ST PAUL, Minn. — Budgets may seem tedious, but cities can’t function without one.
The St. Paul City Council voted 5-1 to approve the 2025 budget Wednesday evening. The version they approved included a 5.9% property tax increase. The increase is down from Mayor Melvin Carter’s original proposal at nearly 8%, but the council wanted it closer to 5%. Within the last few days, the mayor and City Council President Mitra Jalali worked on a compromise of 6.9% but the council voted against it.
Jalali was the sole council member to vote against the budget.
“We are poised to pass a version of a budget I have concerns goes too far,” Jalali said.
There’s roughly a $2 million difference between the budget that was approved versus the one that called for a 6.9% increase.
“There has to be a balance for me between funding important services and having the capacity to respond to unknowns and bring the property tax and there are decisions in this proposal that I have concerns about in the name of bringing the levy down and I worry the tradeoffs aren’t worth it,” she said.
Carter said the budget that passed police, fire, and other city services will see cuts.
“It’s a poor value proposition to say we’re going to cut police services,” he said. “It’s not worth it to say we’re going to scale back on rec centers and library hours and all the types of things we would have to do to meet the demands of 5.9%. We have to go move our city forward.”
His proposal would have added seven new firefighter positions, but instead there will only be three.
He said there isn’t a big financial difference between the two proposed property tax levies.
After the council voted, Carter sent out a statement saying in part that tonight’s “council action saves median homeowners $19 per year by cutting millions in police staffing and other city services… while adding two new titles to the City Council’s staff.”
He said his office is reviewing the document and will determine next steps.
Councilmembers said the police department has overspent when it comes to overtime and would like to see the department hire more officers to help limit overtime.
Councilmember Rebecca Noecker thought they could have passed a lower levy. She said her constituents are telling her increases in property taxes are too high
“This is something we’re hearing increasingly that the increases are becoming too much. They have increased more than 50% since 2019, and we’re living in a time where every dollar matters,” she said.
Noecker also said property tax increases also disproportionately impact residents of lower-income neighborhoods.
In the lower levy budget, Noecker said some of the positions they are getting rid of haven’t been filled in a long time.
"We are talking about eliminating positions that have gone unfilled, unfilled for at least 12 months, we’re talking about reducing funding for departments that hasn’t been spent in previous years that we’ve been over levying for, overtaxing for,” Noecker said.
The budget also included $250,000 each for the city’s free swim program and the reparations commission.
Aaron Kerr and Amy Gilbert were hoping to see the council approve climate investments, but the council voted to pass the budget with a lower tax levy.
“I’m disappointed to not have some of the funding that we needed,” said Amy Gilbert. “The difference that they’ve made is going to be really small for individual households but to be losing funds that we can have from shared money from police, fire, community safety, for some of the climate action that the city council has really been working on that’s really, it’s a loss if we lose that.”
Aaron Kerr is also worried about climate change. He said he wants people to afford where they live, and he feels like if the city needs to invest in climate initiatives that will help lower people’s bills.
“If they were paying less for their energy bills that is something that’s going to make things easier for people to live and it’s going to make things more affordable for them,” Kerr said.