Archive for Thursday, July 16, 2009

City begins tackling ‘perfect storm’ of a budget

By Nicole Kelley

July 16, 2009

The 2010 budget was described as the “perfect storm” during Monday’s Edwardsville City Council meeting.

“The dollars spent on our debt is increasing, our property tax values are decreasing, and our need for service is increasing,” said city administrator Michael Webb. “All three are going the opposite direction of where you’d like them to be at this time.”

It’s a bleak outlook for Edwardsville’s 2010 budget with several major issues stacking up not in the city’s favor. But, as council members found out, there’s nothing to do but dive in and start finding a way out.

The budget presentation started with a look at the city’s obvious growth in service calls from the fire and police departments.

Fire Chief Cliff Lane reported from 2006 to 2007, the department had 9 percent more calls for service. From 2007 to 2008, the department saw a 14 percent increase in call volume.

“And for 2009, I expect us to exceed the 800 calls last year,” Lane said.

Next, Police Chief Mark Mathies reported that in 2007, there were 1,063 incident reports generated by the department. For 2009 to date, Mathies said there have been 929, which by the end of the year he expects to exceed the 2007 number.

Mathies also pointed out the department’s staff had been reduced 33 percent since 2007. To add, a position that was vacant when the city found out it would be losing nearly $250,000 in property taxes was eliminated, and an officer who was recently hired to a second vacant position had to unexpectedly quit for family reasons.

On the administrative side of the fence, Webb said the area of most concern was the amount the city was spending on its debt service would not be sufficient in the coming year. Webb said in 2010, the city would need to start paying on the principle, rather than just the interest, on its debt, jumping the number up to $900,000.

“If we don’t do anything with the mill levy, we’ll be almost $600,000 short,” he said.

The current mill set aside for debt service is 6.3 mills. If the city were to increase just the mill levy to pay for the debt, Webb said the mill would have to be set at 16 mills, adding that this option is just not realistic.

Council member Chuck Adams suggested moving one firefighter to the police department to cover the position that just became open. While he said he understood this may not be received well, especially after the recent layoff of one city firefighter, he said the city needed to look at having the right people in the right places.

Other suggestions included looking at fees in the city, especially the sewer fee. Webb said when the city took over that service, it expected more customers than it had, and the service was not paying out as much as he would like.

From council member Mark Bishop, an interesting question was raised.

“Why does the city own a cemetery?” he asked. “What is it worth?”

While the amount of the city’s mill levy that goes into the cemetery fund is minimal, Webb said, looking at moving part of that amount or all of it was an option for 2010. Right now the cemetery board is sitting on a savings, Webb said, that could sustain them for a year with no problem.

The one issue everyone wanted to stay away from was talk of increasing the mill levy.

“Mill levy is a false indicator. It’s inaccurate,” said Mayor John “Tiny” McTaggart. “Using the mill levy to compare us to other cities is useless. Bonner Springs has sales tax coming out of their ears. We don’t have sales tax. We should not compare ourselves by mill levy to anyone. Forget the mill, what do we got to have in dollars to run this city? Come to us with how many dollars we got to have, then we can attach a mill to that.”

With that said, Webb said he would continue his work on the budget and return to the council at the next meeting, July 27, with more concrete numbers and possible solutions.

In other business, the council:

• Approved, 4-0-1, with council member John Eickhoff sustaining because he was absent, minutes from the special meeting June 22.

• Approved, 4-0-1, with council member Eickhoff sustaining, minutes from the regular meeting June 22.

• Approved, 5-0, payment of bills totaling $133,718.19.

• Approved, 5-0, the uphold the Planning Commission’s denial to give Jason Clarrey, 611 Edwardsville Drive, the right to sell firearms out of his home.

• Approved, 5-0, to give permission to the mayor to enter into a supplemental agreement with the Kansas Department of Transportation regarding funding of the Woodend Road project. The supplemental agreement would provide an additional $775,000 in federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds for the widening and reconstruction of Woodend Road and the ramps to Interstate 435.

• Approved, 5-0, to adopt a resolution and ordinance that begins the condemnation proceeding required for the Woodend Road project. There are currently four properties that have not come to an agreement with the city about the necessary easements for the project, but Webb said those agreements could still come before condemnation is a must. The reason for the action by the council, however, is because the federal funding has a strict deadline, and Webb said he wanted to get moving on the condemnation process if it’s needed as soon as possible so the city doesn’t lose the money.

Comments

  1. sothrnrn (anonymous) says…

    yea they forgot to say if the fireman does not want to be a policeman, a job he is not trained for and is entirely different than firefighting, then that fireman will get laid off. geez people who are these running this city , do they not know the difference in these jobs?????? maybe they need to get laid off .......