Spending plan approval for Ketchum delayed until Sept. 11
Time and money. As far as city coffers go, Ketchum needs more of both and Sun Valley doesn’t. City budgets are a little more complicated than that, but here’s a rundown of each north Valley city’s spending plan for fiscal year 2020.
Playin’ Catch-Up In Ketchum
When the City of Ketchum lost its contract with Ketchum Rural Fire District earlier this year, staff and council knew they’d have a roughly $325,000 reduction in revenue for fiscal year 2019-20. What they didn’t know was how they were going to make up for it.
Enter Mayor Neil Bradshaw’s plan to reduce staff—through attrition not termination—by two and make other budget cuts as needed to avoid dipping into the city’s “rainy day” funds beyond what’s normal. By the third council session to review the budget proposal, city councilmembers directed the mayor and staff to go about it differently. Instead, the budget that is being proposed now and is expected to be approved at a special Sept. 11 meeting will take an additional $35,000 out of the city reserves, reduce Mountain Rides and marketing expenditures by $40,000 each, and cut sidewalk improvement plans by $100,000. Other spending reductions will make up the rest of the gap.
All of this means the Ketchum Fire Department will not see a loss of personnel. It also means the budget, assuming it gets approved next week, will meet county and state deadlines for adoption on Oct. 1, when the fiscal year begins.
“It’s not typical that we don’t get a budget approved by the third reading, but this is not a typical year,” Ketchum Mayor Neil Bradshaw said.
Ketchum began the budget planning process with a $700,000 gap between what city department heads requested in funding versus what city revenue projections said they’d have. Over the summer, Bradshaw and staff took what the mayor called a “scalpel” approach to the deficit. The result was a proposed budget that was met with ambivalence by councilmembers, especially as budget-setting deadlines were fast approaching.
The public is welcome to comment at the Sept. 11 meeting, which will be held at Ketchum City Hall at noon.
Sun Valley Tally
It was smoother sailing in neighboring Sun Valley where the city council voted unanimously in August to approve their spending plan for the fiscal year ahead. The plan? To spend $16.5 million on city needs without hiking up property taxes on landowners here.
Sun Valley is able to keep tax rates as is due in part to a $17.5 million levy on road and pathway improvements it’s halfway done spending. The overall spending breakdown for the ski resort city looks like this:
- General Fund: $6,000,465
- Fixed Asset Fund: $1,025,294
- Debt Service Fund: $1,255,797
- Capital Improvement Fund: $1,745,300
- Workforce Housing Fund: $79,722
- 1% Local Option Tax Fund: $654,091
- Street & Path Fund: $148,000
- 2018 Bond Construction Fund: $5,620,800
- Grand Total: $16,529,469