Mayor Melvin Carter is proposing an $854.9 million budget for St. Paul next year, which includes a 7.9 percent property tax increase.

Carter will present his proposal Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts. The speech can be viewed on the city’s YouTube page.

In his annual address, the mayor will outline a vision for 2025, which focuses on four core themes: public safety, housing, the city centre and climate change.

The levy is the amount the city collects in property taxes. Increases in individual property tax bills vary.

Under Carter’s proposal, the property taxes of the owner of a St. Paul home with an average value of $275,300 would increase by $132 next year.

The city’s general fund would increase by $25 million from this year, largely to account for more than $19 million in inflation, Carter said in an interview.

“If we increase city spending and property taxes too much, that will obviously hit our lowest-income residents and our smallest, most vulnerable businesses first,” he said. “But what we also saw firsthand this past spring — when our public infrastructure on our streets rose up against us after a record-breaking winter — is that if we don’t invest in our communities, that will also hit our lowest-income residents and our smallest, most vulnerable businesses.”

The speech lays out a sweeping package of spending proposals, ranging from $410,000 to hire additional firefighters to $2 million in expanded down payment assistance.