The Perry City Council took its first look at the preliminary budget for fiscal year 2019, which starts July 1, in a special meeting Friday morning in the Clarion Room of the Security Bank Building.
Susie Moorhead, Perry’s finance officer, has been working overtime this month in preparation for the rounds of meetings and workshops with both city council members and the heads of Perry’s seven service departments: public safety, public works, health and social services, culture and recreation, community and economic development, business-type activities and general government.
“We met with all the department heads for the first sessions,” Moorhead told the Perry City Council Friday morning. “That’s how we gather the information for the requested expenditures, and we also estimate the revenues. Every year we always estimate them very conservatively.”
There was a $2.5 million increase in the value of taxable property in Perry over the past year, according to the office of the Dallas County Assessor. This was a smaller increase than last year’s $4.5 million increase. The total taxable value of property in Perry is about $162 million.
On the revenue side, Moorhead said the city is expected to take in about $9.63 million in fiscal year 2019, about $220,000 less than it collected in FY 2018. Revenue sources include an estimated $2.84 million in property taxes, $1 million in Local Option Sales Taxes and $1 million in Iowa road use taxes, with the balance coming from fees, service charges and other sources. General fund revenues are estimated to be about $3.462 million.
Total expenditures for 2019 are budgeted at $9.03 million, including general fund spending of about $3.461 million.
Wages for Perry workers in the Teamsters and AFSCME unions are currently in negotiation but are expected to be 3 percent for both unions, Moorhead said. A 15 percent increase in health insurance premiums will cost the taxpayers about $103,000, even with employees set to start paying 14 percent of their premiums.
The total requested from all department heads for capital expenditures amounted to about $1.5 million. Preliminary figures suggest the city will have about $547,000 available for capital expenditures, so the second round of meetings with department heads will see cuts from their requests.
“When we receive the capital expenditure requests, we ask the department heads to prioritize the requests,” Moorhead said. “We make sure each department receives adequate, if not generous, funding for their capital requests.”
In the preliminary budget put before the council Friday, a modest increase is predicted in the total levy for the FY 2019. City taxpayers can expect to pay about $18.109 per $1,000 of taxable valuation next year, a rise of about 29 cents over the FY 2018 rate of $17.814.
Perry City manager Sven Peterson reflected on the general relation of the budget to city services and the image Perry taxpayers wish to project of their city.
“We’re at the point now where I don’t want to cut jobs,” Peterson said. “The common theme that we’ve been seeing with the departments and something every single department head who came in said, ‘We’re short-handed and we’re just keeping up with today and putting out yesterday’s fires.’ Across the board, our departments are at the point where we’re not able to be proactive.”
He noted that city staff have dwindled with time, tightened budgets and the anti-tax yearning for smaller government.
“Parks went from three to one,” he said. “Cemetery went from three to one. Police have been up to 15” and are now at 12. “We used to have three full-time maintenance staff that used to go around and maintain all the builders. Now we’re down to one. It’s those jobs — along with Public Works and the Police Department — that keep things looking nice and keep things maintained and working. What we’ve gotten to is everything’s just tired. I think that is an institutional issue that we have as far as pride within the community. We’re at the point where we need more people to maintain what we have, to spruce things up and keep it at a level the community can be proud of.”
Mayor John Andorf said he understood the challenges many department heads face.
“Band-Aids and rubber bands just don’t work anymore,” Andorf said.
A second round of department meetings will follow next week and a second council workshop Feb. 15, with public hearings on the proposed budget set for Tuesday, Feb. 20 and Monday, March 5. Perry residents are encouraged to attend the Tuesday, Feb. 20 hearing at 6 p.m. in the Clarion Room of the Security Bank Building at 1102 Willis Ave.
January and February’s number-crunching will come to a vote Monday, March 5, after the second of the Perry City Council’s public hearing. The budget must be submitted to the Dallas County Auditor by March 15, and the 2019 fiscal year will start July 1, 2018.
