ne BlaiCityConnect
W W W . C I . B L A I N E . M N . U S
January/February 2013
Shop With a Cop is a Success Again For the third year in a row, the Blaine Police Department teamed with Blaine SuperTarget to make the holiday season extra special for 30 local children.
With the help of school social workers, the Blaine Police Department identified children from six local elementary schools who needed an extra special holiday season. Target, with the help of many employees, then put together a special holiday shopping event for each these children. To make the day special, Blaine police officers, explorers, community service officers and reserves, all wearing Santa hats, picked up the children at home prior to their shopping spree. Once they arrived at SuperTarget, children received a donated $85 gift card to complete holiday shopping for their family members. Target’s donation of $2,000, along with $700 in donations from Blaine City employees, the Blaine Police Federation, and a private Blaine citizen, enabled kids to receive the $85 donation. Another $200 was set aside for non-gift necessities such as food, underwear, socks, boots, and mittens. The children, many with shopping lists in hand, were paired with police helpers to guide them throughout the store. They were also treated to a meal at Target’s Food Avenue. After loading their carts and purchasing the presents, cops and kids gathered with Target employees to wrap the gifts. At the end of the day, Blaine’s officers returned the children home with bags of presents to share with their families so they could help spread the holiday cheer at home this season.
Blaine’s 2013 Tax Levy is Six Percent Lower than its 2009 Tax Levy The Blaine City Council recently set the property tax levy for taxes payable in 2013, City Council kept the City’s property tax levy flat. Even with significant budget constraints, the City continues to provide the quality services that citizens have come to expect, and to develop initiatives to promote efficiency and productivity in order to “do more with less”. For this effort, Moody’s Investor Services rewarded the City with a high credit rating of Aa1. Blaine also received national recognition from Money magazine. At the outset of this budget cycle, the City Council’s goals were to maintain services, achieve structural balance (where revenues match expenditures over the long term), maintain a flat tax levy, and utilize a reserve draw of $500,000. The City Council achieved these goals while setting a noincrease tax levy and reducing the reserve draw to $440,000. The 2013 City Council Adopted Budget gives Blaine the lowest tax rate for any full service city in Anoka County, and makes it one of the few cities in the County not to have a levy increase in the last four years. Since 2009, the City Council has cut the levy by $1.2 million and the monthly cost of all City services for the average homeowner has continually dropped. As part of the City’s goal to achieve structural balance, the City uses a 5-year budget model as a forecasting/planning tool. In part, because of the City Council commitment to long-range budget planning, the City had its Aa1 bond rating reaffirmed by Moody’s Investor Services. This is one notch below Aaa, the highest rating a City can achieve. A high bond
rating means lower interest rates on borrowed money and reduced costs to Blaine taxpayers. While the City Council continues to hold the tax levy flat, Blaine has continued to grow despite the economic downturn. For 2012, Blaine outpaced all other cities in metro housing growth. Blaine is also a state leader in new housing growth. As the City continues to grow, the additional tax base will provide financial resources to assist with additional service levels that are required to meet the needs of new residents and businesses. The City has maintained service levels despite reduced staffing levels and without additional financial resources. Since 2008, the City has reduced staffing levels by 17 positions. With reduced financial and staffing resources, the City is investing in new technology in order to maintain existing and future service levels, and “do more with less”. Examples of new technology the City is using to increase productivity include a new financial software system that utilizes efficiencies in utility billing and human resources, updated technology on utility meters that allows for more timely and accurate readings, and insquad cameras that digitally record and download street patrol activities. As we look to the future, we expect to have more challenges ahead. However, the City Council has positioned the City well to meet the future challenges and to continue to meet its mission to provide quality services to residents and businesses.