The Duluth City Council met on Monday, April 27, 2026, in Council Chambers. Before the regular meeting, the Finance Committee held a 2027 budget working session. The Council approved a consent calendar with one item pulled for separate vote, established Tax Increment Financing (TIF) District No. 39 for the Duluth Armory, approved a Morgan Park housing TIF plan, approved a demolition change order for the Shoppers' Ramp, and acted on street preservation engineering contracts, a Oneota property purchase, and the Hillside Sport Court contract.
There were so many of them. That will always be my favorite. We'll begin in one minute. I don't know. Is this recorder? All right, good evening, everyone. We'll begin the finance committee meeting. Welcome. I want to welcome uh Director Salinas and Manager Harrell here tonight. And uh I want to take a moment just to frame the work ahead of us because I know this series of finance committee meetings is different than what we've done in past years. But as we look ahead to 2027, we're facing that five million dollar funding gap. It's not a small adjustment, it's a structural challenge that's going to require us to really do a lot of evaluating on our priorities, understanding our trade-offs, making you know, at times difficult choices and decisions. So we want to make a shift. So you'll see two documents in front of you, counselors. One is the dates of all of the committee meetings and the topics the finance department will be providing for us. We'll have a chance for a presentation and then always a QA at the end. And then you'll also see just meeting at a glance, the calendar, so you can make sure to mark those down. Hopefully, these are going to be working sessions. Again, we'll meet one time a month. They're designed to give us a longer runway as we prepare for the 2027 budget presentation. These sessions are not about making final decisions, they're about building a shared understanding. Um hopefully we'll be able to, you know, dive deeper into some uh yep, those are the two. Um dates are wrong. Which date is wrong? June. June 22nd to 29. We'll check on it. It's Monday, the 29th. I think that's the council date, isn't it? Okay, we'll check on this one. I think this sheet's wrong. We'll check on that. Um, these are all council Mondays, and they are correct on your counselor calendar, so sorry for the confusion on that one. Okay, um, and again, our budget presentation is uh September 11th from 9 uh to hopefully we'll get out of three. It says to four, but we're gonna try to get out of it as soon as we can. So mark your calendars. That was the date that worked best for both for most counselors. So sorry if it doesn't work for you. I'll turn it over now to Director Salinas. Thank you, Finance Committee Chair Randor, committee members Decatel Enforcement, President Nephew, Vice President Kennedy, and Councillors. I am Nina Salinas, I'm the finance director, and today with me is our city budget manager, Missy Harold. And we welcome the opportunity to present at these monthly meetings, our process and information related to the city budget and to collaborate with this committee as well as with the councilors. The City of Duluth identified five strategic priorities housing at all income levels, growing our commercial tax base, the core services of streets and utilities, downtown Duluth, and affordable property taxes. And we'll have to tackle this in the short term, and we will also be needing to consider any current maintenance, deferred maintenance, as well as any future maintenance for items that get placed in service. Our focus today is around the introductory budget 101, is what we're calling our presentation today. And it's going to be mostly focused around item five, the property tax, and we'll touch a little bit on how growing the commercial tax base affects the our different taxpayers. The finance department plays a critical role in leading or supporting these strategic priorities, and we closely collaborate and support administration and all the other city departments. Throughout these monthly committee meetings, we'll cover the stress points in our budget. We'll look at options and scenarios, and as mentioned, the trade-offs of these different options and scenarios. Our goal will be to provide as much information as possible so that we can make well-informed decisions, not only for this 2027 budget cycle, but for the coming years as well.