Budget committee gets first overview of fiscal 2017 proposal

Columbus Council, meeting for the first time this year as the Budget Review Committee, got its first in-depth overview of Mayor Teresa Tomlinson’s $270 million proposed fiscal 2017 budget.

Councilor and Budget Review Chairman Skip Henderson said that over the next month, the council will meet weekly as the Budget Review Committee, looking over specific departments and often hearing from department heads who might have concerns. Along the way, they will make up what they call an “add-delete list” of items individual councilors might want to put in or take out of the budget. Then they will meet to vote as a group on those items, with the understanding that the sum total of the budget has to remain the same, or practically so.

“We’ll listen to some of the department heads who may want to request additional funding,” Henderson said, then laughed. “I haven’t seen it yet, but one could come here and offer to turn some money back in.”

Some of the overall specifics the committee heard Tuesday:

As in 2016, almost three-quarters of the city’s revenue comes from three sources: property taxes, 31 percent, sales and use taxes, 27 percent and charges for services, 15 percent.

And as in 2016, almost exactly half the budget goes to two places: public safety (39 percent) and public works (11 percent).

And, as always, well over half of the expense, 56.4 percent, goes to personnel costs.

The most obvious difference between this and other recent budgets is a 2 percent cost of living raise for all city employees. But also as in past years, health care costs are increasing, so that will likely prevent much of the COLA from reaching workers’ hands.

The budget also includes numerous fee increases across the spectrum. Most visible will be parking tickets rising from $30 to $40 and the garbage fee, which will rise from $15 to $17 a month. Other increases, such as permit fees from the Inspections and Codes Department, Fire and EMS, and participation fees within Parks and Recreation, will hit only specific groups.

Some subsidies, the Civic Center, Integrated Waste and Parking Management, were eliminated in the 2017 budget, but others, such as Bull Creek Golf Course ($50,000) and Oxbow Creek Golf Course ($250,000) remain funded.

The budget projects that the Other Local Option Sales Tax, which is dedicated to public safety (70 percent) and infrastructure (30 percent) will produce $34.3 million this year.

That money annually funds about 185 jobs in the police and fire departments, sheriff’s and marshal’s offices, and in various prosecutors and court offices. This year it will also provide capital funds for 34 new police vehicles and 50 body armor vests for police, and $250,000 for the Sheriff’s office.

On the infrastructure side, it will provide $1.4 million for road and bridge work, $500,000 for flood and stormwater work, more than $1 million for IT improvements and $500,000 toward the expansion of the Cooper Creek Tennis Center.

Council will convene again as the budget review committee next Tuesday from 1-4 p.m. and then weekly until the budget is worked out and approved, which must be before July 1, the start of the new fiscal year.

This story was originally published May 3, 2016 at 7:04 PM with the headline "Budget committee gets first overview of fiscal 2017 proposal."