The public hearing for the City of Jefferson’s 2022 fiscal year budget is slated for later this month and it appears the expenses and revenues are projected to equal each other.

The projection is that the City’s general fund expenses and revenues are $3,152,290. City Administrator Mike Palmer says in a year where some revenues such as hotel/motel tax, road use tax and other variables, he points out that the backfill for commercial properties from the state helped bring their revenues up a lot. Palmer says the state reduced the valuation of commercial properties and instead of receiving 100-percent of the valuation, they are projected to receive 90-percent.

“Well nobody’s ever really sure if that would actually happen. So we just kind of did not account for that over the years, and rightfully so because sometimes those promises just don’t happen. But it has happened, we have got the backfill and we’re projected to get it this year so we did figure it in. And that helped equalize our budget greatly.”

Palmer notes other major expenses included an increase in operational costs from the police department when the Greene County Sheriff’s Office moves to the new law enforcement center at the former Midland Power Cooperative building, the fire department asking for a match for a grant to purchase a generator for the fire station, and the library.

“They’ve had a long-term plan to raise the part-time wages. They’ve been operating pretty much on minimum wage for years and years, and this was in their plans to raise it up. The finance committee agreed that that was a reasonable number to do.”       

The total proposed tax levy for the 2022 fiscal year is $14.91, which is a decrease compared to the current fiscal year of $15.10. The total tax levy is made up of the general fund and debt service levies, which are projected as $12.55 and $2.36 per $1,000 of valuation, respectively.