Back in April, the Plymouth City Council asked city staff to come back to them with a budget that would include a tax levy with less than a 3 percent increase compared to last year.
At a special council meeting Tuesday, Aug. 20, staff will present a balanced budget for 2014 with a tax levy increase of 2.47 percent, coming in under the requested 3 percent.
The preliminary tax levy for 2014 must be turned into the state by Tuesday, Sept. 10. After that the council can continue to decrease the levy, but it cannot increase it. The council must decide on what the 2014 levy will be and adopt it by the end of the year and usually holds a truth-in-taxation hearing in December for the public to provide feedback on the budget and taxes.
The preliminary proposed 2014 tax levy of 2.47 percent is an increase of $720,756 over last year and totals more than $29 million.
The 2014 preliminary budget, as proposed, provides for a balanced general fund budget of little more than $32 million, which is a 4.14 percent increase from last year.
2014 has levy limits and the city of Plymouth's levy limit for 2014 is more than $29.4 million. The levies for street reconstruction, park replacement, capital improvement and HRA should remain the same as 2013. Meanwhile, the recreation fund will increase by $8,124 in 2014, but the debt levies will decrease by $34,735.
The 2014 preliminary budget shows about a $1.2 million increase due to several factors including an increase in the levy, additional revenue from building permits and project administration fees.
Proposed expenditures for 2014 include an armored police vehicle ($90,000), fire equipment changes, re-establishment of the park patrol program ($17,000), Emerald Ash Borer treatment program ($17,000), additional contract mowing ($18,000) and Ice Center training facility ($1 million).
Proposed expenditure increases include primarily salary and benefit increases and those proposed capital purchases.
The 2014 proposed budget includes a 2 percent general increase across the board for regular city employees as well as a 1 percent increase in wages for paid-on-call firefighters. For the 2014 police budget, patrol administration regular salaries were reduced by $15,000 and the support services division regular overtime budget was also reduced by $43,000.
The 2014 proposed budget includes increase of only 2 full-time equivalent positions compared to the 2013 budget. The staffing changes include: one new patrol officer, one new streets maintenance worker and one new utilities maintenance worker. It also includes the elimination of one office support representative position for Administrative Services, reclassifying a full-time regular Parks and Recreation position to part-time regular and increasing the hours of two part-time regular employees in IT and Police departments.
(All information provided by the city of Plymouth.)
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