1998 CAFR - Laserfiche WebLink

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THE CITY AND ITS SERVICES Ramsey is located in the southwestern part of Anoka County and is situated approximately 25 miles from Minneapolis. The City has 28.8 square miles within its corporate boundaries and is bordered by two major rivers, the Mississippi River along the southern border and the Rum River along the east. Ramsey incorporated as a City in 1974, and is organized as a Home Rule City under a City Charter originally adopted in 1984. The City Council consists of a Mayor and four Councilmembers, and is elected at large on a nonpartisan basis. Elections are held in November of each even numbered year. The terms of office are two years for the Mayor and four years for Councilmembers, but not more than two Councilmembers' terms expire in any one year. The Council is responsible for enacting ordinances, resolutions, and regulations governing the City, and appointing the City Administrator, City Attorney, and members of the various advisory boards and commissions. The City provides a variety of municipal services. These include afull-time police department, a volunteer fire department, engineering services, street and park maintenance, building inspections, planning and zoning, public improvements, general administrative services, and public water and sewer utilities in the urban service areas. MAJOR INITIATIVES Since 1990, the City of Ramsey has been attempting to provide improved services to a dramatically increasing number of households in a time of fiscal constraints at the State level. It is estimated that Ramsey's population will have increased 46% between the 1990 census and January 1999. At the same time, aid from the State of Minnesota have increased at the lesser rate of 19%. The consumer price index, as one measure of the normal cost of doing business without any population growth, has increased in excess of 20% over the same period. As a result, the City has struggled to maintain and improve services while keeping property taxes at reasonable levels. The property tax rate (expressed as a percentage of tax capacity) between 1990 and 1998 has increased. In 1990, the local tax rate (City only) was 15.193%. In 1998, it was 21.53% and 1999 is projected to increase to a tax rate of 22.893%. While the tax rate is in fact higher than five years ago, the portion of the tax dollar paid to the City is still about 20¢ for every dollar collected. The other 80¢ is paid to Anoka County, the School District (either Anoka-Hennepin District # 11 or Elk River District #728), and special taxing districts such as the Metropolitan Council. The year 1998 was characterized by continued construction activity with a major emphasis on commer- cial/industrial development. Residential construction has continued but at a somewhat reduced pace from the last few years. The City Council, volunteer Commissions, and Municipal employees strive to provide services, at the levels desired by the public, at reasonable costs. The City is currently addressing year 2000 issues. The City had a "computer audit" performed on all of its computer hardware and software to distinguish those that were or were not year 2000 compliant. Based on these findings, the City has been working in conjunction with a group known as the Local Government Information Systems Association (LOGIS) to implement needed hardware and software upgrades to become year 2000 compliant. The City has created a Y2K team that consists of employees from each department, whose responsibility is to identify the computer systems and pieces of electronic equipment that are critical to conducting the City's operations that need to be year 2000 compliant. The City intends to have all inventory tested for year 2000 compliancy before the deadline of December 31, 1999. -iv-