A few budget matters will be on the city’s plate to wrap up 2020’s business.
Iola City Council members discussed items Monday, including year-end budget transfers for the library, industrial and major projects (sales tax) funds.
The Council scheduled a Dec. 14 budget hearing to set year-end transfers necessary to balance the city’s books by year’s end.
Council members must increase their budget authority to support Allen County Regional Hospital by $50,000 to $350,000, to reflect additional sales tax revenue the city received for the year.
This is the last year Iola is supporting the hospital with its sales tax proceeds.
The industrial fund needed a higher authority to accommodate a $125,000 incentive Council members authorized to Peerless Products, which is opening a production facility in Iola soon.
The library authority hike was necessary because the city brought in $222,119 in taxes to support the library this year, beyond the original $200,000 budget authority.
Council members also will discuss at their Dec. 14 meeting spending between $30,000 to $35,000 for a geotechnical study of U.S. 54.
The study would help the city decide whether a full rebuild of the highway is necessary. Engineers estimate such a project could carry up to a $13 million price tag.
Engineers from Burns & McDonald already have conducted a pavement core analysis and surveyed local residents on their concerns about the highway.
But Council members expressed a desire to determine the condition of the road’s base, which would be replaced in a full-scale rebuild.
Interim City Administrator Corey Schinstock said he would bring a contract proposal to the Council at its next meeting. If approved, the budget expenditure would not be made until January.
“I’m concerned about spending that this year,” because future budget amendments would not be possible after the Dec. 14 meeting, Schinstock noted, the last meeting of the year for the city.
COUNCIL members approved cereal malt beverage license renewals for Dollar General and G&W Foods for 2021.
All of Iola’s other vendors who sell beer and other CMB products had already applied for and received their license renewals.
