2 weeks Ago By FLETCHER HALFAKER Star-Herald
The City of Gering announced its fiscal year 2025 property tax request of $2,181,743 at a budget hearing Wednesday evening, but has not yet given final approval to the tax request or the budget. The tax request for the coming year is greater than last year’s request by around $50,000, which is within the city’s total allowable growth percentage of 2.4%.
As such, Gering officials will not attend the joint public hearing at Mitchell High School on Tuesday. The resulting property tax request rate comes out to 32 cents per $100 of assessed valuation, slightly down from last year’s rate of 34 cents. Though very little discussion was held on the night of the hearing, City Administrator Pat Heath included a letter as a foreword to the budget report.
In that letter, Heath discussed the work that went into budget preparation, which included forecasting the next six years in an attempt to prepare for future needs and challenges. “The direction for this budget is to continue to concentrate on infrastructure, equipment needs and maintenance of existing facilities,” Heath wrote. “Department Heads presented their necessities lists and their best estimate to run their departments efficiently and effectively to provide the same level of service in the future as they are providing today.
” Preparations for the future included a goal of establishing 25% contingency funds in each department to cover costs more effectively and developing strategies that will enable some departments — such as sanitation, streets and wastewater to “pay for future projects with cash instead of issuing debt, saving the City considerable interest charges and other fees,” he wrote. The city’s budget documents also broke down what percentage of each dollar budgeted in its general fund goes to different city departments. That report shows nearly 50% of funds going to the Gering Police Department, with the second largest portion being directed to parks and pools.
Though those departments receive more funding than others under the general fund, their growth this year is relatively low. The police budget is set to increase by less than $100,000, mostly due to personnel expenses. The parks and pool budget is set to increase by just under $120,000, with capital improvements — playground equipment, pool facility study, etc.
— as the largest addition. Personnel is the largest source of budget growth in most other departments as well, including cemetery, fire, library and engineering. This increase is largest in the engineering department — more than $30,000 — which the city previously said is due to the addition of a new full-time position in that office.
The Gering City Council will hold a public hearing for its tax request at 5:15 p.m. Monday at Gering City Hall, 1025 P St.
The hearing will be followed by action on the tax request and budget during the regular council meeting at 6 p.m. Contact Fletcher Halfaker: fletcher.
[email protected] , 308-632-9048. We're always interested in hearing about news in our community.
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