Council approves city's $28 million fiscal '17 budget

Money to complete the long planned South 18th East Street repair project is included in the fiscal year 2017 budget. Most of the money to reconstruct the road from American Legion Blvd. to East 6th South Street could come from a $2.8 million grant. If the grant is not received in the coming year, the city will delay the repairs to the road as seen above until 2018.

by Tim Bondy

Mountain Home News

The City of Mountain Home will see a $7.8 million increase in spending in the new year following approval of its fiscal 2017 budget by the city council Aug. 22.

More than six months of planning, discussions and tough deliberations went into this year's budget process, according to Mayor Rich Sykes, which doesn't include additional planning by each city department head over the past 12 months.

About $6 million of that budget increase comes from grants and contributions the city expects to receives in the coming year.

The city's budget is separated into six different categories, each of which covers different aspects of city operations. This includes the general fund along with operations, library debt service, capital improvement enterprise and trust funds. The revenue for each of those funding categories come from different state, county or locally derived sources.

The $9.7 million enterprise fund, which includes projects and routine work handled by the city's water and wastewater department, makes up the largest portion of the fiscal budget. The $6.3 million water maintenance budget line represents an almost 100 percent increase over last year. However, the projected expenditures on wastewater projects are expected to decrease slightly in the coming fiscal year.

City treasurer Paula Szafranski indicated that city leadership will focus on increasing the city's water storage capabilities with plans to have a 3 million gallon water tank built sometime in the coming year at an estimated cost of $3 million.

Under the general fund, the city is planning to spend about $7.5 million on items dealing with many different departments within the city infrastructure. The biggest planned expenditures under the general fund will focus on downtown improvement projects, updates to the city owned senior citizen center property, police salaries and the animal shelter.

Szafranski indicated that the animal shelter will receive a trust fund grant in the coming year while the city parks budget is expected to get a boost for a possible skateboard park and a sizable walking path grant.

Projected 2017 expenditures under the $5.9 million capital improvement fund represents a 119 percent increase over the current year's budget. These funds are mainly the operations funds for the city's street department including road construction and street lighting projects.

According to city engineer Wayne Shepherd, a majority of the increase in the 2017 capital improvement funds budget comes from a possible $2.8 million matching grant. The city will be responsible for about seven to eight percent of the total grant amount.

That grant money, which would come from a public organization associated with the Idaho Department of Transportation, is earmarked for a major street project on South 18th East Street. If the $2.8 million grant isn't awarded to the city, the 18th Street project will likely be delayed until 2018.

The $160,000 library debt service bond fund will likely make it's last appearance on the city ledger sheet this coming fiscal year. The $1.5 million bond initiative was passed by voters in 2004 to double the size of the library. According to city librarian Luise House, the bond should be paid off in full sometime in November 2017.

The last deadline for the city's budget is Sept. 8 when Elmore County must certify the document.