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The Laurel Council is poised to begin discussing a proposed budget for the city for fiscal year 2013.
This week city officials presented the first draft of the $25.7 million budget to the council. Slightly higher than the previous year’s budget by $471,000, planners said expenditures would be virtually flat.
“We’ve been able to maintain services and make do where we need to,” said Michelle Saylor, director of budget personnel for the city.
Last year, the city maneuvered around a $3 million budget deficit by freezing pay raises for city employees. But this year, Saylor said the city plans to partially reinstate raises, including merit-based raises, but will continue to hold off on cost-of-living increases.
Saylor said that the city is still scraping together funds to pay for the retirement pension fund. This year the city plans to pay $1.6 million, up from $1.5 million last year.
The Laurel Council will begin work sessions on the budget next month and will hold a meeting on May 2 and May 9 to discuss it. Saylor said the goal is to have the budget approved by the mayor and council by May 14, and it would take effect on July 1 of this year.
Dana Schwartz
9:32 am on Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Gee, it's too bad that more realistic assessments caused that taxes collected last year to drop so much. My payments were going up 10% every year for the last ten years. What inflation index anywhere has risen that precipitously over the same period? They won't be able to blow smoke about minuscule tax rate reductions while in actuality collecting massively more each year due to unrealistic property value assessments. Let's see some real cost cutting this time, not just maintenance of the status quo.
Joshua Garner
1:55 pm on Wednesday, April 25, 2012
The city seems to be holding the line this year with no deficits. What do you think needs to be cut?
Dana Schwartz
4:03 pm on Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Well, first, I would not look at tax rates, but rather at tax rate times assessments, which is really what determines how much we each pay. Saying for years that "we're actually reducing the tax RATE by a few cents" while all along assessments were artificially going through the roof (so to speak) was extremely deceptive by the City.
Next I'd look at what has caused spending to rise by 10% each year for the last 10 years, and why. That is likely where cuts should be made.
My City Property taxes went from $996 in 2001 to $2655 in 2010. What has the City done with all that additional cash (assuming my unmodified home and my tax payments are similar to the rest of the City's residents)?