UPDATE: Gov. Mark Dayton has asked Minneapolis and Ramsey County to finalize their stadium plans by next Thursday. Rybak and Council President Barb Johnson responded in a statement that they will meet the deadline.

Nearly a month after Mayor R.T. Rybak appealed to the Council to support his plan to help pay for a Vikings stadium, city officials still haven't released the details of their funding model.

That model would provide specifics about how the city plans to use sales tax revenues to subsidize stadium operations, while simultaneously keeping the convention center afloat and paying down Target Center debt. It would also reveal exactly how much the city could contribute to the stadium each year over time – a figure that is expected to fluctuate.

Rybak told council member Lisa Goodman at a committee meeting in early December that the model would be made public. But Community Planning and Economic Development deputy director Chuck Lutz, one of the city's point-men on stadium negotiations, said Wednesday that it is not ready.

"We're still working on it, believe me we're still working on it," Lutz said. "The thing is we're still verifying assumptions and things of that nature that are there. And so it continues to evolve and be modified. So when we have it done, believe me we'll share it with you."

Goodman said Thursday morning that she has heard nothing more since she pressed Rybak in December to release the model. In December, city officials would only send her a breakdown of potential property tax savings.

"Someone here is meeting on these issues. I chair the city's community development committee, and I haven't been in any meetings on these issues," Goodman said. "I would guess it's because I oppose the idea of using public money to finance the Vikings."

The model is important partly because the city's funding plan has changed dramatically since Rybak first proposed increasing the city's sales and hotel taxes to pay for $300 million in stadium capital costs. Alternatively, the city had hoped to fund a stadium using gambling revenue.

When both of those options lost viability, Rybak proposed redirecting existing convention center taxes to subsidize about $8 million annually for stadium operations – rather than paying capital costs. That plan would leave the state with a larger portion of the bill for a stadium than Rybak's original plan, perhaps about $600 million.

Lutz said the operating subsidy is not typically factored in when people calculate the cost of the stadium.

Further complicating the model is Rybak's insistence that the convention center taxes also be redirected to help pay off Target Center debt, therefore providing property tax relief. Goodman said there are two potential methods to do that, each with very different impacts on the city's general fund.

How all of these factors interface has not been spelled out on paper by the mayor's office, apart from a 100-word sketch provided by spokesman John Stiles (see below).

"My understanding is they're still looking at a whole lot of different possible models to get it done," Stiles said Wednesday.

Convention Center Taxes and Financing Plan