Woodbury Watch - City Budget Workshop - Aug 17, 2011

This was the annual review of the entire budget and started at 4pm and ran til 9:00pm. It appeared to be attended mostly by staff (managers) of all the depts, plus media, the public and city council members. It can be pretty dry but there were some interesting discussions, mostly thanks to Paul Rebholtz, who cracked some jokes to liven things up. More details were reported elsewhere in the Woodbury Patch.

Tweets from Aug 17, 2011 Budget Workshop – City of Woodbury, MN

• #Woodbury budget workshop 4 - 9pm at public safety building-  Stop by!
• Beautiful new training room - just feels a little too big for this meeting. Lots more room - come over. #Woodbury
• Speed review of budget by Clint Gridley, City Admin. #Woodbury. No levy increase proposed!
• New”internal service fund” combines all worker comp claims to better monitor as costs are rising
• #Woodbury doesn't add franchise fees, sales tax or field use fees like other communities
• Woodbury continues to have a triple A bond rating
• Woodbury city council cost is significantly lower than comparable cities by about 30%
• Election budget reflects adding possibly 3 new precincts to #Woodbury
• IT report: upgrade to Windows 2010 this year to impact 2012 budget #Woodbury
• Police dept. is cities largest operation next to water and sewer. Fire has 73 paid on call staff in #Woodbury
• Thanks! Sitting thru a dry budget meeting so you don't have to #Woodbury
• Thanks for taking note! #Woodbury has come a long way from rural cornfields!
• EMS: 7% increase planned. Medicare reimbursement not keeping up. Sliding fee scale being used much more by patients.
• EMS needing more support staff to keep up with paperwork requests for legal purposes
• Tour of new #Woodbury public safety building. It is more functional now. Still getting settled.
• Your #Woodbury city council at work. Reviewing budget in detail.
• 3% increase in water rates from 88 to 91 cents proposed. Average usage is 23,000 gallons per household. Nixed by Council.
• I am very impressed with the detail and technical knowledge of staff and council
• Discussion of Eagle Valley golf - task force being proposed to consider its economic status and where it sits in the budget. Accepted by Council.