immune to the global and national crises unfolding before our eyes, I am confident that our team here at the City, and more importantly our broader team across our community, are more than capable of working as a team to meet the moment here in Saint Paul, finding new and innovative ways to care for one another, and continuing to build the safe, prosperous and promising city that our children deserve to inherit from us. I greatly appreciate being able to count you as part of that team.
Sincerely,
-Mayor Melvin Carter
Originally Posted by RoyGBiv
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