BROOKINGS (10-28-26) — At this week’s meeting, the Brookings City Council heard first reading of the city’s 2027 budget. The proposed balanced budget is $77.4 million, an increase of 6.7% from last year.
City Finance Director Ashley Rentsch… “To summarize, this ordinance proposed a total 2027 appropriation of $77,376,579. This budget is balanced — including those adjustments to the research park contribution and the storm drainage engineering technician that I mentioned earlier — and the second reading along with the ten-year capital improvement plan and the consolidated fee schedule will be presented at the November 10 meeting.”
The general fund budget is about $23.7 million. Rentsch outlined where most of the money goes… “General fund spending remains focused on those core community services. Police is at 25 percent, Public Works at 24 percent, Parks Rec and Forestry at 19 percent, and Fire at five percent — combined make up about 73 percent of our expenditures. The budget maintains services and supports the existing workforce and again does not contain any new addition of general fund employees.”
Rentsch said city revenues are stable… “Sales tax provides 46 percent of general fund revenues. Property tax comes in a 19 percent and transfers at 15 percent. Together those all account for about 80 percent of our revenues. As you can see, sales tax is a very significant portion of our revenues and we have used a conservative 2.5 percent growth assumption and will continue monitoring those collections through the end of the year.”
Mayor Ope Niemeyer pointed out this budget includes the final debt payments for the Performing Arts Center and improvements at Brookings Health System… “So we’re debt-free on both of those responsibilities. So that really takes a lot of out of budget for next year. We are doing very as far as our debt ratio goes. I just the people of Brookings to understand that we are being as conscious of our budget as we possibly can and not getting ourselves into a debt-ridden situation.”
Second reading of the budget will occur at the November 10 meeting.
— Brookings Radio News
