With ever-increasing demands for services and a limited appetite for higher property taxes, Hennepin County should scale back or delay construction projects scheduled between now and 2013 by $200 million, the county administrator recommended Thursday.
Richard Johnson told the County Board that Hennepin's aggressive capital program and obligations linked to the city-county library merger and Hennepin County Medical Center could push total outstanding capital debt to $1.1 billion by 2013, roughly double what it is now. That would represent $956 of debt for each county resident.
By 2013, the debt service levy would make up 16 percent of the overall property tax. If that happened, Johnson said, the requirement to pay off capital debt could cut into what's available for other needs such as human services and public safety.
"The [building] needs don't go away and must be met, but those needs could be stretched out over time," Johnson told the board.
He suggested capping the debt service levy at 15 percent of the county's total annual property tax levy so that outstanding debt would not exceed $800 per capita.
To reach that goal, he gave the board a list of projects that could be cut or delayed.
On roads, priority should be given to projects that maximize the use of state, federal and other non-county funding, he said.
Construction of a $50 million family and service center in north Minneapolis could be pushed back past 2013, and new library projects in Brooklyn Park and Excelsior and to replace the Walker library could also be delayed. But Commissioner Jan Callison noted the $3.1 million for a new Excelsior library would "replace a seriously substandard building. I hope we rethink that."
