Centralia Water Treatment Plant is major project
By Kellen Olshefski
Staff Writer
The Elkhorn City Council voted in favor of adopting the proposed 2014 budget at its Nov. 18 meeting.
The budget sets the tax levy at $4.04 million, less than a .3 percent increase from last year. It has an estimated tax rate of $6.89 per $1,000 of assessed value, approximately 7 cents higher than last year.
At the projected mill rate, owners of homes valued at $175,000 would pay property taxes of $1,202 in 2013-2014, equivalent to a roughly $11 increase from last year for the city’s portion of the tax bill.
City Administrator Sam Tapson’s proposed 2014 budget outlined spending across all funds at a combined $28.5 million, which he said remains relatively unchanged as compared to projected 2013 year-end expenditures.
According to Tapson, budget-to-budget, this year’s budget is down from last year, though since budgets are a projected it’s nearly dead-on, which he said is where the city has been for the last several years.
Tapson said looking at tax levies and expenditures, they’ve run from a couple of percentage points up to flat in recent years.
He said some of this is due to staff that didn’t get replaced and having gaps to fill that balance out over the course of the year, but from a planned perspective, they’ve been in that couple of percentage point projected increase.
Replacement of the Centralia Street Water Treatment Plant will remain as the major project in the 2014 capital improvement program, with approximately $9.6 million budgeted over the next few years.
The board voted unanimously in favor of approving the 2014 budget after little discussion.
Other business
In other business, the board voted unanimously to approve the appointment of Arnie Bryson as an alternate member to the Elkhorn Board of Zoning Appeals.
While the board has met rarely, according to City Attorney Ward Phillips, an influx of meetings in the past year has sometimes led to meetings being canceled as the board has had trouble enough members for a quorum.
“One time they went on a streak of three, four years without meeting and all of a sudden they’ve met three times in the past year,” Mayor Howie Reynolds said.
With approval, Phillips said, the city will be able to contact Bryson if one of the committee members can’t attend the meeting, and Bryson would fill in as a member of the board, with full voting rights, for the evening. Bryson would only attend when needed.
Elkhorn’s Common Council will next meet at 5:30 p.m. on Dec. 2 in the Council Chambers at City Hall.
