City squeezing its way to a balanced budget

"We asked all the departments to make a 10 percent cut after we've had cuts the last two years," Assistant City Administrator Bill Cole said. "There is not a lot of cushion."

The recommendation with the budget is to continue the $13.75 per taxable $1,000 tax levy the city has kept the past two years.

"Factors driving up expenses this year include a 1.5 percent raise for non-bargaining employees in fiscal year 2011, a 7 percent health insurance increase, police pension increased by 2.9 percent and IPERS increased 0.3 percent," Cole said. "We have the unknown of what the state will do now that they're back in session."

Requests brought forward by city departments at Tuesday's meeting were slim.

"We have cut back on everything. We have very few improvements," Cole said.

Capital improvement requests, including a new police vehicle and two sets of firefighter gear, total $742,000 this year.

"Last year it was about $1.1 million," Cole said.

The city is also planning to lease some larger dollar equipment rather than purchase it outright.

"Instead of having a huge capital outlay in one year to buy pieces of equipment, we're now looking at the lease option," Councilman John Rexwinkel said. "It costs us more money in the long run, but it's a lower capital outlay by the year because we get free maintenance for a number of years, so we're going to see if we get some savings."

The city would own the piece of equipment after six years of leasing.

Leasing will allow the city to keep its equipment more current, Rexwinkel said.

The city's loader to move snow is 10 years old and the blower that attaches to it is approaching 20 years old, according to Public Works Superintendent Steve Hansen.

Rob Bixenman, of Le Mars, was in the audience during the meeting and, as a general taxpayer, commended the idea of leasing equipment.

"For large purchases, I think that's a great idea," he said.

* Mid-Sioux Opportunities Executive Director Dick Sievers submitted a request for $5,000 in the 2011 budget, the same amount as the past few years. Last year, the City of Le Mars budgeted for no money for the agency, which serves five counties.

"All funds received from the local government stay in the community they are received from," Sievers said.

Sievers noted that, while $1.5-$2 million is slated for Mid-Sioux in the next couple of years, state and federal monies have been decreasing.

The agency's maternal and child health program was reduced $50,000 this year and a family self-sufficiency program was cut 10 percent.

"The state budget this year is not in the best condition and neither is the federal budget," Sievers said. "Local funds are even more important."

Sievers said he's hearing money for state programs will be cut 3-5 percent.

Council members discussed allocating $5,000 in Tax Increment Financing dollars to meet Mid-Sioux Opportunity's request.

* The Le Mars Police Department is seeking to replace a 2002 Ford Expedition with 113,000 miles on it with a new, $28,000 patrol car. The department is also seeking a software update.

"We're behind probably three versions of our software," Police Chief Stu Dekkenga said.

He told the council he is working to get state money for new laptops in police cars.

They would be needed to keep up with Plymouth County's court system going to electronically filed documents.

"We've got a couple of laptops in our cars now that are pushing 10 years old," Dekkenga said.

Police revenue has been up slightly this year, partially because of odd/even parking fines, Dekkenga said.

"I can't take credit for the snow," he said.

* Both the city's water and wastewater department, designed to be self sufficient and not paid for out of property taxes, were close to breaking even. The water department suffered due to the wet summer, meaning less people watered their lawns, council members said. The downturned economy and its effect on local industry was blamed for the $79,000 wastewater shortfall.

* The city's Local Option Hotel/Motel Sales Tax revenue will be split with half of it going to the Convention and Visitor Bureau, for marketing and for part of director Jessica Lingren's salary. The other half, about $40,000, is allocated in grants to organizations working to bring people to town. However, the Hotel/Motel Sales Tax Advisory Board is looking to cut that second amount to $36,000 to $38,000. Those grants will be announced at the first council meeting in February.

"We're going to probably put a little bit of money into a short-term savings account in case some other projects come up out of the blue that we can help with," Councilman Knapp said.

During the meeting, the city council and staff commended city departments for slimming the budget.

"There's a lot of man hours on the department and committee level that's gone into getting it to where we're at today," Cole said.

John Rexwinkel agreed.

"It's a tight budget. I think we need to continue to look for opportunities to hold the line on expenses when we can and keep that in mind as we go through this budget here," he said.

Councilman Rex Knapp pointed out that, for a person who owns a $100,000 home, city services cost about $2 a day.

"Fifty cents goes to police, 50 cents goes to roads, parks, snow removal, streetlights; and another dollar a day goes to other services like the library," Knapp said, later explaining the library gets about 10 cents of that dollar. "For $2 a day, you're getting a pretty good value in my estimation."