No Property Tax or Water Rate Increases Anticipated in Smithville

Although the Mayor and Aldermen have not yet held their first budget discussions for the 2015-16 fiscal year, the City Administrator and Smithville’s financial consultant have been at work.
“We’re not looking at any property tax increase this year and no water rate increase for city residents,” said City Administrator Hunter Hendrixson during Monday night’s regular monthly meeting of the Mayor and Board of Aldermen.
“Janice Plemmons-Jackson (City Financial Consultant) and I have been working on the budget. We’re about 85% complete with it as far as the day to day operations and line items. The only thing left is any type of pay wage increase and any capital outlay projects for this coming budget year,” Hendrixson told the mayor and aldermen.
“I think we can have you a rough draft (proposed budget) by the end of the week. That way you will have time to look over it. I am still waiting on a couple of departmental heads to get me their wish list. I’ll send that to you with the costs and what they are looking for. I can send it electronically. If you want to set up a budget workshop or we could open up the meeting and have a workshop/ meeting where you can vote on the budget if you choose to that same night,” Hendrixson continued.
While the state wants the city to have a new budget approved by July 1, Hendrixson said a continuing resolution could be adopted until final passage if the aldermen don’t meet the deadline. “The state requires you to pass a budget by July 1 of each year. If you don’t you’re required to pass a continuing budget resolution. We’ve had to do that once before. I think it was in 2010. It’s not the end of the world or anything but we prefer to have one passed by July 1 if at all possible,” said Hendrixson.
The mayor and aldermen Monday night set a budget workshop/special meeting for Tuesday, June 16 at 4:00 p.m. at city hall. “Once you pass it on first reading you can always tweak it. You can’t pass it no less than seven days from the first reading. You would be looking at no less than June 23 before we could have another meeting. We’ll see what the departmental heads request. We’ll meet on June 16 and go from there,” Hendrixson concluded.