Agenda - Charter Commission - 08/27/2020

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White Bear Lake White Bear Lake has a balanced approach to how they fund their road infrastructure efforts where assessments (20-30%), capital improvement bonds (30-70%), municipal state aid (if eligible 0- 50%), and other sources (5%) all contribute. White Bear Lake has taken the route of using bonds as their new/experimental funding mechanism, which started in 2018. Criteria the city was looking for when changing to a new model was primarily equity, but also benefit tests. However, this particular form of funding is still fresh, and the city council is still reacting and examining the changes. In addition to the criteria of equity, the city's political makeup favors keeping costs and taxes low for residents, which is seen as a constraint in finding new funding mechanisms. Public engagement has been limited in White Bear Lake, but they continue to follow proposed legislation in order to find new and innovative ways to fund road infrastructure. White Bear Lake leaned forward with using bonds as their new funding model in 2018 for road infrastructure. This is likely due to political makeup, which is very sensitive to tax increases and why little to no consideration is given to new funding mechanisms. Since using bonds as the primary funding source is new, it is too early to determine whether or not it's an effective funding model as the City Council is still evaluating the results. New Hope New Hope uses a combination of property tax, franchise fee and MSAS for streets. The city does special assess tax exempt properties, however; other property owners are not assessed for the cost of street projects as a street levy and franchise fee revenues support the pavement management plan. Several years ago, the city completed a 10-year pavement management plan which helped to balance out the annual project cost in an attempt to even out the utilization of resources, while also ensuring the city's Pavement Management Index remains favorable. The city implemented a street infrastructure levy many years ago and recently increased franchise fees to provide additional revenue for streets. The pavement management plan was increased from a five to ten- year plan just a few years ago. The city had a very open process when raising the franchise fees several years back. In addition, they provide several publications and public announcements that highlight the city's street infrastructure levy and how the city's tax rate may differ from other communities that chose to special assess. New Hope stated that equity, where all taxpayers contribute to the pavement management program while also avoiding a significant burden that may come from a special assessment for a major road project, was an important factor in their decision making. Also, the city values long-term sustainability-focused approach to capital planning and resource management which has served them very well in ensuring they have current resources to fund the pavement management program and can avoid further issuance of debt for road projects. Eagan Eagan uses a number of funding tools to cover the costs of their road maintenance and reconstruction activities including general revenues generated from property taxes, special assessments, and MSAS funds. The city's property tax revenue generates roughly $2.55 million annually for street improvement projects covering about 45% of project costs (1.05% effective property tax rate). The city's special assessment revenue generates roughly 37% of project costs, and has a sliding rate depending on property type (residential = 50%; high density residential = 9