BROOKINGS (9-9-26) — During last night’s meeting, the Brookings City Council took a first look at next year’s budget.
City Manager Paul Briseno said city staff is proposing a balanced budget… “We are providing you as a City Council and the public a balanced budget. Once again — revenues in, revenues out. When we talk, there’s a lot of revenue — major revenue streams — that we see dip, flatline a little bit. That doesn’t concern us too much because we are able to adjust our expenditures. That does come with some heartbreak. This last budget year, we did cut roughly $1.4 million out of our budget to make this balance.”
Next year’s proposed budget is approximately $77 million, a 6.2 percent increase from last year’s budget. Briseno said that increase is directly related to capital improvement projects such as improvements to 22nd Avenue and drainage work work on Medary and 20th Street South.
He said they’re proposing an increase in the city’s general fund… “As we talk about the general fund, we’re looking at about a $700 thousand increase compared to last year — roughly about $23.7 million. That includes a growth in sales tax — very conservatively we’re budgeting roughly 2.5 percent growth compared to last year, property tax growth of about 3.32 percent, which equates to about $146 thousand.”
Briseno said they project modest revenue growth for next year… “As we talk about the revenue streams — sales tax being the primary one that we’ll spend time on — we’re projecting once again about 2.5 percent increase off of last year. You’ll see that equates to roughly $375 thousand. That goes directly to the sales tax. That makes up roughly half of that $770 thousand increase that we’re talking about next year for our revenue sources. Once again, very modest growth. We’re very conservative when it comes to sales tax (projections) because that is our bread and butter.”
Sales tax accounts for approximately 47 percent of the city’s general fund revenue, with property tax accounting for about 19.4 percent and transfers accounting for roughly 15.5 percent. The rest of the city’s revenue comes from state and county shared revenues, fees and fines, liquor operating agreements, rentals and interest earnings.
The Brookings City Council will continue budget discussions on September 22, with a capital improvement plan workshop. First reading of the budget itself is tentatively scheduled for October 27.
— Brookings Radio News
