City Manager Todd Thompson gave an update on city budgeting at a work session for alderman on Monday night.He announced a $521,000 projected deficit, which Thompson calls “much better than we’ve seen” in the past few years.
Which he says much of that has to do with favorable pension and healthcare numbers.
“Looking out in the future the forecast is still a concern, we won’t see a good year like this in healthcare probably for a while,” Thompson says. “But I think the work we’ve done in the last few years, right sizing the organization, getting a control on some of our costs I think is good.”
He expects significant savings after the council recently shifted employee insurance to Blue Cross Blue Shield.
Overall revenues are up 2.6 percent, and expenditures up 2.4 percent.
Thompson says its one of the few times in recent years that revenues have increased more than expenditures.
The council is planning on discussing capital improvement projects in August and in September a draft of the budget will be presented to council
Within the next month there should be a draft of the City masterplan and likely the approval of the parks and recreation masterplan.
Thompson said with those plans in place, it will the city in a good position to start talking about the budget since the plans certainly should have an impact on planning and budgeting going forward.
