The Emporia Gazette

February 12, 2012

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City commissioners and City Manager Matt Zimmerman took pointed questions from the left and right at Wednesday night’s first public hearing to discuss the first draft of the 2009 budget. They didn’t take any from the center, because there was no one there.

Excluding city officials and media, a literal handful of people — five — appeared at the hearing at the Emporia Public Library to discuss the city’s plans for taxpayer money. The quality of the discussion pleased commissioners even as quantity was lacking, and they left the meeting hoping a bigger crowd would appear at the next scheduled budget hearing Monday at Faith Lutheran Church.

Zimmerman gave a quick overview of the city’s general fund, as well as the water, sewer and solid waste funds. Most of the discussion came after the general fund summary, in which the city is anticipating a loss of about $305,000 from 2007. But, Zimmerman said, that figure factors in a 10 percent economic decrease that was expected to result from the Tyson Fresh Meats plant restructuring earlier this year.

“What we’re finding so far is that the (economic impact) number is less than that,” he said. “So we will be updating those numbers as we continue to go through the budgeting process.”

In the proposed budget, the general fund would be in the red by $2,428,386 in 2009. Tom Cotte was one attendee to press the city on several questions, including inquiring whether a small community like Emporia needs a city planner. The current year’s budget includes money set aside to hire a city planner for a salary of about $60,000.

“Let me ask this: Why in a town of 25,000 do we need a city planner, sir?” Cotte asked Zimmerman.

Zimmerman answered that a city planner would help not only with economic development efforts, but with downtown planning, long-term planning for city growth to the west and maintenance efforts.

“I think that that takes someone with not only some experience and knowledge in that, but someone (who will have a primary duty) to coordinate that,” he said. “Right now, we split all our property maintenance between three different departments, and we try and coordinate that, but I believe we can get a much better effort with one person.”

Another attendee asked the commission why $100,000 was being budgeted in 2009 for sidewalk repair, referring to the city’s hazardous sidewalk program, and also asked about tax abatements, inquiring whether they have to be offered all the time in order to keep new businesses in Emporia.

Zimmerman said property taxes the city collects are put into the fund that goes toward street improvements, hence the budgeted amount for ’09. On the subject of tax abatements, Commissioner Jeff Longbine said the city had offered them to new industries that were coming to the area to build “substantial plants.”

“Most of those abatements, by law, they cannot run any more than 10 years,” Longbine said. “Most of ’em, we have maxed out after 10 years. We’ve got a policy that ... once it’s on the tax rolls, it’s not eligible for abatement again.”

He added that some businesses, such as Menu Foods and Tyson, had performed expansions that resulted in additional abatement.

Tyson came up again in the discussion of the city’s water fund, in which water sales are down a projected $300,000 from 2007. That’s due almost entirely to Tyson, Zimmerman said; the beef plant represented about one-fifth of the city’s water collection before the mass layoffs. The first draft 2009 budget projects a loss of about $524,000 from that fund.

The sewer fund was the only fund discussed that projects to be in strong shape, with a projected surplus of about $1.6 million in ’09. The solid waste fund projects to be $579,000 in the red.

As the hearing wound down, Commissioner Jim Kessler told attendees that their comments were “very, very legitimate” and were being taken seriously.