The Emporia City Commission and Lyon County Commission came together Wednesday night and spoke before a small — but inquisitive — audience in a public budget hearing for both entities.
About 20 people attended the meeting, which was at Riverside Elementary School, 327 S. West St. While the crowd wasn’t large, its members had plenty of questions about how money is being spent in Lyon County and Emporia and about the 1-cent sales tax question on the ballot Tuesday.
Lyon County Commission Chairman Scott Briggs took the floor first. He talked about some of the goals the county commission has in its 2009 budget.
“Our goal as a county commission is to try to keep the mill-levy increase to less than two mills,” Briggs said. “I think we’ve made some great progress.”
Briggs said the cost of many of the county’s large expenditures is soaring, including asphalt, liquid black top and food at the Lyon County Jail.
Lyon County Controller Dan Slater said the 2009 budget year is looking at a smaller than normal increase in the county’s assessed valuation, which means a tighter budget. Slater said the county is about three weeks ahead of where it usually is with the budgeting process.
So far, Slater said, the county’s budget is looking at a $385,529 budget increase over 2008. This will take about $919,970 in additional tax money to fund the budget than 2008’s budget did. Slater said the mill levy stands at a 1.351 increase over 2008. However, Lyon County isn’t done with its budgeting process. County department heads attended this morning’s commission meeting to assess individual budgets and to challenge each other to keep their budgets as tight as possible.
Emporia City Manager Matt Zimmerman took the floor for the city side of the budget discussion.
“The city is also attempting to have a minimum impact on most hated property taxes,” Zimmerman said.
Zimmerman said the city assumes a flat mill levy and then sees where the budget stands from there, what the city can afford to do and what it can’t afford to do. The city is facing a deficit of about $3,860,000 in the 2009 budget.
Zimmerman outlined some of the individual department’s budgets. According to documentation provided by the city at the meeting, the Solid Waste Disposal Fund is facing a $224,228 budget loss in 2008. That figure jumps to a projected loss of $704,521 in 2009. The city is proposing an increase in the solid waste pick-up fees of 20 percent, which would translate into about $2 per poly cart per month for single-family service.
The city’s Sewer Fund is looking at a surplus for 2008 and 2009. The surplus is projected to be $442,825 in 2008 and $333,420 in 2009. The Water Fund, however, doesn’t look so good. That fund is facing a projected loss of $16,450 in 2008 and $660,830 in 2009. The city is proposing a 13-percent water rate increase to cover this fund’s losses.
In addition, the city is working on new projections based on what commissioners were told at Wednesday’s meeting and what happens with the sales-tax question in next week’s election. Zimmerman said the city of Emporia would use sales-tax money for certain capital projects, such as infrastructure improvement and buildings.
Twenty minutes after the meeting started, Mayor Bobbi Agler opened the floor to questions.
A question was raised about the half-cent sales tax the city has to support sidewalk repair. Zimmerman said one half of that half percent is to go toward stormwater control and sidewalks and the other half goes toward property tax relief. Zimmerman said the tax does not have a sunset, unlike the tax proposed on Tuesday’s ballot, which has a five-year sunset provision. After the five years, the question could be voted on by the public again.
Later in the meeting, another resident asked about the 1-percent sales tax and how it would effect the county’s competitiveness with other counties. Longbine said that is unclear right now.
“There are a lot of sales tax questions on the ballot,” he said. “... As far as the competitive situation, I don’t know what effect it will have. I hope it is minimized.”
Briggs said Lyon County isn’t the only county with a sales-tax question on the ballot.
“There are a lot of different counties putting sales tax on the ballots,” he said. “It’s happening everywhere.”
Lyon County Commissioner Marshall Miller said the county would use the sales tax for property-tax relief. About $1.5 million, if the sales tax passes, is promised for that purpose. That equals about 6 mills. If the county’s mill levy goes up 2 mills, that would mean about a 4-mill net decrease in county property taxes.
Another resident expressed concern over the city’s proposal to increase dog and cat licenses by 100 percent — raising the price from $5 to $10.
“Animal license numbers are way too low,” Zimmerman said. “People don’t do that.”
Zimmerman said dog and cat licenses bring in about $1,700 to the city. He said he realizes if the price is raised there will be even fewer people coming in to get tags.
One proposed cut in the city budget is support for the municipal band. The city is proposing cutting that subsidy entirely to protect core services. Another proposed cut is in the Emporia Police Department. The city is proposing leaving a vacant police-officer position open to save $47,653. That amount includes all costs associated with hiring an officer.
In total, the city has proposed $3,883,930 in cuts in various departments. The largest chunk comes from not funding the Capital Improvement Plan, which would save an estimated $3,353,237. Other proposed cuts include eliminating a city-planner position, reducing the number of authorized paramedic positions to nine, eliminating the taxi subsidy and various cuts in departments.
The next question from the floor was directed toward Lyon County’s decision to put $10,000 into a fireworks display for 2009 and subsequent years. The audience member said the money wasn’t a good use for her tax dollars and should be spent elsewhere in light of hard budget times. Lyon County Commissioner Bob Davis said he received no pressure from the public before he proposed the county kick in the money for the Fourth of July Celebration in Emporia.
“I talked to no one,” Davis said. “I’m fed up with having no celebration in this town.”
Davis said businesses didn’t step up and neither did any of the governments.
“I believe in celebration,” he said. “We got to celebrate ourselves.”
Davis said it will cost about 28 cents a county resident to pay for the $10,000 firework contribution.
Miller said the money will come back to the community two-fold if a festival is held and community members purchase goods such as food.
One of the other questions was regarding the city’s aquatic center.
“Municipal pools anywhere don’t make money,” Zimmerman said. “Last year was a bad year for the pool.”
The city subsidized $92,000 last year for the city’s aquatic center. This year, Zimmerman said, it hopes to get that amount down to the mid- or upper-$70,000 range. The pool is closing about three weeks early this year. Zimmerman said attendance drops once school begins so the pool is closing the Sunday before school starts.
“That will save three weeks of operating costs,” Zimmerman said.
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Posted by stryker1_25 (anonymous) on July 31, 2008 at 6:19 p.m. (Suggest removal)
"The city’s Sewer Fund is looking at a surplus for 2008 and 2009. The surplus is projected to be $442,825 in 2008 and $333,420 in 2009. The Water Fund, however, doesn’t look so good. That fund is facing a projected loss of $16,450 in 2008 and $660,830 in 2009. The city is proposing a 13-percent water rate increase to cover this fund’s losses."
So you mean to tell me that money can't roll over into another fund or anything?
If my math is right, the sewer fund is going to have a total surplus of $776,245 while the water fund is going have a total loss of $677,280. If they took the surplus from the sewer fund and placed into the water fund to cover losses, there's still $98,965 left over to demolish the clock tower.
But no, let's go ahead and hike our water bill another 13%.
Posted by dhcc66 (anonymous) on August 1, 2008 at 11:21 a.m. (Suggest removal)
no, the excess rolls over into the general fund, from what i remember from last year's budget hearings..that way we can buy another used fire truck
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