MINNEAPOLIS -- The quest to keep NFL football in Minneapolis hinges on -- among many other things -- the city delivering a $300 million share of the project cost. But in some corners of City Hall, the financing mathematics aren't quite adding up yet.
The city's own analysis of Mayor Rybak's funding plan found the city taxes and fees fall $55 million short of the mark, or $107 million short counting interest on the 30-year life of the payment plan.
"We have to rely on a bond being issued over 30 years, capturing all the sales taxes in Minneapolis," Council Member Gary Schiff told KARE. "And then we have to pay interest on the bonds, so the actual cost to the city is much higher."
Schiff is one of those who oppose a city subsidy for the stadium, and authored the resolution in 1997 that led to city charter amendment capping the city's contribution to any stadium to $10 million total.
"I did that because too many politicians had become enamored with these huge projects that had no direct benefit to the people paying the bill," Schiff remarked.
Many of those special local taxes and fees support the Minneapolis Convention Center and the Target Center, home to the NBA's Timberwolves and a concert venue. The Rybak stadium pitch, developed with City Council President Barb Johnson, includes funds to renovate the Target Center and maintain the convention hall.
Schiff said the financial analysis, done by the city's stadium finance consultant Mark Kaplan, assumes an annual growth of two percent in local tax receipts.
"Are we on the hook for these projections in sales tax?" Schiff asked. "Because projecting sales tax for 30 years is highly speculative."
The mayor's office didn't dispute the $55 million gap, but said it's not beyond the scope of what can be filled as stadium financing negotiations continue at both the Capitol and City Hall.
Rybak and Council president Johnson continue to seek support from council members, because the legislature is not likely to move forward on a Minneapolis stadium bill unless the majority of the council formally endorse it.
Schiff said he believes, even if state lawmakers approved all of the local fees and special taxes, a statewide asset such as the Vikings should be funded on a statewide basis.
"Why are we forcing local communities to pay for this when there's so much low-hanging fruit sitting there untouched at the Capitol, like a Vikings license plate?"
The Capitol did generate another statewide funding idea Thursday. State Senator Roger Reinert, a Duluth Democrat, proposed allowing Sunday liquor sales in Minnesota, and dedicating the added alcohol tax revenue to the stadium.
"We estimated that's roughly $10.5 million dollars annually, and the state needs about $30 million to do it's portion," Sen. Reinert, the sponsor of the Sunday liquor sales bill in the Senate, told KARE.
"It's not a new tax. It's not raising a tax. It's simply capturing Minnesota money that's now spent in other states, on Sundays."
To add some extra buzz to his proposal, the proposal Reinert delivered to Gov. Dayton would place the new stadium in Duluth on a 500-acre plot of land that was the former site of US Steel's Atlas Cement Works.
That land, which fronts on the harbor formed by the mouth of the St. Louis River, is a former EPA Superfund clean-up site. The Vikings' first choice, the site of the former Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant, is also a Superfund site subject to cleanup.
If Packers fans will travel to Green Bay from as far away a Madison and Milwaukee, Reinert reasoned Vikings fans would be willing to drive from the Twin Cities to Duluth for eight games a season.
But Reinert, a political science professor at Lake Superior College who also lectures at UMD, is realistic about the odds of the team moving to Duluth.
"What I really hope to take away from this is more light on the Sunday Liquor sales bill, and to showcase my community of Duluth," he said.
"It's not a very long line between two things that happen on Sundays; the Vikings play and somebody makes a border run to buy liquor in another state!"