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portion of the lower level of City Hall that was outdated and underutilized. These leases allowed much <br />needed updates to City Hall’s bathrooms and storage spaces. An internal loan was created to pay for the <br />improvements to the building and the loan will be paid back with the lease payments for the next 10 <br />years. <br /> <br /> May 1, 2015 – The Cities of New Brighton and Saint Anthony Village, under the leadership of the <br />Department of Community Assets & Development, now have shared building inspection services. Saint <br />Anthony Village terminated their private contract and entered into an agreement with New Brighton. <br />This arrangement maximizes New Brighton’s staff time, Saint Anthony Village gets better service, and <br />costs are kept the same. New Brighton realized a gain of $81,000 in revenue in 2015, $89,000 in 2016, <br />with expected revenues in 2017 of $84,000 and $70,000 in 2018. <br /> <br /> For several years, New Brighton has been a member of NJPA. NJPA is a cooperative that uses the <br />buying power of several cities and school districts to kept health insurance costs in check. <br /> <br /> Public Safety has many agreements in place that assist in providing service when needed, while <br />containing costs or creating additional revenues. <br /> <br />o Public Safety has three contracts with ISD 621 to provide school resource officers in the various <br />schools throughout New Brighton. These contracts provide two-thirds of the annual costs for <br />three officers; a revenue stream of $275,000 for the City. <br /> <br />o Public Safety has joint power arrangements or contracts for Hazmat and SWAT/VCET services. <br />These arrangements spread costs for training, personal and equipment over the sharing agencies. <br /> <br /> Finance Director Davitt requested that she be allowed to manage more of the Finance Software <br />Conversion project. This project will take several years to complete and will no doubt result in greater <br />economies and efficiencies regarding how staff is used. Her immediate and direct involvement reduced <br />consulting costs by over $70,000. Implementation of this new system continues and will create <br />efficiencies throughout the City. HR functions will become paperless, building inspections will be done <br />with iPADs reducing the time to enter in hand written inspection forms and automatically archiving <br />records in a manner compliant with data practices. <br /> <br /> Parks and Recreation leases Community Center space that was once underutilized to the Ramsey County <br />Library. While this arrangement provides little to no revenue, the County paid for all of the <br />improvements, staff, maintenance, and utilities associated with this service so that residents get the <br />benefit of having a library in town. This relationship also fosters great sense of place principles, <br />ensuring steady community traffic thru the NBCC. <br /> <br />OVERVIEW <br /> <br />The City Manager’s recommended General Fund Budget for 2018 is $15,859,270. As a balanced budget, this <br />represents a 4.98% increase, over 2017. Additional details on the budget drivers (both revenues and expenses) <br />are described in the following paragraphs. The City Manager’s budget does ask for increased spending in a few <br />areas of City operations. Staff has worked very hard to mitigate potential tax impacts. When comparing even <br />the 2018 proposed tax levy for New Brighton to our comparable cities, it is easy to see that New Brighton is still <br />operating efficiently. The recommended 2018 tax levy is $8,661,170 as opposed to the 2017 tax levy of <br />$7,900,100. Should this budget and tax levy be adopted by the Council, the median valued home in New <br />Brighton would pay $70 a month in property taxes. By comparison, in 2017 the median valued home owner <br />paid $64 a month in property taxes. <br /> <br />3