First 2014-2015 Budget Hearing (and City Council Mtg) on Wed. 9/3!


September 1, 2014

The next City Council Meeting will be this Wednesday, September 3rd at 7pm at City Hall.  There’s a lot on the agenda.  Note that this meeting falls on Wednesday so as to not conflict with required Budget hearings from other governmental entities.  Note also that this is the first of two required 2014-2015 Budget hearings for the City.  The second meeting will fall on Thursday, September 18th at 7pm.

Please at a minimum, review the Budget overview letter . If you are a property owner, you should have already received your TRIM notice.  Note that our Council will be telling us that they are responsibly holding Operating Millage (tax rate) flat at 5.7404 mills. Due to the increase in property valuations, however – this means that with a flat tax rate the City would be increasing property tax revenues by 6.14%.  Most of the other governmental entities in your trim notice also propose similar actions taking advantage of the property evaluation ‘windfall’.  This is a return to attitudes and approaches taken during the boom.  It is up to you as active residents to evaluate whether some or all of that ‘windfall’ should be returned to you, the taxpayer, or is properly being used for infrastructure repairs, improvements,  and salary increases.

The Budget will presented early in the meeting under Presentations and will be the first item that is part of the Public Hearings as Ordinance 15, 2014 at which time public comment will be allowed.

The City Manager Report, also early in the Agenda includes 3 items of particular interest:

Public Hearings include several Resolutions, among them:

The complete Agenda can be viewed here.  The proposed 2014-2015 Budget can be viewed here.

We get the government we deserve – and it’s up to us to watch what they do. Hope you can make it.  If you can’t make the meeting try and watch live-streaming or on-demand.