Nov 4, 2022 3 min read

Washington City Council had the first reading of the 2023 budget on Thursday, which calls for no tax increase.

The preliminary spending plan shows $14,943,103 in anticipated revenues and $15,050,555 in anticipated expenditures, resulting in a deficit of less than $100,000.

Susie Koehler, deputy city finance officer, said Thursday that it should be a relatively easy task to make up the remaining deficit.

Millage in the city is levied at 38.71 mills for land and 4.03 for buildings. Those figures have remained steady since the 2019 budget.

Taxes are anticipated to generate about 64% of the anticipated revenue, while departmental costs cover the majority of anticipated expenditures. The anticipated cost for police protection is nearly $2.7 million, and fire protection is expected to cost $1.8 million.

The budget will be on display for 21 days with the final spending plan scheduled for adoption in December.

Also Thursday, council unanimously approved a payment of $14,351 to Motorola Solutions for the first year of a five-year contract for 18 body-worn cameras, cloud-based storage of video and camera replacement and maintenance.

The city’s police department used four such cameras on a trial basis in August, and Chief Daniel Rush said the trial was a success. He reiterated Thursday that the subsequent four payments for the cameras will be a little bit lower.

“Optimally, we would have liked to have had one for each officer, but it wasn’t financially feasible,” Rush said. “Eighteen is an equitable number. It allows us to fill three full shifts of officers at one time with body cameras.”

Rush added that after three years the city will receive 18 new cameras. If after five years, the city decides not to renew the contract, the city gets to keep the 18 cameras, per the contract.

The department should have the cameras in the first quarter of 2023.

Council also approved the promotion of Michael Cain from corporal to police patrol sergeant.

Also at the meeting, City Administrator Donn Henderson said a motion will be on the agenda in December for a $10 landlord registration fee.

“We’re not charging anything at this point and it’s costing us almost $10,000 a year to process the landlord registration,” he explained. “The $10 fee is lower than most (communities) and very reasonable, we believe, to offset the cost of implementing that program.”

Henderson also said a quality-of-life ticketing ordinance to help combat blight in the city is expected to be on the December agenda. The ordinance would expedite the enforcement process. It would allow the city to levy a fine for violation of property maintenance such as high grass, garbage dumping and similar issues.

In other business, council unanimously approved its meeting schedule for 2023. In a slight change, all meetings will begin at 6 p.m. The business meetings had been starting at 7 p.m. with some meetings throughout the year starting at 1 p.m.

“We get the same crowd whether it’s a daytime meeting or a nighttime meeting,” said Mayor Scott Putnam. “To make it easier for everyone, we’ll have all meetings at 6 o’clock to avoid confusion.”