Centralia City Manager Forrest Langenfeld gave a six month update on the city budget at Monday night’s city council meeting and said it appears to him that a property tax increase is needed.
Overall for the first six months of the year, Langenfeld says revenue is a little above normal and expenses are at 43-percent of budget. However, he warned there are some unexpected expenses in the second half of the year that will probably make this a “break-even” year. Among them anticipated a lot of overtime at the police department due to injuries and vacancies, repairs to a storm damaged portion of the roof at the Public Works Building, and replacement of the roof on the former city hall now housing the Police and Fire Departments.
Langenfeld says most of the city’s budget issues are driven by the city’s pension funding problem.
“As of right now we are spending 81-cents of every dollar of property tax collected on trying to catch up with the pension short fall. That only leaves 19-cents on the dollar going to city expenses.”
Langenfeld feels the council will have to look at raising the city’s property tax following years of no increases.
“You are going to have to look at increasing the property tax levy. There is just no way around it. It’s been let go and avoided for a number of years and now unfortunately the bill is coming due on this.”
Langenfeld notes with cuts made last year, the city’s budget is at its lowest level in a number of years. He says the city has exhausted almost all of its reserves and the council will need to starting working to rebuild them to shore-up the city’s finances.
