Slow Summer Musings

8/2/13

Well, it's the dog days of summer and things at Shorewood City Hall are slow too.

At the last council meeting, the 2014 draft budget was discussed. Not much was accomplished. The City Administrator presented a budget with no tax increase and was short of more than $200,000 in funding to be balanced. Staff reported that the levy limit imposed by the State wasn't much of an issue in that loop holes would allow the City to raise taxes more than $600,000.

Sale of the City-owned house on country Club Rd. is expected to raise $250,000 which can be used in any way the Council wants.

Meanwhile, a rate study for the sanitary sewer and storm sewer funds is getting underway. The storm sewer fund is running out of money. A hefty rate increase there is likely unless spending plans are curtailed. Cutting spending may be impractical since new federal and state rules are driving more expensive approaches to controlling storm water and pollution.

The sanitary sewer fund is also heading into negative territory, but not as soon as storm sewer. One may recall that about five years ago, $1 million was taken from this fund and placed in the Community Infrastructure fund along with about $800,000 left from sale of the liquor stores. Now, the sewer fund is getting short and Council Member Hotvet's pet trail projects have spent about 80% of the money to do about 20% of the 10-year trail plan. No word from Hotvet as to how the rest of the trail projects will get funded.

Enough.

The Insider forecasts a 3% general levy increase for 2014. Reserves also will be used to bring the budget into balance. Storm sewer and sanitary sewer rates will go up by the end of this year. Hotvet will want to spend all the house proceeds on trails and kick the can down the road on dealing with other budget issues. Will the rest of Council go along?

Happy Reading!
The Insider