Tax won't rise in Layton, yet
There are no comments for this page [ Add Comment ]Friday, May 2, 2008
By BRYON SAXTON
Standard-Examiner Davis Bureau
bsaxton@standard.net
Budget expected to be stable in teetering national economy at least one more year
LAYTON -- Rising fuel costs, near-flat residential and sales tax growth, costly road projects and shortfalls in park impact fees haven't knocked Layton's tentative budget off balance enough for it to need a tax increase to recover.
But any more years like this one, it may, city officials say.
The city council by consent on Thursday adopted a $55.6 million tentative budget for fiscal year 2008-09 that includes no property tax increase.
Councilmen Scott Freitag, Renny Knowlton and Michael Bouwhuis voted in favor of the tentative budget. Councilwomen Joyce Forbes Brown and Kathy Hyde Smith were excused from the meeting.
The tentative budget reflects an increase of $2.7 million over this fiscal year's current budget.
"I think it is a good budget for where the economy is," said Steve Ashby, city finance director.
The budget still shows an increase, he said. "If we don't have a turnaround (in revenues), I won't be able to say that next year."
The final budget hearing will be at 7 p.m. June 5 at City Hall, 435 N. Wasatch Drive.
The tentative budget can be reviewed on the city's Web site, www.laytoncity.org.
In accordance with state law, the city must have a tentative budget approved by the first week in May, with a final budget adopted by June 22, Ashby said.
The proposed budget shows a slight increase in sales tax revenues, "running just a little bit ahead of last year," he said.
Initially, Ashby had budgeted for the city to experience a 6 percent increase in sales tax revenues, a gain later readjusted to 2 percent after monthly financial reports came available.
The city will collect about $12.7 million in 2008-09, which is $400,000 more than the sales tax revenues it collected this year, he said.
However, based on recent monthly reports showing a downturn in collection, Ashby said, the gain may not meet the $400,000 projection. He is still projecting sales tax revenue dollars to be higher than the current fiscal year.
It isn't sales tax revenues the city is relying on this year to make its budget balance.
Some things that have contributed to balancing this fiscal year's budget include selling a "remnant piece" of city land near Ellison Park to a private developer for $900,000; being able to refund to the city $658,000 it did not need for employee health insurance benefits; and receiving a repayment of $564,000 from a water fund loan involving the construction of a water tank the city built beneath the Clearfield High School practice field years ago.
"We're hitting a good year to be on a down year in that there is other revenue available to us that normally wouldn't have been budgeted for," said Mayor Steve Curtis.
A few areas in the budget were tweaked because growth and sales tax revenues are flat, Curtis said.
Budget highlights include:
* $900,000 for land acquisition for the new public safety/police station building.
* $500,000 for the construction of a fourth fire station, this one on the East Bench.
* $3.1 million for the reconstruction of Gentile Street from 2200 West to the Syracuse border.
* $1.4 million for University Park Boulevard improvements from the corner of North Layton Junior High to the Clearfield border.
* $1.75 million to extend Fairfield Road into the East Gate development.
* $1.2 million in sharing costs to build a gymnasium with the No. 15 junior high school under construction in west Layton
* A 3 percent cost-of-living increase for city employees.
Ashby said the cost-of-living increase does not include any merit pay increases employees may receive.
But based on the projected budget, merit pay increases provided to employees are not expected to be as large as previous years', he said.
Curtis said he is confident revenues will turn around for the city next year.
If revenues don't pick up, the council will have to take a different approach to the budget next year, Ashby said.
The city had a $52.7 million budget for fiscal year 2007-08, which was about $4 million more than the previous year.
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