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100 July 31, 2000 Honorable Mayor and City Council City of St. Anthony, Minnesota Dear Mayor and Councilmembers: . Throughout this document, bold face typing represents goals that were established at the March 2000 goal setting retreat. Management Letter To better provide the City Council with information in its role as policy makers', the budget process was enhanced in 2001 to include additional narrative information, a restructuring of the budget calendar, as well as utilizing line item budgeting techniques. This is the second year of restructuring the format, which primarily has moved the budget process up six months to start in April instead of October. Our hope is that this new format will continue to improve the quality of the information and provide to the City Council and St. Anthony residents a better understanding of City operations. • This document includes the year 2001 proposed_budgets for the General Fund, the 5- Year Capital Equipment Plan, the Recycling Fund, the Dare Fund, the H.R.A. Fund, the Park Improvement Fund, the Road Improvement Fund, the Community Service Fund, the Utility Fund and Liquor Operations. Also, included are the goals that were set by the City Staff and Council in March of 2000. In addition, a proposed policy document (Financial Management Plan) has been developed and distributed to Council for their review, comments and adoption. In preparing the 2001 Budget, the objective was to maintain or improve the existing level of City services and programs with the use of financially conservative budgeting. Most budgets reflect a decrease from last years budgeted amount to reflect a budget, which is based on actual expenditures versus the previous year's budget. The entire City staff has worked diligently in putting together this budget to ensure that the services desired by the community are provided at an affordable cost. General Operating Fund For year 2001, staff is proposing a General Operating Budget in the amount of $3,519,875, which represents a 0.21% decrease in last year's budget of$3,527,875. On the average, most budgets were downsized to remove the $250,000 contingency • transfers as a revenue line item. If these transfers were included in the 2001 Budget, expenditures would have increased 6.9%.