C. Falls officials hash out budget
Columbia Falls city leaders made the call Tuesday night to use their full tax-levy authority in the 2007-08 municipal budget.
It means an extra $8,000 will flow into the general fund - translating to 89 cents per $100,000 taxable valuation on property in Columbia Falls.
That $8,000 is going to make a big difference at City Hall, where an update of electrical wiring that is a half-century old has been proposed for three years but put off for lack of money, and on the Columbus Park tennis courts where the city may have to cough up a bigger chunk of a $100,000 resurfacing project than initially expected.
"We are one of the few cities in Montana that has managed to outpace our growth," City Manager Bill Shaw told the city council.
He and Finance Director Susan Nicosia presented the final version of the city's preliminary budget, going into detail and answering questions that arose since the council received the proposed budget two weeks ago.
By state law, the city has the authority this year to levy 152.290 mills on property taxes. But Nicosia drew up a budget that used only 150.633 of those mills.
Extensive discussion ended with the council agreeing to use the remaining 1.657 mills to tackle some city priorities.
The overall budget - with $7.6 million in revenue but $8.1 million in appropriations due, in part, to money coming out of the Cedar Creek Trust Fund - will cover a wide range of issues from extra staffing at an increasingly busy city court to repaying nearly $1.35 million in trust fund loans for street rebuilds and a 28-acre riverfront park purchase.
Mayor Jolie Fish advocated for budgeting the extra money.
"We need to look toward the future," Fish said, citing criticism that citizens have lobbed over the years at what they called short-sighted councils. It's time, she said, to rewire City Hall for the long-overdue safety buffer and future electrical demands on the building.
"Councils in the past took care of only the present," she added.
A tiff over tennis courts also prompted a group of tennis advocates to extract a pledge from the city council to rebuild or resurface the Columbus Park courts next year. The city landed on a snap-together court surface, made up of interlocking plastic tiles that "float" atop a renovated base, as the best solution for the $100,000 expense.
About half that cost was anticipated to come from grants and fund-raising, including $6,000 from the tennis group. To date, Shaw reported, that group has raised only $85.
Council member Doug Karper questioned a line item in the budget that designated part of the source for the project money as donations and grants.
"To rely on donations and grants isn't real," Karper said. "I appreciate what Susan has done with the (conservative budget) numbers, but if the money doesn't come in, we can't do it."
"It's highly likely you're going to have to come up with another $25,000 for the tennis courts," Shaw said, reminding the council that it committed to having the new courts by next spring. Tax money will cover any extra costs.
City growth and a dramatic increase in property values, however, will give some breathing room on taxes.
To cover the $400,000 first phase of the two-year, $1.1 million street levy approved in June, what had been expected to be a $46 tax bill per $100,000 taxable value will be just $11 because of the property-value growth.
With that drop, council member Julie Plevel argued, and the pressing needs across the city, the council needed to levy the full tax mills allowed.
The final vote to do so was 5-2, with council members Don Barnhart and Charlie McCubbins dissenting from Fish, Karper, Plevel, Harvey Reikofski and MIke Shepard.
Reporter Nancy Kimball may be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com