One more tax on top of the 8.3% just implemented is a death knell. The budget needs an audit, and those paying taxes need to know where their money goes. My guess is that homeowners would not have voted in favor of city wide bollards, narrowing of streets for bikes that prohibit a free lane, spending on programs without a solid plan and people with experience in place. I believe that if a person has been accused/convicted of fraud that they should be banned from public office. Homeowners would vote for hiring more police, safeguarding neighborhoods. As several of the city council members are declared socialists and have the loudest voices, they must understand that as Margaret Thatcher said: The problem with socialism is that someday you run out of other people's money.
I guess I would support a third party audit but our budget process is very transparent. It's all public data. You can easily find the net new spending and where we spend the majority of tax dollars. The reason taxes are going up is primarily because we increased payroll for MPD and Public Works (both are huge departments), inflation (everything the city buys is more expensive, including third party contractors/vendors), and values of big downtown office buildings collapsed (these buildings had been our cash cows). Our budget isn't out of control because of bollards, which were paid by for by a federal grant, or bike lanes, which are paid for through special assessments for street reconstructions.
Thank you for your note. While much of the city’s data is technically public, that doesn’t always mean it’s easy to find—or easy to make sense of. For instance, it’s hard to understand how replacing a single streetlight can cost more than the median home in Minneapolis. Inflation alone doesn’t explain it.
If that’s truly the going rate, then it’s fair to ask: where can the city reduce costs? If Minneapolis is receiving less funding from state or federal sources, or if local revenues are shrinking, we’ll need to find ways to spend more efficiently—unless residents are comfortable with continued tax increases.
That sounds perfectly reasonable. Understandably, a 33% vacancy in commercial buildings put pressure on the owners, but they still pay taxes at 4%? Bike lanes fall under special assessments which is another tax on homeowners who didn't ask for or want bike lanes that took up parking. You may not be aware, but there are many who see the city as their cash cow willing to pay exorbitant amounts of money for marginal programs. This isn't news, it goes back at least 25 years. Well meaning programs that were handed to individuals who only plan to enrich themselves. As an example, group homes of up to 5-6 people where the management charges $5000@head@ month, no experience and little supervision. I understand that the budget may be transparent for those who oversee it regularly, but home owners have no say in what they are paying for. A couple of years ago the mayor allowed homeless people to set themselves up in a neighborhood park with less than wonderful results. Then there was the program to augment police as a 'safety program,' which turned into a fraud scandal. The city didn't get any (our) money back.
the special programs is where an audit would be most helpful. I don't understand why we don't build more intuitional capacity at the city, county, and state level to do the work we farm out to nonprofits. I'm not saying there's never a reason to award a contract, but it seems to have gotten out of control at the expense of building expertise within the public sector and good jobs that people can make careers out of.
I’m skeptical that raising taxes on high earners will achieve what we desire. We spend too much time thinking about ways to raise revenue, and not enough on ways to cut spending. I’d love to see a non-Musk, sane version of DOGE come in to help us tighten our belt.
The income tax proposal is borderline insane. Set aside out-migration, which will happen to some extent, but probably not as much as critics say, because folks develop connections that bind them to a place. IN-migration will suffer much more, and that is the future of any city that wants to be cosmopolitan in any real way. I moved to MN in '84 from the SF Bay Area, first to Woodbury, and, in '91, to Minneapolis. With a city-specific income tax in place, I would never even have considered that '91 move. The amount (1%) doesn't even matter. Once established, it can and will be changed. I love my many, many fellow Minneapolitans who are life-long residents, but what makes a city truly vibrant is a mix of those with deep roots, and those with perspectives gained by living in other places. Without the latter, a city is just a large "small town" without the charms of a small town.
It's not country club and several international vacations a year wealthy. But it's still a lot of money and more than enough to enable a couple to become wealthy by the time they retire even with kids. Only 13.5% of Minneapolis households earn more than $200k a year. Median household income is around $80k.
If you want less of something...tax it. In this case, the city apparently wants fewer upper middle-class households to spend money at restaurants, shops, etc.
It's kind of like a sin tax, they feel that there are fewer people affected by the tax than not so it will be approved. We still have the 3% downtown tax, so how come that is not enough. Perhaps if they supported new and existing businesses more there would be enough money to do all their wants, until that happens they should settle on actual needs.
Most of the households with income over 200k are likely to be families with school age kids. When you consider the abysmal quality of MPS and the reality that many of these families are already paying extra for private school, it just seems to add to the pressure to move to the burbs. And who would want to move into a city with no apparent will or ability to control its own spending?
Speaking of how we spend money, quite bizarre what the budget process looked like this year in Mpls. That ONE thing should be a big consideration when looking at all of the Council candidates.
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....
One more tax on top of the 8.3% just implemented is a death knell. The budget needs an audit, and those paying taxes need to know where their money goes. My guess is that homeowners would not have voted in favor of city wide bollards, narrowing of streets for bikes that prohibit a free lane, spending on programs without a solid plan and people with experience in place. I believe that if a person has been accused/convicted of fraud that they should be banned from public office. Homeowners would vote for hiring more police, safeguarding neighborhoods. As several of the city council members are declared socialists and have the loudest voices, they must understand that as Margaret Thatcher said: The problem with socialism is that someday you run out of other people's money.
I guess I would support a third party audit but our budget process is very transparent. It's all public data. You can easily find the net new spending and where we spend the majority of tax dollars. The reason taxes are going up is primarily because we increased payroll for MPD and Public Works (both are huge departments), inflation (everything the city buys is more expensive, including third party contractors/vendors), and values of big downtown office buildings collapsed (these buildings had been our cash cows). Our budget isn't out of control because of bollards, which were paid by for by a federal grant, or bike lanes, which are paid for through special assessments for street reconstructions.
Thank you for your note. While much of the city’s data is technically public, that doesn’t always mean it’s easy to find—or easy to make sense of. For instance, it’s hard to understand how replacing a single streetlight can cost more than the median home in Minneapolis. Inflation alone doesn’t explain it.
If that’s truly the going rate, then it’s fair to ask: where can the city reduce costs? If Minneapolis is receiving less funding from state or federal sources, or if local revenues are shrinking, we’ll need to find ways to spend more efficiently—unless residents are comfortable with continued tax increases.
That sounds perfectly reasonable. Understandably, a 33% vacancy in commercial buildings put pressure on the owners, but they still pay taxes at 4%? Bike lanes fall under special assessments which is another tax on homeowners who didn't ask for or want bike lanes that took up parking. You may not be aware, but there are many who see the city as their cash cow willing to pay exorbitant amounts of money for marginal programs. This isn't news, it goes back at least 25 years. Well meaning programs that were handed to individuals who only plan to enrich themselves. As an example, group homes of up to 5-6 people where the management charges $5000@head@ month, no experience and little supervision. I understand that the budget may be transparent for those who oversee it regularly, but home owners have no say in what they are paying for. A couple of years ago the mayor allowed homeless people to set themselves up in a neighborhood park with less than wonderful results. Then there was the program to augment police as a 'safety program,' which turned into a fraud scandal. The city didn't get any (our) money back.
the special programs is where an audit would be most helpful. I don't understand why we don't build more intuitional capacity at the city, county, and state level to do the work we farm out to nonprofits. I'm not saying there's never a reason to award a contract, but it seems to have gotten out of control at the expense of building expertise within the public sector and good jobs that people can make careers out of.
I’m skeptical that raising taxes on high earners will achieve what we desire. We spend too much time thinking about ways to raise revenue, and not enough on ways to cut spending. I’d love to see a non-Musk, sane version of DOGE come in to help us tighten our belt.
The income tax proposal is borderline insane. Set aside out-migration, which will happen to some extent, but probably not as much as critics say, because folks develop connections that bind them to a place. IN-migration will suffer much more, and that is the future of any city that wants to be cosmopolitan in any real way. I moved to MN in '84 from the SF Bay Area, first to Woodbury, and, in '91, to Minneapolis. With a city-specific income tax in place, I would never even have considered that '91 move. The amount (1%) doesn't even matter. Once established, it can and will be changed. I love my many, many fellow Minneapolitans who are life-long residents, but what makes a city truly vibrant is a mix of those with deep roots, and those with perspectives gained by living in other places. Without the latter, a city is just a large "small town" without the charms of a small town.
A $200k family with kids is NOT wealthy.
It's not country club and several international vacations a year wealthy. But it's still a lot of money and more than enough to enable a couple to become wealthy by the time they retire even with kids. Only 13.5% of Minneapolis households earn more than $200k a year. Median household income is around $80k.
If you want less of something...tax it. In this case, the city apparently wants fewer upper middle-class households to spend money at restaurants, shops, etc.
It's kind of like a sin tax, they feel that there are fewer people affected by the tax than not so it will be approved. We still have the 3% downtown tax, so how come that is not enough. Perhaps if they supported new and existing businesses more there would be enough money to do all their wants, until that happens they should settle on actual needs.
Most of the households with income over 200k are likely to be families with school age kids. When you consider the abysmal quality of MPS and the reality that many of these families are already paying extra for private school, it just seems to add to the pressure to move to the burbs. And who would want to move into a city with no apparent will or ability to control its own spending?
Speaking of how we spend money, quite bizarre what the budget process looked like this year in Mpls. That ONE thing should be a big consideration when looking at all of the Council candidates.
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....