by Dennis Dalman
A preliminary flat-tax levy and budget for 2025 of $10,421,500 was approved unanimously by the Sartell City Council at its Sept. 23 meeting.
Some tweaking of that levy/budget is likely to happen before it’s approved as final in December.
It is just the latest flat-tax budget approved in recent years by the council – flat tax meaning one’s city property tax should not increase unless market value of one’s property has increased.
The prelim budget allocates $7,977,000 for the city’s General Fund and $796,000 for the Capital/Equipment Fund. The rest of the budget will help to pay on previous projects: Pinecone Road improvement, a new fire truck, the Public Works facility, the three construction phases of the Public Safety facility (the new building constructed previously for the police and fire departments).
Sartell Financial Director Rob Voshell outlined the budget for the council. The biggest portion of the General Fund (about 75 percent of it) is used for people-oriented costs, such as salaries and benefits.
A breakdown of the budget amounts are as follows, compared to this year, 2024:
Public Safety, up 12.3 percent ($6,512,718); Public Works, up 1 percent ($1,728,400); Parks and Recreation, up 24.3 percent ($1,550,300); General Government, up 8.2 percent ($1,320,850); Community and Economic Development, down 34.7 percent ($226,400).
There will be funds to pay for three new police officers next year, but city staff and the council agree there should ideally not be any additional hirings in the other departments.
Before that presentation, he also outlined key elements of Sartell’s new 10-year Financial Management Plan. The prelim budget for 2025 was largely predicated on that plan, as well as a community-wide survey and a recent Water Utility Rate Study. More on those two studies will be featured in an upcoming Newsleaders edition. The gist of both is a methodical, complex, detailed plan by the city to “tighten the belt” on expenses so in the future most new projects or services would be paid by accumulations of cash rather than financing projects/services through debt service.
