The City of Newton is looking at a nearly $3.3 million budget that, if approved, would give most city employees a one percent raise for the new budget year, which begins Oct. 1.
City Clerk Charlene Evans said the raise would increase the personnel salaries by about $19,100 from this year.
However, Mayor Murray Weems said that the city’s revenues are not increasing as much as they should to keep up with the costs of the city’s current services. While he didn’t advocate raising taxes, he did suggest that the city could increase rates on the monthly utility bills to help generate more revenue to help keep up with debt service payments.
“I think it’s to the point in time that we’ve got to revisit all of our money coming in,” Weems said. “We’ve got to generate more revenue to pay for the pay increase, to pay for our debt service and to maintain city services.
“To keep us in line with where we need to be without getting behind, we’ve got to make some pretty good increases.”
Weems suggested increasing the capital outlay by $3, which would generate an additional $58,000.
Jay Powell, parks and recreation director, said the city’s debt payment each year is at least $210,000. The current capital outlay brings in around $140,000 per year, leaving the city with about $70,000 they need to pay out of pocket to cover that debt payment that would likely come from the general fund.
“That’s killing us,” Powell said.
Last year, the city passed a $2.55 increase on the water rate last July and another $2.55 increase this July. But Weems said that’s not enough. In the near future, he said they would
One other way to increase revenue would be annexation. Alderman Bob Bridges suggested the idea if the city didn’t want to raise taxes or usage fees.
No action was taken during the July 30 budget workshop. The city will have a budget hearing prior to passage of the 2019-2020 budget.
