True North

At about 2:30 this morning, I stopped in at St. Cloud City Hall to talk with Mayor Dave Kleis. The bonus was meeting with City Administrator Mike Williams, too. It's understatement to say that I learned alot of Mayor Kleis' governing philosophy.

For instance, Mayor Kleis has what I'd call a welcome libertarian streak in him. It's obvious that he's also a pragmatist who strives to be accountable to the citizens of St. Cloud. Budget hawk is another term that applies to Mayor Kleis.

One of the primary ways that Mayor Kleis stays accountable is through fiscal restraint, aka overspending. According to City Administrator Mike Williams' official statement, here's the situation that St. Cloud faced in early 2008:

The City's General Fund is faced with flat property tax revenues, flat aide from the State and declining permit and fee revenues. This information was the impetus to look more closely at the 2009 Budget in early 2008. In that early projection, we assumed no increase in LGA, a 2.5% growth in the property tax base and declining permit fee revenue. We also assumed a reasonable (but unrealistic, we are told) increase in our health insurance costs (12%), a practical increase in employee wages, a moderate increase in supplies and services (2%)...

This is just a portion of the budget items that needed addressing. The bottom line is that Mayor Kleis is working diligently with the City Council to keep spending under control. This sets St. Cloud apart from other cities that whine about adjusting to LGA cuts.

Here's another portion of Williams' statement:

The targeted savings in the changes was $150,000. We looked carefully at the programming offered by the Recreation Department. The Heritage Nature Center was clearly one of the least used facilities and the programs associated with it the least attended. The actual hours of operation for the Nature Center in the summer were limited to six hours on Staurdays because the staff associated with the building was providing programming during the weedays. It made sense to not only discontinue the programming but to close the facility.

The savings amount to over $180,000 annually. These savings will allow us to continue to provide the many other quality programs and opportunities for the youth that our Recreation Department has typically offered within the tax dollars allocated. We know that there are many other oppportunities for St. Cloud families within the myriad of programming offered by our Recreation Department and other entities.

In other words, St. Cloud decided to discontinue a few sparsely attended programs so that they could continue to provide a wide range of popular, highly attended programs without raising taxes.

That's a pretty straightforward approach to budgeting, one which needs to be told to the citizens of St. Cloud. I'm betting that people whose wallets are stretched thin with unnecessarily high gas prices and rising health care costs will appreciate that St. Cloud government chose to go on a diet instead of raising taxes.

Needless to say, that decision set off a flurry of negative editorials to the St. Cloud Times. If you just listened to the tone of those editorials, you would've thought that Mayor Kleis and the City Council had made draconian cuts to vital programs, which wasn't the case at all.

I wish more city governments took this approach. For that matter, I wish all units of government employed this approach. It would save taxpayers alot of money each day.

Finally, this proves that it's possible to eliminate government programs once they've been appropriated. That isn't thought possible in the federal budget, which isn't that much different than the mindset in St. Paul either.

St. Cloud should thank Mayor Kleis and the City Council for Listening Week events. Listening Week wraps up this Saturday with Listening Day, which will be held at Whitney Senior Center from 10:00 a.m. until noon. I wish more politicians took the opportunity to listen more often.

Comments welcome at LFR.