City Hall 3Jamestown, ND (KCSi-T.V. News) — The Jamestown City Council held a Budget Committee meeting Wednesday (Sept 25, 2013) at 4-p.m., at City Hall, to discuss the 2014 budget. 

All members were present.

City Administrator Jeff Fuchs said the 2013 General Fund budget will end with $600,000 in revenues, and noted the state legislature’s additional funding distributed to political subdivisions.

With the water utility budget for 2014, at the outset, not enough revenue was estimated available relative to request expenditures.

The budget requests were reviewed and some areas were trimmed.

Water Department Superintendent Steve Suko said some items would be able to be trimmed, but the requests will come back in subswquent years.

The water department is looking at meter replacements, and installing new meters, and is looking at remote reading equipment. Mayor Andersen said the remote reading costs will not be in the budget, however, a financing plan will be looked at in the future.

Renovation of the water storage tank at Cavenish is estimated at $490,000 and the costs will come from the utility reserves. The clean waste water treatment filter replacement cost was approved. Replacement of water line infrastructure will be Special Assessed to areas that will benefit from replacements, with the city paying 25 percent of the costs.

With infrastructure planning, some items will be budget, and individual requests will come to the City Council, for approval.

With the sewer utility, it starts at a negative balance of $2.5 million.  A request for a raker building, which keeps debris out of the pumps was taken out of the proposed budget.

FEMA Hazard Mitigation grants, if approved may pay for some of the budget items. Removed from the budget was $28,000 for a new automated gate, and replacement of sewer lines was removed, and costs mainly Special Assessed to affected property owners.  The request for an additional employee is in the budget, in the event the person is necessary with the GRE plant coming on line later.

Water and sewer rates will be raised by three percent.

With the Sanitation Department budget, a balance of $30,000 is anticipated.

With the Solid Waste budget, it shows a negative ending balance of $104,375, some of which is dollars required to be set aside, by the State Health Department, if needed.Some funds will be transferred from the Sanitation budget. An incremental rate increase of five percent will still be needed, along with fees, to balance the budgets in Solid Waste and Sanitation for 2014.

The meeting was shown live on CSi Cable 67 followed by replays.