The Emporia Gazette

February 12, 2012

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The Emporia City Commission approved its 2008 budget Wednesday, raising property taxes by 1.524 mills. On a $100,000 home, that would be an increase of about $17.52, leaving out any valuation changes.

The final budget does not include a proposed fee for fire service, but does have increased rates at the golf course and a park rental fee among other revenue-generators. The street and sidewalk programs will be funded, but the 4th of July fireworks show will not.

Overall, about $2.3 million was cut from the original draft of the 2008 general fund and more than half a million dollars in revenue was added. Some of the less expensive, but higher-profile cuts, saw both the Emporia Municipal Band and the taxi coupon program go down to half funding.

The city’s total 2008 general fund comes to a little more than $15.9 million. The whole budget, which includes bonds and utilities among other things, comes to nearly $35.7 million.

This year saw heavy citizen participation in the budget process, including four well-attended public forums.

“I’ve been through a lot of budget processes in my career and this has been ... well, I started to say a great experience,” Commissioner Bobbie Agler said, smiling. “But I guess it was.”

“I don’t think there’s a perfect budget,” he added. “But I think it’s as close as we could come under the circumstances.”

One helpful factor was the county’s decision to pay $155,000 for ambulance service, an agreement the city had unsuccessfully tried to nail down last year. The agreement is good for one year.

Commissioner Jim Kessler called the budget “responsible,” a characterization Mayor Julie Johnson agreed with.

“We tried to be mindful of the burden taxes create on a community, and the burden of maintaining infrastructure and keeping this a place people want to be,” she said.

The budget also includes about a $600,000 “wage pool” that is being saved against a salary study the city hopes to commission later this year. The money is a reserve in case the study says that Emporia needs to raise its wages or benefits.

‘We’ve got money set aside for our employees and I think that’s a critical component of the budget,” Commissioner Jeff Longbine said.

Quiet zone

Emporia can have a “quiet zone” where train horns are forbidden to blow — if it’s willing to pay nearly $1.5 million for the privilege and close four intersections.

Since the mid 1990s, trains have been required to blow their horns at every intersection for safety unless alternate measures are in place. In Emporia, that means no fewer than 12 noisy crossings, including nine that are closely packed together between East Street and Constitution Street.

A study by Railroad Controls Limited said that could be eliminated for about $1,470,000. That includes closing the crossings at Sylvan Street, Cottonwood Street, Market Street and Constitution Street. Without those closings, the cost rises to nearly $2.3 million.

The study recommends wayside horns at Commercial, Merchant and Union streets, which blow a more focused sound at a lower volume as a train approaches. Drivers can hear the warning clearly, but there’s very little sound leakage to the surrounding neighborhood.

At Weaver, Carter, Peyton, East and Exchange streets, the study recommends “channelization devices”: a raised center stripe on the street leading up to the tracks with small posts to keep the lanes separated.

City commissioners weren’t thrilled with the cost and said it needed to be looked at a little more to see where it belonged on the capital improvement plan. City staff will present some options later this year and a public forum may be held at some point to see what the best trade-off between noise, cost and driving convenience is.

City Engineer Keith Beatty said it was a quality of life issue rather than a safety issue.

“Can it be done? Sure,” he said. “Does it need to be done, safety-wise? We really haven’t had that many accidents. So it’s a matter of what you want to do for the community.”

One city resident, who lives between Carter and Peyton streets, said the noise situation had become intolerable, particularly when passing trains blast their horns at 4 a.m. Even closing roads would be better, he said.

“I understand it costs money,” he said. “If I had the million and a half, I’d give it to you tomorrow. A lot of people are impacted by the railroad. And if you have to drive two blocks extra to have better living conditions, it’s worth it.”

Beatty said that if the city does decide to pursue a “quiet zone,” one option could be to do it over several years, improving a crossing or two a year, in order to spread the cost out. Because of tight budgets, it would be at least 2009 before the city could consider any improvements.