Jamestown  (CSi)  The Jamestown City budget committee meeting was held Wednesday morning at City Hall, to further discuss the 2019 city budget.

At the last budget meeting, the committee left the preliminary budget with an mill levy increase of 24 mills, in order to have nearly $2 million dollars in the reserve fund, and offset the projected deficit.

On a recent Wayne Byers Show on CSi Cable 2, Mayor Heinrich said the city budget process takes in to account that the city’s share of General Fund budget dollars was insufficient to fund both the Jamestown Police and Fire Department budgets.  He pointed out that with cuts in state funding, Jamestown will have a total of $886,000 less in available funding from the state compared to the past few years.  That includes $386,000 no longer coming from the North Dakota’s property tax subsidy,  in addition to $500,000 less in state funding for the 2019 city budget, stemming from a sharp downturn in the gas and oil extraction tax.

At Wednesday’s meeting of the budget committee, City Administrator Sarah Helleckson reviewed various budgets with income an expenditures.

She said the mill level increase is reduced to 19 mills, which would raise, $4,840,000.

The reduction stems from transferring $1.4 million from utility funds, including $676,000 out of the water utility, along with the sanitary sewer, and vector control funds.

The 2019 General Fund budget is $8.5 million, with expenditures of $8.25 million.

That leaves the 2019 General Fund budget with $2-million, in reserves, which was the goal.

Mayor Dwaine Heinrich said with the income side of utility fee collections, the dollars needed with a rate increase will need to be determined.

The option of utilizing a portion of  the 7-percent city sales tax, being transferred, to the General Fund was discussed, but was not seriously considered at Wednesday’s meeting.  That could be accomplished by City Council vote, or a public vote, including any increase in the tax.

Mayor Heinrich pointed out that the North Dakota legislature meets in 2019, and constituents should talk with their representatives about possibly allotting more budget dollars for cities.

At Wednesday’s meeting the Council decided, that before making a decision on accepting the preliminary budget, to review the revised the figures, and determine how much the utility rates need to be increased, to raise the appropriate number of dollars.

The next budget meeting is set for Monday September 10th, at 2-p.m., at City Hall.

The committee has until October 10th  to approve a final budget.

Wednesday’s meeting was shown live on CSi 67.