Agenda - Council - 10/14/2025 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Finance Director Lund said there will be $1,788,750 transferred from other internal funds, $917,000 of which will be coming from the COR fund. Motion by Councilmember Peters, seconded by Councilmember Olson, to adopt Resolution #25- 221 Approving the Proposed 2025, Payable 2026 Tax Levy in the amount of $23,376,916 and to schedule the City of Ramsey's budget/levy public meeting on Tuesday, December 9, 2025, at 7:00 p.m. Further discussion: Councilmember Specht shared that he will not be supporting the budget as he does not agree with all of the additional personnel hires and spending on equipment that are in the proposed budget. He said he thinks they are doing the residents a disservice by growing the government by this much during a time when a lot of people are hurting financially. Councilmember Riley noted that the City is growing, and the development that they have been working on in the COR area has been successful. He stated that moving around internal funds has made the overall increase only 6.5%; however, there are more cuts that they could have made to decrease this even more. He said he believes they are spending too much. He noted that without the transfers from internal funds, they are actually looking at an over 11 % increase. Mayor Heineman shared that during Work Session meetings, the Council reached consensus that they were comfortable with moving forward with the budget if Staff could get it below a 7.5% increase. He noted that they were able to use funds that are newly afforded to them to bring this down to 6.5%. He said the new funding source was revealed to the Council later due to the Legislative Session running late. He shared that since Staff was able to meet the request of Council to be under 7.5%, he is supportive. Councilmember Buscher stated Staff put a lot of time into preparing this budget. She noted that they need to get ahead of the growth in the City to continue to take care of residents. She said she will be supporting this. Motion carried. Voting Yes: Mayor Heineman, Councilmembers Peters, Olson, and Buscher. Voting No: Councilmembers Riley, Specht, and Stewart. Motion by Councilmember Peters, seconded by Councilmember Olson, to adopt Resolution #25- 222 Adopting Proposed 2026 General Fund Budget. Motion carried. Voting Yes: Mayor Heineman, Councilmembers Peters, Olson, and Buscher. Voting No: Councilmembers Riley, Specht, and Stewart. Motion by Councilmember Specht, seconded by Councilmember Peters, to adopt Resolution #25- 223 Adopting Proposed 2026 EDA Budget. Further discussion: City Council / September 23, 2025 Page 7of11