Prior Lake City Council works to save trail funding ahead of upcoming budget

Prior Lake American

Every year, the city of Prior Lake staff tucks away $100,000 in the annual budget for trail rebuilding.

For the past couple years, that funding has been cut from the budget in an attempt to keep property taxes level for city residents.

"What tends to happen is it's an easy thing to cut as you're trying to get down to your minimum number of property tax dollars," City Manager Frank Boyles said. "The trouble is, it does tend to be the area that gets cut."

The funding covers redoing about a mile of trail each year, where workers would grind the old trail down and put new bituminous material down, as well as some sub-surface correction if needed.

"It's not like a street where we'll go in there and go down about four feet," Boyles said. "Of course, trails don't take the kind of weight nor the frequency of that weight as a street might."

City staff has already been doing some preliminary work on a budget for 2019, though there's no draft whatsoever yet. But each year, staff looks to the future by taking last year's budget and adding expected numbers — things like personnel, supplies, growth and inflation.

Once that is accounted for, city staff can come up with an early estimate of a property tax levy. For 2019, that estimate is an increase of 6.6 percent.

"It's not just the budget as is, it's just looking at what assumptions do we want to include and what do we want to exclude based on council direction," Finance Director Cathy Erickson said. "We go to the council and we ask, 'Do you want to fund the trails as part of our Capital Improvement Plan?' We look to the council for direction."

During a work session on April 2, the council looked at several options to offset the levy increase and keep property taxes more level. Those options included:

• Delaying replacing the city's phone system

• Shifting a 2018 street project to the future

• Reducing or eliminating trail funding

• Reducing equipment funding

• Delaying 2019 full-time employees or staffing additions

• Adjusting annual plan of replacing two miles of street annually

The shape of the trails without funding for the last few years depends on the trail itself and the location, Boyles said. For instance, a trail that runs by some trees would have to deal with deterioration due to the roots whereas a tree in a field would escape that problem.

"Some of the trails are brand new, so they're in great shape," Boyles said. "Some are older. Some are in wide, open fields and some are in forests. We've got some of each when it comes right down to it."

At the work session, the council members were generally not in favor of cutting the funding for trails since it has been the first on the chopping block the last few years.

However, if the preliminary numbers prove true, the council would likely cut something in order to lower the property tax levy which means city staff is already looking at what would be the best options to cut.

"We're simply trying to set aside funds for that contingency," Boyles said.