Members of the Marysville Finance Committee got some good news at Monday’s meeting.
At the meeting, City Finance Director Justin Nahvi reported that last week Marysville received a check for about $1.1 million. He said the money represented the tap fees, or capacity fees, for the apartments on Cooks Pointe Boulevard. When a new water and sewer consumer is constructed, whether it is a single-family home, apartment or business, there is a fee to tap into the city’s water and sewer services.
City Manager Terry Emery said Metro Developments, LLC purchased about 200 taps. The money will go into the city water and sewer funds. Nahvi explained that as collection of tap fees increases, the money will be set aside to help pay debt of $117 million on the city’s waste water plant and to pay for a proposed water treatment plant.
Earlier this year Nahvi said revenue in the water and sewer funds has increased because of growth in the county, specifically Jerome Township. Nahvi said that through July, the city had received sewer capacity fees of about $1.26 million and $770,000 from county and city taps respectively. The city received about $1.11 million and $591,000 respectively for county and city water taps. The fees represent 92 properties built in the county and 91 built in the city.
“You are going to start to see city capacity fees even out to county capacity fees,” Nahvi said.
Nahvi said money is being put into a fund to pay for a new water treatment plant near the reservoir and to pay off debt for the city’s waste water treatment plant.
Nahvi said the city’s finance committee will “start working” on the water treatment plant plan later this year. Officials have vowed not to build the plant if it means they will need to raise rates. Nahvi said he anticipates legislation to facilitate the plant construction to come before council in January.
Finance officials are also working on the 2020 budget. Nahvi said administration is meeting today with department heads to go over budget needs and requests.
“I am being mindful of next year,” Nahvi said.
Emery said finance officials are working to pass that mindfulness to department heads. He said he is telling them not to ask for new positions or to replace any equipment that is not “critical to safety and welfare of the city.”
“We are being stringent on where we want everybody to be,” Emery said.
Committee member Mark Reams said he is still “a little concerned” about income tax revenue. Through July, income tax collection remains down about 0.8% from the same period last year.
Emery said the revenue is “still playing catchup from the beginning of the year.”
Nahvi said he believes, based on what payments have increased and what has decreased, that the income tax slowdown is tied to Scotts.
“I think a lot of this is they had a bad year last year,” Nahvi said.
He said it will likely be at least another month before it a clear financial picture develops for the year.
“I think when we really start getting into September, we will start to see where we are going to end,” Nahvi said.
The finance committee is asking the full council to be present at its next meeting, Sept. 16. Committee chairman Nevin Taylor said the meeting will help council members get “a bigger picture” of the city finances.
Emery said that during the meeting council will “go through the whole budget.”
Nahvi told the committee that Marysville recently received a clean audit for 2018.