Mayor Proposes budget cut to District Councils

Mayor Coleman has proposed a 14% cut to the citizen participation contracts the City has with district councils. He is proposing to keep the crime prevention budgets the same. For District 1, the citizen participation budget represents about 62% of our total budget, and the city contracts are the greatest source of income we have (about 85-90% of our budget is our city contracts).

So this proposal is a significant blow to our organization - especially since the City has not increased its allocations to the district councils in at least 5 years... so we have been operating with decreasing income over that period already.

We are looking for ways to save money, but each option has a significant impact on what we will be able to do. Already this year we have had to cut staff hours. At this point our greatest savings would come from eliminating publication of the District 1 News - short of eliminating staff, which we will not do except as a very last resort.

Because of our location and because of the relatively high income levels of some of our residents, we are not eligible for the kinds of outside funding that district councils in the Central Corridor, or in the Invest St. Paul areas have access to.

The Mayor also does not seem to realize that district councils' citizen participation work is ALSO crime prevention work -- building community is the basis for safe neighborhoods, having residents feel as if they have some vested in their communities are both essential to crime prevention. In our case, our crime prevention dollars cannot cover all the work needed to do the crime prevention work we have.

These are tough economic times for everyone. We recognize that fact. But as cost effective as district councils are, this hardly seems the time to be shutting down a major means of communication between residents, our government, and the organizations that act as a safety net for us all.

More later on the actual proposal we will have to meet these challenges. In the meantime, make your priorities known to the Mayor and to the City Council.