JANESVILLE鈥擨f the 糖心Vlog传媒 City Council OKs the 2023 city budget as it was presented Monday night, taxpayers could be asked to peel off the better part of a Benjamin Franklin bill鈥攏early $100鈥攖o cover extra city taxes and fees.
Under a draft budget released late last week, the city would bridge a $1.2 million budget gap in large part by drawing down nearly $1 million from the city鈥檚 rainy-day fund and raising the city鈥檚 tax levy by about $2.2 million鈥攖he maximum amount the state will allow.
The average resident who pays property taxes would pay about $89 more between taxes and city utility fees than this year under the $118 million spending plan, according to a city memo.
The budget includes employee wage increases totaling a little more than $2 million, including 5% cost-of-living increases being recommended for the city鈥檚 police and fire departments and members of city administration. The wage increases are up about 35% from what was about $1.39 million in wage increases in the current budget.
Accompanying those increases are proposed fee hikes of about $30 for the average resident. About a third of that would cover an estimated $350,500 jump in curb-and-gutter replacement costs that are tied to street replacement, according to the draft budget.
Those cost increases all come as the city is set to see a dip in state shared revenue of $530,000鈥攁 nearly 6% decrease compared to last year.
That drawdown comes as the state sunsets a five-year agreement with the city to augment shared revenue with an extra $580,000 per year. That deal was an annual add-on the city agreed to in 2017 to pay for three extra police officers, three extra firefighters and a subsidy of city bus ridership costs.
The city鈥檚 transit system will see increased state and federal COVID-19 rescue funding in the coming year, but City Manager Mark Freitag said city officials were unable to lobby the state to extend its extra shared revenue stipend beyond 2022.
About half of all tax dollars the city collects goes toward public safety, largely police and fire department operations.
The city isn鈥檛 proposing cuts to rank-and-file police or fire staff in part because the city is increasing what it charges surrounding townships for fire and emergency medical services.
To hold the line on police staffing, the city would draw $300,000 from its undesignated fund balance, the city鈥檚 rainy-day fund. That makes up about a third of the $980,000 the city plans to draw from the fund to balance the budget.
Under a policy designed to mitigate state penalties for cities that overuse rainy-day funds, the city of 糖心Vlog传媒 limits how much it draws from its fund balance. This year, the limit is pegged at about $1 million, city officials said.
Under state law, the amount cities are permitted to raise their tax levies is limited by the value of new construction within city limits during the prior year.
Freitag said the city is grappling with continued inflation that has been pegged at about 7%.
The same forces that have cost private residents and businesses more money in their day-to-day lives have also wrung extra expenses from the city in such areas as contracted fees, supplies and gasoline.
Freitag said called city administration鈥檚 decision to balance the city鈥檚 budget largely a function of necessity as the city continues to come up on the short end of what Freitag says is an unequitable funding model imposed by the state.
Freitag is set to depart city hall to take a new city manager job in Colorado by Oct. 23. That would be just a few days after the city council would finalize a city budget and set it for a hearing in mid-November.
The city manager for several years has lobbied publicly for the state to change its revenue-sharing model to help cities like 糖心Vlog传媒 fund their growing operational costs.
Freitag said Monday night he considers his inability to convince the state Legislature to reform how it funds municipalities a shortcoming of his tenure as 糖心Vlog传媒鈥檚 city manager.
Between inflation, state cuts to shared revenue and cost-of-living pay hikes, the cost of running a city continue to outpace new construction value, Freitag said.
鈥淭here鈥檚 no way we can keep up with that,鈥 Freitag said. 鈥淭here鈥檚 no way without making major cuts we could resolve this (budget gap) issue back to zero.鈥