In order to have a budget you have to have revenues matching expenses, and the Cheney City Council got a first look at what income the city can expect in 2015 at their Oct. 28 meeting.
Cheney’s assessed valuation has been climbing each year, and the good news in 2015 is that trend continues, increasing by $2,188,346 over 2014 valuation to a total of $512. 4 million, according to data from the Spokane County Assessors Office. The result to the city coffers is the emergency medical services levy for 2015 will increase $2,555, 1 percent, while the city’s general property tax levy rises another 1 percent, an increase of $12,118.87.
The bad news is that’s not a lot of money capable of covering some of the city’s increasing general fund future budget needs, and not as much as other cities of similar size. The reason, Mayor Tom Trulove told the council, is that large portions of the city are property tax exempt, such as Eastern Washington University and the Cheney School District, yet still require city services. Some of those are covered through individual contracts, such as the fire contract with EWU.
Trulove also noted that the property tax levy increase isn’t calculated on the total assessed property value but rather on the total taxes collected in the previous year.
“For us last year, it was about 12 grand,” he said.
Cheney’s 2014 total levy amount per $1,000 in assessed value came to just over $2.87. According to the Assessor’s data, the largest slice of the tax pie goes to schools, just over $5.05 per $1,000 for Cheney’s maintenance and operations levy and school construction bond and another $2.37 per $1,000 to the state.
As for general fund revenues, about 59 percent of those will be comprised of local taxes, up 3 percent from 2014. The city estimates it will receive $3,940,700 in tax revenue, an increase of $175,300 over 2014.
“Most of that money comes from sales and property taxes,” Finance Director Cindy Niemeier said.
Put together, sales and property taxes total $2,481,000. The remaining amount is divided up in varying amounts between seven other tax categories.
Two percent of the General Fund revenue comes from licenses and permits, 3 percent is intergovernmental fees such as grants, state assistance, excise taxes from motor vehicles and liquor and a liquor profit tax. Another 3 percent comes from court fines, with the rest of the fund revenue, 33 percent, is derived from charges for services such as EWU police dispatching, Cheney School District SRO officer, building and planning fees and court administrative fees.
All total, Cheney’s 2015 General Fund revenue is estimated at $6,728,000, a decrease of $49,400 from 2014. The bright spot in this for Niemeier is that in order to balance revenues with expenses, the city didn’t need to carry any cash over from the previous year. Last year, Cheney carried $317,400 in cash over from the 2013 to budget.
“This is the first year since I’ve done budgeting here that’s been zero,” Niemeier said.
Also at Tuesday night’s meeting the council began its budget review process by hearing presentations from governmental funds department heads — administration, fire, finance, municipal court, police along with parks and recreation. The council will hear presentations at its next meeting, from enterprise fund department heads — light and public works.
The council’s regular monthly meeting scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 11, has been moved to Wednesday, Nov. 12 at 6 p.m. due to the Veterans Day holiday.
John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].
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