There were numerous budget changes presented at Monday night’s city council meeting.
“A vast majority of those were due to a change in formula I did to be more accurate as we move forward through next year,” City Finance Director Brad Lutz told council.
The others, he said, were changes in the capital budget.
Lutz said the formula change was “just a refinement to how to account for potential changes in personnel costs related to wage increases resulting from annual reviews.”
He explained that, “obviously, we don’t know today how everyone will be evaluated on their annual review and there are different levels of wage adjustments available depending on how well a person scores.”
The changes mean an increase of about $69,000 for the total budget over a variety of funds, including an increase of about $41,000 for the general fund.
Lutz said the general fund was “modified ever so slightly.”
He said the change was “nothing significant, certainly, as a percentage of the general fund.
For many general fund departments, the change meant an increase of about $1,000, though he said the formula did not affect all divisions, “so I am not hitting all personnel.”
While the budget was set for its second reading and public comment, Lutz said he changed the formulas because he is “always examining the budget looking for ways to improve the process.”
“The budget is an amalgamation of prediction models, requests and prior year results,” Lutz wrote after the meeting. “There is always a refinement to be made. The key is to find the place where you have to stop refining and say ‘This is it’ since it needs to be voted on and approved in a final form. I felt this change was a good one to make before it gets the final vote.”
He told council that the 2022 capital budget actually went down from $6.2 million to $6.05 million because of the city engineering department and “some work they did moving projects around.”
“Nothing has changed, in terms of your priorities and what you wanted,” Lutz said.
He said it does not reflect a loss of any projects, but rather the department “sharpening their pencils on some projects.”
At the earlier public service/public safety committee meeting, City Engineer Kyle Hoyng said that in 2021, the city awarded about $24 million in projects in 2021.
“For a city our size, that’s a lot,” he said.
Hoying said 2022 projects will be “close” to the 2021 total.
“It is an aggressive program,” Emery said.
Hoyng said the 2022 budged includes $1.5 million for street paving, though the streets have not been rated yet, so officials do not know what streets will be addressed by the program next year.
At the meeting, city staff reviewed the 2022 capital improvement projects including the city hall parking lot expansion, Innovation Park roadway extension, replacement of the E. Fourth Street bridge, erection of the Coleman’s Crossing/Industrial Parkway traffic signal, Uptown alley improvements, utility improvements at Kile and Warner roads, construction of several pump stations, closure of the water treatment plant, Bishop Ditch improvements, culvert replacement on Walnut Street, completion of the Jerome Township water tower and design for a variety of projects including the reservoir connector bridge, a pump station and improvements to Elwood Avenue, Route 31, Coleman’s Crossing and the Five Points Intersection.