Shawano taxpayers will see another increase in their tax bills this year, but less of a hike than they were hit with last year, under the 2014 budget being considered by the city.
The Shawano Finance Committee has not formally signed off on the proposed budget and will not do that until its Nov. 11 meeting. However, the city still plans on publishing legal notices for the budget next week.
The budget calls for an increase in the city’s share of the tax levy of 1.52 percent, to $4.5 million from last year’s $4.43 million.
That is expected to translate into a tax rate of $8.77 per $1,000 of assessed value; a 17 cent increase over last year’s $8.60 per $1,000.
Last year, city officials were facing a $300,000 revenue shortfall and adopted a mix of tax increases and budget cuts.
The city levy went up by 4.1 percent last year, while the tax rate for city purposes rose by 28 cents per $1,000.
The city also cut a number of staff, including the building inspector, deputy treasurer, several positions at the Department of Public Works, a part-time clerical position and a crossing guard at the Police Department, and the caretaker position at Woodlawn Cemetery.
The crossing guard was restored for half a year before being eliminated over the summer, and the city is now contracting with its former full-time building inspector, Mike Miller, for those services.
None of the other positions have been restored in the 2014 budget.
“Much of the structural deficit we had last year was addressed with the staff reductions,” said City Administrator Brian Knapp, who called next year’s budget basically “status quo.”
The proposed budget does, however, does include a 3 percent, mostly across-the-board, wage hike, with a few variations, according to Knapp.
Last year’s budget had no wage increases for departments heads or their staff.
One new line-item is $25,000 for enhanced drug enforcement efforts. The city tapped its general fund last year for the new expense, but decided it should be a budgeted item going forward.
The city is also proposing an increase in capital improvement projects next year, with a $2.2 million budget compared to $1.4 million this year. However, most of that expense was already borrowed for this year.
The city is proposing a 2 percent increase in the debt service portion of the levy, to roughly $1.58 million; an increase of just over $31,000.
The city’s general fund expenditures would increase by 1.9 percent, or $122,000, to roughly $6.6 million.
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