Despite a last-minute plea from St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and a wide-ranging assembly of city partners, the St. Paul City Council voted 4-2 on Wednesday to reject the mayor’s final budget proposal, which called for a 6.9% property tax levy increase.
The council instead opted for a 5.9% tax levy increase, slashing $4 million in spending from the budget plan Carter presented in August, in part by cutting $1.2 million from police overtime and rethinking how attrition and unfilled positions are budgeted.
The council budget also makes cuts to street resurfacing and sidewalk replacement, spending that the mayor noted many residents assumed would be robustly funded after they voted a year ago for increasing the city sales tax.
Hwa Jeong Kim (Courtesy photo)
Council Vice President HwaJeong Kim said the council’s budget changes involved using “a scalpel over an ax. … We need to be asking harder questions around staffing. … At a time when people are literally pinching pennies together to make ends meet … I believe in the approach that we took.”
Several planned positions were eliminated in the council’s budget, including a police forensic scientist and a downtown project manager. The city’s office of Human Rights and Equal Economic Opportunity has been operating without a permanent director and relying instead on department staff to act as interim leadership, and police had hoped to hire a property clerk. It was not clear Wednesday whether the budget included sufficient funding to make either of the latter two hires next year.
Mitra Jalali. (Courtesy of the candidate)
“We are poised to pass a version of the budget that I have concerns goes too far,” said Council President Mitra Jalali, moments before being overruled by her peers in a 5-1 vote to adopt the council’s budget proposal. “I just worry that the trade-offs aren’t worth it.”
Jalali noted that the council chose to fund replacing the city’s urban tree canopy with $500,000 in city STAR grant funds, which are devoted to economic development and backed by the city’s half-cent sales tax.
As a result, there will be $500,000 less available to fund other intended uses, including sidewalk reconstruction, she said.
Council members defend cuts
Council Member Rebecca Noecker, who chairs the city’s Housing and Redevelopment Authority, said the council’s leaner levy increase was “more responsive to the concerns we’ve heard from our constituents about rising property taxes. … The cost of everything else has been rising faster than their paychecks.”
Rebecca Noecker
“We are seeking to reduce the levy in responsible ways,” Noecker added. “We have done our homework. These are not rash decisions. … We are talking about reducing spending in departments that have not been spent, that we’ve been overbudgeting for.”
Council Member Cheniqua Johnson noted that during negotiations with the mayor’s office, the budget proposal went through six different iterations. Johnson said the council and mayor’s proposals were largely aligned in fundamental ways, though holding the levy reduction to 5.9% was an important priority.
“We have folks who are literally trying to survive on that dollar that we may not think at the time makes a difference,” she said.
Council Member Anika Bowie said she was excited that the council budget includes $250,000 for a racial reparations commission, for commission members to “simply have gas in the car” and work with community partners. Another $250,000, she said, will support community festivals and cultural events, which have struggled with rising security and public safety costs. The budget also includes funding for a housing study, tree replacement and climate programs.
Bowie noted the mayor’s initial budget proposal called for $9 million in additional police spending largely tied to contract pay increases and overtime spending, which she said deserved further council scrutiny.
Cheniqua Johnson. (Courtesy of the City of St. Paul)
“What my residents want and how we get there has been a challenge in this budget year,” Bowie acknowledged, urging more discussion earlier in the season. “Having collaborative cost savings matters.”
Carter’s proposal draws two votes
Jalali and Council Member Saura Jost, who chairs the city’s Library Board, cast the two votes to support the mayor’s compromise proposal. They noted it trimmed police overtime by $250,000 instead of $1.2 million, while still funding council priorities like library spending, free Sunday swim times at the Oxford/Jimmy Lee Rec Center, three new firefighters and climate initiatives.
“One concern I do have is in some of these cases, there are uses of one-time funding to lower the levy, which we might not (be able to do the following) year,” said Jost, who also cast a vote for the council’s proposal. “This tightening, while it does concern me … a majority of our council members are comfortable with it.”
Council Member Nelsie Yang was traveling in Germany on Wednesday at the invitation of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, which is exploring environmental infrastructure relevant to the Heights development in her ward, a trip she said was scheduled before the final budget and levy votes were moved from Dec. 4 to Dec. 11. She indicated, in a statement read aloud by Kim, that she was supportive of the council’s budget priorities and holding down the levy.
Anika Bowie. (Courtesy of the City of St. Paul)
Resolution on operational changes
The council also passed a resolution Wednesday announcing their intent to pursue, by 2026, a series of budget-related operational changes.
Among them, they plan to request regular quarterly reports on police overtime spending by sworn officer type and activity type; ongoing reporting on vacancies across departments, including the length of time a position has been vacant, and a review of the neighborhood District Council system and district council requests for more funding.
The council also signaled their intent to seek a city debt capacity study, a request “that all departments, including the St. Paul Fire Department and St. Paul Police Department, review their contracts with outside entities to ensure that those entities are fully reimbursing the city for its costs,” and consideration of moving council members from part-time to full-time status.
Saura Jost. (Courtesy photo)
Also on tap for 2026, potentially, is a move toward “a two-year budgeting cycle to allow more time for planning, implementation and evaluation of city programs and services between budget cycles.”
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