Agenda - Council - 04/25/2017 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Chapter Five: Finance Financing the Metropolitan Regional Park System Minn. Stat. 473.147, subd. 1, requires the Council - after consultation with the Metropolitan Parks and Open Space Commission, municipalities, park districts and counties in the metropolitan area - to prepare and adopt a system policy plan for regional recreation open space as part of the Council's development guide. The law also requires the Council to include a five-year capital improvement program plan in the parks policy plan, which should be revised periodically, and to establish criteria and priorities for allocating funds from the capital improvement program -referred to as the "Regional Parks CIP." Minn. Stat. 473.325 allows the Council to issue general obligation bonds for the acquisition and betterment of the Regional Parks System. No more than $40 million of bond debt can be outstanding at any point in time. Since 1994, the Council has issued on average $7 million per year of short-term bonds (5 to 10 years) for grants to regional park implementing agencies for land acquisition and capital improvements to the park system. Minn. Stat. 473.315 authorizes the Council, with the advice of the Metropolitan Parks and Open Space Commission, to make grants from any funds available to it to the regional park implementing agencies to cover the cost, or any portion of the cost, of acquiring and developing the regional park system in accordance with the parks policy plan. Following are summaries of how these grants are funded and managed: Capital Improvement Program The Regional Parks CIP must, in accordance with Minn. Stat. 473.147, include "criteria and priorities for the allocation of funds." Capital projects proposed for funding must be consistent with a Council- approved master plan. Projects proposed by each regional park implementing agency are prioritized by that agency. Each park agency has unique capital needs, which that park agency can best determine. State bonds have been appropriated to the Council since 1976 to help finance the parks CIP. Since 1994, the Council has financed the parks CIP with a combination of state bonds and Council bonds. State bonds finance 60% of the parks CIP and Council bonds finance 40%. The premise for this mix of state and regional bonds is that people who live outside the seven-county metropolitan region visit and use the regional park system and should therefore help finance its capital costs. Taxes collected statewide and within the region to pay off the bond debt are proportional to the share of visits to the park system made by people living within the region, and those who live outside the region. Since 2008, the Metropolitan Council has used a formula to determine how much of the CIP would be allocated to each regional park implementing agency. The formula balances two factors: • The population within the jurisdiction of each park implementing agency compared to the region's total population. This factor is weighted 70%. • The number of visits a park agency hosted from people who live outside the park agency's jurisdiction (non-local visits). This factor is weighted 30%.