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Background: For more than a decade the City has been unable to meet the service demands of our residents due to its charter levy provision 2% plus inflation but no more than 5%. Of the 853 cities in the State of Minnesota, just over 100 have charters and of those, only 2 have a property tax levy caps provision; Mounds View and Fridley. The Mounds View provision is so restrictive that the City is and has been unable to hire a full time employee absent a voter approved referendum, no other city in the State of Minnesota operates under this restriction. According to the Minnesota State Auditors City Comparison data, the most current information for Cities over 2,500 population Mounds View ranks 187th out of 226 cities in per capita spending and 195 out of 226 for net tax levy per capita. For the median homeowner in Mounds View, the City portion of their property tax bill (26.3%) is $980 per year or $82 per month. For that $82, the city provides police, fire, public works, parks and recreation, administration, debt service (public works building, fire station), community development, code, rental housing, building and fire inspections, the community center, and street construction. Further, increasing regulatory costs, aging infrastructure, and contractual services have increased greater than the rate of inflation. Our sanitary sewer fee to the Met Council is just over $1 million per year. The city is in the midst of a $6 million upgrade to its municipal drinking water plants, all of it related to treatment as more contaminants find their way into our groundwater supplies needing additional cleaning and treatment to ensure safe drinking water. For more than a decade the city has been challenged with using reserves to balance the budget. Absent those reserves, the Council would have no choice but to begin discussions on the elimination of programs or termination of staff. The challenges are significant as evidenced by the annual reserve contribution needed to balance the budget, that amount is equal to a 4-5% levy amount. Measured in impact, it would be a 20% reduction of Public Works staff, 10-15% reduction in Police Staff, or elimination of the Park and Recreation Programs and Community Center. Since January of 2021, the Charter Commission has been discussing options to the levy provision contained in Chapter 7, and discussed it in depth at their March 23rd meeting and again at their April 27th meeting. At the April meeting, Finance Director Mark Beer provided substantive detail on the budget, history, depletion of reserves, impact on cash flow, and the negative impact on our bond rating. June of 2021, the Commission met with the Council in a workshop setting to discuss their progress and obtain feedback from the council. Director Beer shared with the group that the City’s fund balance will fall below the threshold needed to ensure the city’s ability to pay bills as we only receive property tax revenues twice a year. After further discussion at their September and November meetings, the Commission passed a resolution on a 6-3 vote to amend the levy language and move it forward via the Ordinance process, which is one of multiple ways detailed in State Statute to amend a local charter. Once the resolution was adopted and presented to the City, a precise timeline is set forth in state statue requiring notification of a required hearing and publication of the Ordinance. The public hearing occurred on December 13, 2021 and subsequently the Council adopted the ordinance by a unanimous vote; a required component of the statute when amending the charter by ordinance. Charter