The Saint Jo City Council will conduct its public hearings for the 2025-26 budget and 2025 tax rate in a meeting at 6 p.m. on Sept. 10.
After the hearing the council will convene into its regular agenda, which opens with the 2023-24 outside audit from the staff of Freemon, Shepard and Story Certified Public Accountants.
The meeting then goes into the 2025 financials where the proposed tax rate of .518223 centers per $100 in property value will be examined. That breaks out into a maintenance and operation rate of .363740 cents and debt service of .155483 cents. The present rate is .513334 cents.
A balanced budget of $1,672,706.05 will be reviewed by the council to serve revenue and expenses for 2025-26. The Economic Development 4A and 4B board budgets also will be presented.
In the general fund budget one full-time and one part-time person have been added to public works. An additional $72,959.44 was added to capital improvements that will be split between the streets and other infrastructure needs. Health insurance went up $33 per person, while the property liability remained the same.
Waste Connections has exercised its right for a consumer price index based increase of .59% effective Oct. 1. The total increase for trash service will be $3 per utility account for pass-through costs states the agenda.
The water base rate was increased by $2 for a $17 base rate for 1,000 gallons per utility account. The ambulance subsidy also will be increase by $2 per utility account for a total pass-through cost of $5.
The 4A budget is balanced with revenue and expenses of $135,000 and the 4B budget is $83,127.32 with projected revenue of $50,000.
The final agenda item is a request from Angelica Rojas, Gilberto Santos and Denise Thurman for building plans for West Williams and Mill Street.