City Manager Nick Edwards provided a preview of the city's proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal 2025 year to the City Council on Monday night.
The spending plan has expenditures proposed at $213.8 million. That is up from the proposed city budget of $178.3 million for the 2024 fiscal year that was previewed this time last year. While that total is higher than most other past budget years, the all-time high appears to have been in 2014, when the budget ballooned with federal disaster recovery aid from the 2011 Joplin tornado. That year, the spending plan reached $275.4 million, according to Leslie Haase, the city's finance director.
In the upcoming budget year, city spending will largely be driven by personnel costs, which will make up about 58% of the budget, and the number of capital projects being funded by the federal American Rescue Plan Act and other federal grant programs along with city sales tax projects, the city manager said in introducing the overview.
"The budget is a very important tool for us. It brings together a lot of different things — our policies, our financial plans, our operations — and helps advise the community about city resources," Edwards said.
"We have to be grounded in our assumptions, our revenue and expenditure assumptions. That keeps us from taking risks or being too conservative," he added.
The operations portion of the budget is of particular note to city officials.
COMMUNITY GROWING
"We're facing historic levels of work with the American Rescue Plan Act and some of our improvement projects. I feel like our community is growing," Edwards said. He asked the council to review the key initiatives in the proposed budget. He considers those to be important, but if the council believes they are not worthy, the panel could direct that they not be undertaken "because we have a lot of work headed our way."
He wants to use available time to plan out the workload facing city administrators and staff.
Building a budget, he said, allows time to reflect on what was accomplished in the previous budget and to plan the things that the city needs to accomplish in the future.
Looking back on this city fiscal year, which began Nov. 1, there is a mix of good and bad news, Edwards said.
"We've seen in our estimates that sales tax is starting to flatten this year. We are projecting a small increase in sales tax, but generally our revenue is showing signs of flattening," the city manager said, although use tax is staying strong.
"The marijuana tax is helping us overcome a shortfall" in taxes, he said.
Since the city began collecting the use tax in March 2022, it has taken in more than $13 million. In eight months of 2022 after the collections began, the city received more than $2.6 million. In all of 2023, the total reached more than $5.5 million. This fiscal year so far, nine months of the tax have amounted to more than $4.9 million.
Collection of the marijuana sales tax is ahead of budget so far. City coffers began realizing that revenue in December, and it has generated $474,958 as of July. The tax was budgeted to bring in $300,000.
Operating costs in the general fund will include a $900,000 allocation in the city manager's budget for costs related to the future broadband network being constructed by Allo Fiber operating in conjunction with the city. There also are funds in the budget for a reorganization of the public works department, which will involve an increase in personnel costs. Seven additional workers are proposed. Several of the positions would be new to the department, but some would involve new job titles or promotions for existing employees. The department had cut some positions in the past when the city had budget restrictions.
Two sworn officers will be added to the police department, while there are no new positions tabbed for the fire department. City manager costs will also go down because there are no more new firetrucks to buy in the next fiscal year. There is to be a new lead building inspector and administrative assistant in the building department.
PARK RANGER
A third parks ranger position will be added to give additional coverage to city parks.
Work will continue on the council's goals for the city, Edwards said.
Those goals are to improve community appearance including public properties maintained by the city, address declining neighborhoods, create and grow resilient revenue to improve city service levels and maintain infrastructure, increase economic opportunities for all, address homelessness, and reduce crime and increase safety. City initiatives to address the goals are largely funded by use tax revenues.
A public hearing on the city's budget projections will be held Monday, Aug. 19, and a similar hearing on the upcoming tax levy amount, which has not been specified yet, will be held Aug. 26.
The council will hold its final budget discussions the nights of Sept. 23-25 before being asked to finalize the spending and revenue plan in October.
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