Here is a letter I wrote to the Editor of the Maplewood Review. It is response to an article where I was quoted as the only citizen at a Maplewood City Council meeting to speak in support of Maplewood setting a maximum tax levy limit of 7%. As it was written, it sounded as if I supported an actual increase of 7%. I can't say today what level of increase I would support until the budget requests have been made and analysed. Read the letter for more.
Dear Editor,
Thank you for your coverage of the recent Maplewood city council meeting where the maximum tax levy for 2010 was set. As reported early in the article, this is the amount that the city can levy in taxes in 2010. This is not necessarily the amount that the city must levy. As the City Manager pointed out “It can be scaled back.” I also want to thank you for including my comments from that meeting in your article. As you quoted, I did support the City Manager’s recommendation to “keep their options open” and report a 7% maximum levy increase. I do want to clarify my overall stand on the city’s taxes though. While I did support reporting a 7% tax levy increase, I believe that even the smallest tax increase needs serious consideration and sound justification to the public before passage.
I am asking for this clarification because I am not just a “Maplewood resident”, I am a Maplewood resident who is running for the Minnesota Senate in 2010. I am running for the senate because I believe that the state has thrust too much of its budget mess into the hands of our cities and counties. Our cities are now caught between a rock and a hard place. On one side they have had significant funding cuts from the state and on the other side they have citizens who are tired of a government that thinks it can tax its way out of any problem. Between these two truths, we have a city that has to figure out how to provide adequate services with inadequate revenue. While I am sure that there are areas of the budget that can still stand another trim, the state has been withholding revenue from our cities for many years, and most of the fat was trimmed from city budgets over the past four or five years. While I am not a fan of raising taxes on the whole, this year’s city budget will probably require a reduction in services to prevent an increase in the tax levy.
As you watch Maplewood’s budget process unfold over the next 2 months, citizens have every right to hold the city council responsible for how they address the budget challenges before them. At the same time, we all need to hold our legislators and our Governor responsible for making cities pay for the state’s ongoing budget problems.
Thank you,
Mark Jenkins
Candidate for the Minnesota Senate in 2010
www.MarkJenkins2010.com
