FY21 Budget
FY21 Budget and Five Year CIP
The budget for FY21 has been adopted by City Council after taking into consideration the need to remain flexible and conservative due to potential impacts from COVID-19 on the City’s finances. Fortunately, resiliency steps taken in prior years - such as shifting property taxes to the General Fund to reduce dependence on sales taxes, and conservative revenue estimating- have put the City in a healthy financial position. The focus on this year’s budget is financial resiliency, responsible decision making, and flexibility for the City to respond to challenges that may result from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and economic impacts. The unknown duration of the pandemic and recession have placed unique challenges on the preparation of this budget. As the economy started to feel the impacts of the global pandemic, the City implemented immediate corrective actions to rein in spending until the impacts on the City’s finances could be determined. The pandemic has affected the City in other ways as well- the travel industry was impacted by stay at home orders and limits on gatherings of groups- resulting in declines in hotel occupancy. The City’s response was quick, evaluating economic scenarios and implementing corrective actions to manage spending within available revenue streams.
The FY21 budget continues our conservative approach to financial planning and reflects the City’s responsible budgeting practices. A few of the measures taken to maintain a conservative and responsible approach to the fiscal year 2021 budget were:
- A recognition that the pandemic and oil & gas slowdown have a compounding impact on the City’s economy
- Delay implementation of major initiatives such as infrastructure rehabilitation and employee merit increases, to ensure revenue streams are stable
- Identification of reductions to service levels that can be made if the economic recovery is slower than anticipated
FY21 Budget and Five Year Capital Improvement Program
FY21 Budget
The adopted budget provides flexibility to respond to the pandemic along with responsible resource allocation to staff to provide services to residents. There are no new positions and no new services proposed in the budget. Our focus is on maintaining the high quality of services that our residents expect.
| Fund | FY21 Budget |
FY20 Budget |
$ Change |
% Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| General Fund | $ 97,786,211 |
$ 97,220,058 |
$ 566,153 |
0.6% |
| Debt Service Funds | 32,086,464 |
32,592,477 |
-506,013 |
-1.6% |
| Utility Fund | 44,628,068 |
43,617,889 |
1,010,179 |
2.3% |
| Airport Fund | 13,280,686 |
15,424,781 |
-2,144,095 |
-13.9% |
| Solid Waste Fund | 8,631,958 |
8,368,456 |
263,502 |
3.1% |
| Economic Development Corps | 11,692,473 |
14,954,286 |
-3,261,813 |
-21.8% |
| Other Funds | 18,039,953 |
19,750,685 |
-1,710,732 |
-8.7% |
| Total Operating Funds | $ 226,145,813 |
$ 231,928,632 |
$ -5,782,819 |
-2.5% |
| Capital Projects | 27,953,500 |
40,524,175 |
-12,870,675 |
-31.0% |
| FY21 Total Budget | $ 254,099,313 |
$272,452,807 |
$ -18,192,350 |
-6.7% |
GO Bond Implementation
Adaptation is a key to success- we recognize that things don’t always go as planned and that circumstances can change. The GO bond program that was approved by voters in November 2019 was planned to be implemented over a three-year period with a 3-cent tax increase in 2020.
However, with the current economic situation, City Council has prioritized and adjusted the bond projects to be implemented over a five-year period instead of three. As a result, the tax impact will be minimized in 2020 and remaining increases spread over the next 3 years – with FY21 focused on priority drainage projects to address structural flooding.