The Jefferson City Council met last night in regular session.

The Council approved the 2015 budget with a $2,385,639 for expected revenues and $2,381,061 for expected expenses for a difference of $4,576 in the black.  With some potential rollbacks in property taxes from the state coming in a couple of years, City Administrator Mike Palmer talks about what the City is doing to offset some of those potential budget hits.

“Especially what Jefferson’s been able to do is diversify their economy even more and more with sales tax revenues especially in our Local Option Sales (and Services) Tax, that’s a big one for us because that’s not reliant on property taxes.”

The Council also approved an engineering contract with MHF Engineering to do a utility study of the water and sewer usage for the northwest portion of the City for future development purposes and they adopted a resolution to vacate the Union Pacific Railroad crossing at Pinet Street.  The public hearing about permanently closing that intersection will be held at the next meeting on March 25th.

The Council also extended its 100% tax abatement for property improvements for three more years with the Urban Revitalization Plan until 2016 and approved the first reading to adopt the 2012 International Property Maintenance Codes.  Palmer points out that these codes are not meant to be heavy handed but rather a tool to use for enforcing certain areas of concern to be brought up to code mainly on a complaint basis only.