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At its May 12 meeting, the Beaver Dam City Commission approved the first reading of its fiscal year 2014-2015 budget.
The city commission were given a copy of the proposed budget to look over before it approved the first reading.
City Superintendent Larry Carter, the architect of the budget, went over some of the changes in the coming year’s budget compared with last year’s budget.
Carter explained to the commission he wasn’t sure on the timeline for the city to receive a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) to be used to pay for the new fire station. If the city receives the CDBG before June 30, it would be a part of the 2013-2014 budget. If the city receives it after June 30, it will be part of the 2014-2015 budget. Carter put together the 2014-2015 budget with the belief the city would receive the CDBG in June of this fiscal year.
Included in the budget was $100,000 earmarked for the construction of the new fire station for the Beaver Dam Fire Department. Carter believed the city could pay the $100,000 out of the general fund and not borrow the money.
Carter explained to the commission if it “ran a tight budget” this next fiscal year, the city would be able to pay back half of what it borrowed for the new fire station, pay another $100,000 without borrowing the money and, perhaps, have enough funds to buy a used pumper truck for the BDFD to keep its ISO rating.
During the March meeting of the city commission, buying a used fire truck for the BDFD was discussed, but the commission wasn’t sure the funds would be available.
Carter told the commission the Beaver Dam Little League representatives are in talks to have the little league district tournaments at the Beaver Dam Park. To do this, the park needs some work done to the ball fields before the tournaments can be held there. Carter was given a few estimates on what it would cost for those improvements and those estimates came in around $22,000. Carter budgeted $18,000 the city would pay for the improvements and the league would pay the rest of the amount.
The city will begin to repave streets for two years beginning in fiscal year 2014-2015. Carter believed the city could get a “good price” on the blacktop in July. He and the commission will put together a list of streets to be repaved over the next two years. Carter budgeted $90,000 to repave roads in the 2014-2015 budget.
As the commission was reviewing the budget, commissioner Keith Dale made the statement, “At some point we are going to have to raise the water rates.”
Dale said the city was losing over $40,000 a year due to the city spending more on water than it takes in from customer water bills and it “couldn’t do that forever.”
Commissioner Kevin Davis asked how much did Dale think the rate needed to be raised.
Carter recommended the city get an engineer to do a rate analysis and “get it right the first time” instead of possibly raising it several years in a row to find the right rate.
After more studying of the proposed budget, Davis made a motion to approve the first reading of the 2014-2015 fiscal year budget. Commissioner Sandy Robinson seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously.
