08.14.08
Budget meetings
I have been attending the City Council Budget Meetings and will report on them once they are completed. I am waiting till then to report on them because there is a lot of give and take that goes on in these meetings and nothing is final until they settle the differences.
That said, there are a few things that do need to be pointed out up front. -
1) Like last year, the budget submitted to the City Council by the Mayor’s administration was seriously in the red - like over $87,000.00 in the red. It will be a trick to see how the City Council manages to slash enough out the Mayor’s budget to break even. They also have to take into consideration that some money has be put aside as a cash reserve. The issues with the Fire Hall budget last year developed because not enough money was put aside and when certain revenues didn’t come in as expected, it created a problem.
2) It appears that the City is going to try to use a number of tactics to develop more revenue - including an SID to pave Glendale street, and a number of mill levy requests to fund certain items in the budget. Given the almost $2,000,000.00 shortfall in the Police Retirement Fund that is still unaddressed, it remains to be seen if the Citizens of Dillon are willing to approve ANY further tax money to the City.
3) Certain statutory deadlines have already passed for some of the items in the budget - most notably, the deadlines for the Special Maintenence Districts. To date, no public hearing has been held (as required by statute) and no resolution has been passed. They have discussed a number of things but no resolution has been presented to the City Council. Councilman Straugh wants to raise the amount levied again this year but it is uncertain whether the rest of the council is willing to vote for that. Last year the City Council raised the “per foot” amount from $.50 a foot to $.80 a foot (an increase of 60%). There was a lot of contention about that increase and the way it was done and many property owners protested their taxes because of it. There are still members of the community that claim they want to sue the city over that increase.
4) The City Council voted to increase the amount levied for the Special Lighting District from $.43 to $.49.
Moorcat