Agenda - Charter Commission - 08/27/2020

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Road Funding Mechanisms for Small Suburban Cities in the Twin Cities Metro Area Humphrey School of Public Affairs Resilient Communities Project The City of Ramsey By: David Ambuel, Sean Crawford, Steven Kutz, and Molly Sir ABSTRACT The City of Ramsey is currently wearing down their roads faster than they are able to fund their maintenance and construction. The current funding structure involves special assessments of the roughly 178 miles of road in the City of Ramsey, 142 miles of road are outside of the Municipal State -Aid Street system (MSAS) designation, and therefore are ineligible for certain state aid funds and rely solely on city funding for their upkeep. In light of this, the City of Ramsey is investigating ways to sustainably fund road reconstruction and maintenance projects and has partnered with the University of Minnesota's Resilient Communities Project to advance this investigation. Using interview and survey responses collected from city managers and public works professionals in cities in the Twin Cities metro region, this report examines how other comparable cities are funding their road maintenance programs and presents the following findings and recommendations for the City of Ramsey to apply in their own road funding context. 1. Increased community engagement - Establishing a robust and purposeful community engagement plan can help grow public support for new road funding programs and help residents understand the current state of the city's road funding situation. 2. Establish a new road funding structure: Given the inadequacy of the current road funding program in Ramsey, we recommend that the city adds another funding tool to its toolbox. 3. Work in a coalition - Working together can help elevate the local road funding issues to the state and present a strong rationale for the passage of additional tools for local governments. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to thank the City of Ramsey as well as the Resilient Communities Project for the opportunity to work on such an exciting and relevant project. Thank you for providing us with ample feedback and information throughout the project and for your openness and willingness to answer all of our questions. Additionally, we would like to thank Professor Greta Friedemann- Sanchez and Teaching Assistant Sarah Carroll for the feedback and advice on our research project throughout the semester, which has helped us to revise and improve our final product to make it the most valuable it can be. Finally, we would like to thank the city staff that agreed to have a discussion about road funding during a chaotic and uncertain time and when other matters could have easily taken priority. Thank you for your time. This report would not exist without your participation.