ORR- Deferred to Monday from December’s Orr City Council meeting, council members settled on a compromise for the 2024 property tax levy, coming in with an eight percent increase.
City clerk Angela Lindgren told the council that she had been able to balance the proposed city budget with a five percent increase, but the city’s auditor, Bonnie Sterle, had recommended going with 10 percent to provide for future needs.
“Bonnie said that after last year, she didn’t think it was a bad idea to keep it at ten percent,” Lindgren said. “She just said the trend is that everything is going up, expenditures are going up. Even with the elimination of the (deputy clerk) position we’re very dependent on the liquor store and what happens with their revenue. I’m looking at the budget and going through it we’re slashing things. I don’t know if that was to make the budget match before, I don’t know why we’re coming in lower that what expenditures were previously, so I tired bringing them back up to where they were and came up with the five percent. Continuing forward with wages and three percent increase it may be difficult to maintain.”
The levy increase will also allow the city to compensate for any decreased revenues due to closures and staffing as well as anticipated rises in expenses due to inflation and upkeep, maintenance, and operation of city utilities.
Council member Bruce Black asked if there were any outstanding expenses from December that the council needed to account for, but Lindgren said no.
“I’ll stick my neck out there,” Black said. “We OK the budget and we OK an eight percent increase. And we’re going to have to figure out a way to tighten our belt quick.”
“We’re going to have to find out in each department what is going on, what the cost is like any other business,” council member John Jirek added. “Where are we headed, where are we going? Some of the decisions are not going to be great. But once again, here we are into this year and we have to make this decision. I agree with eight percent because it just give you a little bit of (room).”
The motion to approve the budget with an eight percent levy increase passed unanimously. The approved 2024 budget includes three general fund transfers to fire protection, the Tourist Information Center, and community center totaling $19,123, a lodging tax transfer to the TIC of $2,000, and three transfers from the liquor store to water, wastewater, and the airport totaling $21,000.
The council’s approval of the city’s workers compensation and health insurance policies prompted another discussion about possible ways to save money with the health insurance benefit. The health insurance policy automatically renewed on Jan. 1, with employees covered at 100 percent for premiums, deductible and co-pays, Lindgren said.
It was suggested that the city could possibly go out for bids for a new plan, but Jirik said that with the auto-renewal the city should consider itself locked in to the current plan for this year and should start planning ahead for 2025.
Lindgren suggested taking a look at what the city pays for employee coverage in light of the city’s wage increases.
“One of the things we’ve been doing is having high coverage of insurance because the wages were lower,” Lindgren said. “With making a swing to increase wages we should really be looking at changing insurance coverage.”
While acknowledging looking at the city’s contributions could be an option, Jirik firmly stressed that change should happen for the next plan year, not this one.
“We need to look into this, but we can’t screw around the people who are here, period,” he said. “I think we move forward with what we have for 2024. For following years, what’s our budget, where are we at, we just have to do that. But we just can’t do it in January.”
Council member Hannah Manick agreed.
“I think we should just stick with what we have for now, and keep investigating to see what we can do,” she said.
In other business, the council:
• Accepted a $500 donation for the ambulance service from Brian and Barbara Eggert, in recognition of Donna and Bill Hoffer; a $5,025 donation to the ambulance service from Michael McCann, in memory of Diane McCann; and an anonymous $200 donation to the fire department.
• Designated Bruce Black as acting mayor in the absence of the mayor.
• Appointed Mayor Robert Antikainen as noxious weed inspector.
• Designated the Cook News Herald as the city’s official newspaper. The council traditionally rotates the designation between the News Herald and the Timberjay, which was the official newspaper in 2023.
• Appointed Sterle and Co. as the city’s auditing firm.
• Appointed the Klun Law Firm as the city’s attorney and Fryberger, Buchanan, Smith and Federick, P.A. as bond counsel.
• Appointed Benchmark Engineering as the city engineer, with Bollig, Inc. getting the nod for airport task orders.
• Designated Park State Bank, the League of Minnesota Cities 4M Fund, RBC Wealth Management Investments, and First Horizon as the city’s financial institutions and assigned signatories for each.
• Reviewed standing committee assignments and revised as needed.
• Approved the IRS standard mileage reimbursement rate of $0.67.
• Heard a report from ambulance director Donna Hoffer. The service made 180 runs in 2023, 33 of which were mutual aid runs for Nett Lake and Cook. Eighteen medical transport runs were made. Hoffer said the service has recruited two more EMTs, and that an upcoming first responder training course has 17 people signed up for it.
• Approved an engineering task order for the airport runway crack seal project.
• Heard from Alan Johnson of Benchmark who offered the firm’s assistance in locating alternative sources of funding for any proposed city projects.