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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - City Council - 04/05/1979BUDGET HEARING APRIL 5, 1979 The South Burlington School Board and City Council presented their budgets at a hearing on Thursday, April 5, 1979 at 7:30 p.m. in the High School Auditorium, Dorset Street. Members Present School Board – David Miller, Chairman; David Gravelle, Viola Luginbuhl, Amy Bond, Marilyn Meyer City Council – Paul Farrar, Chairman; Michael Flaherty, Martin Paulsen, Kenneth Jarvis, William Burgess Others Present William Szymanski, City Manager; Frederick Tuttle, School Superintendent; Don Marriott, Karl Lind, Ethel and William Schuele, Carol and Allen Cummings, Fred Maher, Laurence LeCours, Bruce O'Neill, Jerry Olson, Bernhardt and Jacqueline Sayle, Bruce Lodeau, Sandy Kleppinger, Wayne Jameson, John Lucas, Karin Larson, George Bosworth, Betty Bailey Budget Presentations The School Board presented its budget first. Mr. Miller welcomed the people present and noted that this year the Board was asking for voter support of a tax hike necessary to offset the effects of the loss of a large amount of State Aid this year. The school system cannot absorb the loss and will ask for more local taxes this year. If the schools are given more Aid than they expect to receive at this point, that will reduce the amount they will ask for from the voters. If the voters do not approve the increase, the school has listed reductions which will have to be made, but Mr. Miller said the Board and the school administrators do not believe these reductions are desirable for the city or the students. Mr. Tuttle went through the budget figures (see attached copy of the 1979 – 1980 Budget Report). He said that if the voters do not approve additional taxes, $303,235 will be trimmed from the budget proposed at this time. He went through the contingency table (see attached copy). He noted that of supplemental requests from the departments of over $200,000, $21,000 of those requests had been made part of the budget and all of those were for equipment replacement or supplies. After the budget had been presented, there were some audience comments. One man felt that South Burlington was paying a lot more per pupil than the norm and wondered why he did not see the students receiving more academic awards than their peers in other school systems whose costs per pupil were lower. Other audience members felt one could not judge the system by the amount of awards the students were given, and Mr. Miller pointed out that there were too many variables involved to be able to say whether the system was or was not worth the money the community paid to run it. The City presented its budget at this point. Mr. Farrar noted that this was a formal public hearing on the city budget, the revenue sharing budget, and the presentation of the Capital Budget. Mr. Farrar noted that inflation had taken its toll on the city budget and this year there would also be a $16,000 revenue loss. Mr. Farrar said that this year city workers would be given a salary increase of 7%, which is within the president's guidelines. He also noted that the city was facing a long-term problem which would have to be addressed soon. In the past 4-5 years the city has been using the increased revenue generated by growth in the city to pay for costs increased by inflation, and not to pay for increases in services for the community. Soon those services will have to be increased. Mr. Farrar went through the budget. He noted that most of the revenue sharing funds the city received were put into salaries, since that creates the least red tape in the use of those funds. The portion of the budget funded by revenue sharing is shown on page 24 of the Budget Report. Mr. Farrar went through the Capital Budget. Ms. Larson asked about park acquisition and was told the city was considering two pieces of property right now. The meeting was adjourned at 9:10 p.m. Clerk Published by ClerkBase ©2019 by Clerkbase. No Claim to Original Government Works.