FINANCIAL STABILITY AND LONG-TERM PLANNING To mitigate the economic impact of losing Sherco, Becker has implemented a long-term financial strategy. “With the decommissioning of unit two, kind of the first domino to fall, there were a lot of unknowns of how that would affect our tax capacity and our tax rate,” admits Finance Director Mark Ebensteiner. “We put together a very comprehensive long-term plan, built on a lot of assumptions of what we see happening as the units decommission, and a lot of planning on the capital side. We fully understand what that investment looks like, from our streets to our parks, to our community center and golf course. So, we did a lot of planning of where that capital piece would flow in.” The city has successfully secured electric generation transition aid from the state and recently saw an upgrade in its bond rating to Aa3, reflecting its strong financial planning.“Our strategic goal moving forward is to become less reliant on that large taxpayer, and transition that into other taxpayers, be it the data center side and all of those pieces,” 9 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 06, ISSUE 04 BECKER, MN
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