Council Update May 20th

A couple items from the past Council meeting I would like to discuss. The first item is the Water Treatment Plant. We have asked the Public Works Committee to revisit the construction engineering cost. It looks as though we will be able to have this work done for roughly $50,000 to $100,000 less than anticipated. The delay is only two weeks in the multiple year process. Seems to be a pretty good bargain. CM Johnson and Duff will be working on this and will report back to the Council at our next meeting June 3rd.

I serve on the Personnel and Finance Committee and we have been busy looking for ways to save cost and cut the budget in the face of unpaid property taxes. We have lowered our health care cost by $4,885.16 per month or $58,621 per year by changing providers. The level of service remains the same and I would like to thank both our Police and Public Works Unions for their consent.

The next item was a bit tougher. We cut a total of $291,984 from the 2008 budget in anticipation of lower property tax collection. This is a one time fix to fill a revenue hole. If our tax collection is higher than anticipated than we will back fill in some of these items. We have a very tight budget to begin with so the items cut will need to be addressed in the 2009 budget process. This means if we stay in the current economic situation then hard decisions will have to be made. There are three main areas in the budget: staffing, projects and fund reserves. all three will have to be addressed in the 2009 budget process that we are currently working on.

I will put together a budget that lives within our means without raising taxes.