Team,
I would like to start conversations and workshops to start looking at and fine tuning what our budget will look like for 2026-2027 If the Vote for consolidation with La Porte is not successful this coming May. If for some reason the consolidation vote does not pass, then we will need to be prepared to continue with the business of running this city. I have come up with some major items we need to discuss and be prepared for.
1. Of course we will have our election in May with two new council members and one Mayor on the ballot.
2. We need to be continuing the search for a new City Manager possibly as early as this May or June if Consolidation does not pass.
3. We need to be looking at law enforcement options because we are currently losing our officers who are looking for new jobs and assuming that the consolidation will pass (I don’t blame them or anyone for that, to me it was expected).
4. by my calculations, we will need a 24.63% tax increase, putting our total rate at $1.05953 per $100 of value to cover:
–the rebuilding of our City government and hiring of full staff with a cost of living raise of at least 6%.
–cover the next expected increase from La Porte for Fire and EMS services
–all of the normal costs of running this City plus items 2 & 3 above.
I know that a 24% increase will be hard to sell to the citizens, so we will probably have to do it over a period of two to three years in a row to be able to raise it each year to just below the approx. 13% increase that would trigger the requirement of a citizens vote.
I would like for us to start being pro active on having solutions in place for this and not wait until it slaps us in the face! I will be submitting an agenda item for our regular meeting in February to start this. In the meantime, please feel free to share any thoughts or ideas you have on this forum so we can continue to be transparent.
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