More than 100 city employees could be laid off in Minneapolis in the first major layoffs in 16 years as the city faces a $33 million budget gap. The city property tax levy has gone up an average of 7.7% annually since 2018. Harris Bernstein pointed to a recent audit that noted some city departments are duplicative. "If we had the property tax base that we used to have downtown, we would be in much better shape," Brandt said. Last year was the seventh straight year of record overtime costs; the last time the city stayed within its overtime budget was 2018.