City discusses budget, tax rate for year

By Melissa McCaghren

Slatonite GM

The City of Slaton Commissioners conducted a budget hearing and set a public hearing for a tax rate Monday evening (Aug. 14) during its monthly meeting.

City Manager Wade Willson lead the budget workshop.

He said this year he started the budget with raises in mind, as they were denied last year in the effort to balance the budget.

In the proposed budget, Willson said he took the payroll report, broke it down by department and calculated it where everyone went up a paygrade, with those on the lower end going up two steps.

He said that everyone would be going up at least one step, which averages about 2.5 percent, and will make an $88,000 difference in pay roll.

The second priority Willson said he focused on was roads, and chose to move $250,000 aside for them. He doesn’t know how far the money will stretch to repair roads, but will look deeper into it for next year. He encouraged the commissioners to pick out streets that needed the most work to prioritize for repair.

Willson added he sent out a budget request form, and through the process, was able to pretty much give every departmetn at least one of hte items they requested. Among these include a hot box to keep road material hot when repairing streets and software for the Police Department and City.

Other items discussed included bond payments, City health insurance increases and water infrastructure.

Commissioners approved a property tax proposal rate. The proposed tax rate is $0.542443 per $100 valuation, with the no new revenue tax rate at $0.510934 per $100 and voter approval tax rate at $0.542443.

Willson said they had an unusued increment rate and built the budget around it.

The hearing will be Aug. 28 at 6:30 p.m.

For more information including other items discussed by the Commissioners, please read the Thursday edition of The Slatonite.