On Tuesday, the Ogden City Council unanimously adopted a $268 million 2025 budget for the city.

This included a property tax hike that was above what had been proposed at the beginning of the budgeting cycle.

“The proposed budget originally included a 1% tax increase to provide mental health resources for public safety employees,” according to a city press release on the budget adoption. “It was also proposed to transfer $1.8 million from BDO Lease Revenue to the General Fund to offset growing costs of operations, materials, and supplies resulting from inflationary pressures.”

However, this led to some concerns.

“Council members recognized the budgetary needs but expressed concern with a change in policy to use BDO funds for ongoing expenses rather than one-time expenses,” the press release said. “The Council and administration collaborated to address these concerns differently. The result was a decision to maintain last year’s Certified Property Tax Rate, which will generate approximately $1 million in additional property tax revenue for the city. Maintaining the 2023 rate resulted in a 5.36% property tax increase or about a $26 increase on the average residential property tax bill.”

During Tuesday night’s meeting, Council Member Richard Hyer said the council worked hard on this point.

“We are tasked with making sure that our city is healthy, we provide the appropriate services for the residents, that we’re not wasting money,” he said. “This year, in particular, we had a new mayor. When he came and made his proposed budget in May, it was different than we had it in the past, and it caused we as council members to really roll up our sleeves. We all did, as did the administration. We took a really deep dive to make sure that we were — with the information that we had available — making our compensation appropriate for the employees.”

In addition to the tax hike, some employees will see an increase in salaries.

Under the FY2025 budget, employees below the market salary range will be brought up to minimum and may receive up to a 4% merit increase.

“The employee compensation is the lion’s share of what we spend money on in the city,” Hyer said. “If we don’t pay them enough, they go to other municipalities, they leave to get another job. It’s not worth it going to work, so they quit, and we are left without those services being provided. If we pay them too much, then we have higher taxes. So, it’s a balancing act that we all have to kind of weigh out.”

Council Chair Ken Richey said the budget process isn’t an easy one.

“The budget process was rigorous,” he said. “It’s not a comfortable conversation to have, but I believe we’ve developed a good budget, and it took all hands on deck to get there.”

For more information on the adopted budget, visit https://ogdencity.com/budgetprocess.