Dec 11, 2019 3 min read

Washington City council approved its 2020 budget with no tax increase. It’s the first time in three years the city hasn’t raised taxes.

“It was not easy,” said Councilman Joseph Manning during Thursday’s meeting. “There was no tax increase and no reduction of services.”

The city’s anticipated revenue for 2020 is $14,765,488, and its anticipated expenses are $14,761,928. It’s not far off 2019’s spending budget of about $14.8 million.

The majority of the anticipated 2020 expenses are departmental, with police protection costing $2.4 million and fire protection costing about $1.9 million. Accounts and finance positions and the solid waste and recycling contract are expected to cost $1.3 million, while public works and parks and public buildings will cost $1.3 million. The city has anticipated $2.9 million going toward debt service and $4.1 million toward “miscellaneous expenditures,” like pensions and healthcare plans.

Manning said the city established a new healthcare plan which saved a significant amount of money.

“We’re self-insured for everything, so we have a broker,” Manning said. “They were able to come up with a new model to save us about $200,000.”

That money helped balance the budget, fund different projects and build up the general fund reserves, Manning said. About $50,000 of that savings went to the street department for additional paving, he said.

“We were able to balance the budget and cover everything we’ll need, including some additional paving projects,” Manning said.

Councilman Ken Westcott said he would like that money to go toward paving three blocks of Springfield Avenue that have been in need of repair.

“This will get us another street or two done next year, because we’re just falling behind,” he said.

In other action Thursday, council approved the purchase of paving equipment for the street department, including a Stepp Mini Tank Distributor and a Seal Master totaling about $72,981. Westcott thanked council for the purchase, stating the new equipment will “save us money in the long run.”

Council also approved to advertise a bid for the milling and paving of Hall and Hallam avenues, which Westcott said would be a spring project paid for with Municipal Liquid Fuels Program funds.

“They’ve been paved so much there’s no curb, so they need to be milled,” Westcott said during the meeting.

The city’s sending that project to bid because it’d be cheaper that doing it in-house and having to rent a milling machine, he said.

“When you have to go out and rent a milling machine, it’s cost prohibitive,” Westcott said.