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Fort Scott water rates to increase in 2019, mill levy unchanged
Fort Scott City Commissioners on July 17 got a glimpse of the proposed 2019 city budget, which reflects the same mill levy as the 2018 budget.
Commissioners held a work session with Director of Finance Jon Garrison and other city officials to discuss the 2019 budget. Garrison outlined some key expenditures and other aspects of the budget during the session.
The proposed budget shows an overall mill levy of 48.195 mills, with an assessed valuation of $44,109,076, down .28 percent from the 2018 figure, $44,231,509. Assessed valuation for the city grew 1.61 percent from 2017 to 2018.
“We’re keeping the mill levy the same on the lower valuation,” Garrison said. “We lost about $5,800. We didn’t want the mill levy going up so we kept it the same. We just absorbed it (loss) to keep the mill levy the same.”
The 2019 budget shows total city expenditures of $20,236,307. Garrison said the city is “carrying over” $3,518,217 with new revenues of about $16.7 million anticipated for 2019.
There is also a 3-percent increase in employee salaries, increases in rates for the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System (KPERS) and Kansas Police and Fire benefits, and an increase in cost for worker’s compensation insurance budgeted for 2019. Garrison said the city will absorb the changes within the budget without raising the mill levy.
Garrison said the cost for KPERS and KPF benefits will be about $60,000 more in 2019 than they were in 2018.
Garrison and commissioners also talked about two major projects the city plans to undertake in 2019; rehabilitation of the city’s river intake structure, an approximately $5 million project, and replacement of two fire trucks for the Fort Scott Fire Department at a cost of about $1.5 million.
City officials have applied for a low-interest loan through the USDA Rural Development to finance the river intake project. The annual debt payment would be about $252,000 over the 40-year term of the loan.
Garrison and commissioners discussed a slight increase in water rates to repay the loan.
“Two big items we talked about were the river intake structure and how to pay for that,” he said. “We would need about 10 percent more revenue in the water utility. Every year we do a 3-percent increase in all water rates (water, storm water and wastewater.)”
In addition to that 3-percent increase, the 2019 budget will include a 5-percent increase in the water rate for a total increase of 8 percent, Garrison said.
“We will do 5 percent this year and maybe not as much next year,” he said, adding water revenues have started to rise.
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