Milton Council Takes First Look at $17.39M Budget

All the Milton City Council did Monday night, Aug. 22, was talk, but it was important as the members took their first look at a proposed budget for the next fiscal year.

Estimated revenue in the budget was $17.4 million according to the budget presentation document posted on the city's Web site.

"That is down over last year, but not terribly much," said City Manager Chris Lagerbloom.

He said he'd almost consider it relatively flat over last year.

"There's also not a substantial decrease that many governments are facing," he said.

Department heads were asked to consider how they would handle 5, 7 and 10 percent budget cuts if they became necessary. Lagerbloom said that doesn't mean the city anticipates budget cuts, but it will help departments know where the money is going and will make any cuts less painful.

The budget makes some assumptions Lagerbloom, Finance Director Stacey Inglis and other staff hope won't be as severe.

Initially the city's health care costs were going to increase by 26 percent. Looking at what the city pays as a premium and what actual claims were made, Lagerbloom said it seemed that any increase would have been minor.

While the proposed budget stuck with the 26 percent increase, already the city has had that reduced to 21 percent. And Lagerbloom said health care costs were put out for bid, which might cut the costs even more.

The proposed budget looks even more off balanced than it really will be with $4.5 million in proposed capital expenditures, he said. Several big ticket items were included as initiatives even though staff has no intention of starting them in the next fiscal year. They were included to show what affect they would have on a budget and may be in a future budget.

The city's Police Department has 29 sworn officers, with the proposed budget adding 4 more officers to start bringing the department up to proper staffing levels, Lagerbloom said.

The city can now forecast  fuel consumption based on actual information over the past few years, not just a snapshot of fuel use. Fuel is a major operating cost.

"The police department uses more fuel than the fire department because we have such a big city," Lagerbloom said.

The proposed budget puts $142,000 in police fuel budget, and $70,000 in the fire department's budget.

"Obviously we want to recognize the value of each dollar," he said.

That extended even to the mayor and City Council members' stipends. Each council member gets $2,720 and the mayor $3,720 for such things as cell phones, broadband internet cards and other cost that come up in doing the job. As none of the council members or mayor has come close to spending that much in a year, Lagerbloom suggested cutting City Council stipends to $2,000 and the mayor's down to $3,000 on a one-year trial basis.

Coming soon to Patch: A look at proposed capital expenditures for Milton.