Council set for 2nd special budget session
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The Maryville City Council will take up an abbreviated agenda Wednesday evening during a rare midweek meeting rescheduled due to the absence of local officials attending the Missouri Municipal League conference at the Lake of the Ozarks.
However, the regular session, scheduled for 7 p.m. at City Hall, will be preceded by a special budget workshop beginning at 5:30 p.m.
During a similar review in late August, the council went over proposed fiscal 2018 spending for the General Fund, Capital Improvements Fund and Mozingo Lake Recreation Park.
On Wednesday, the governing board is expected to go over the numbers for the Water and Sewer Fund, which, unlike municipal revenue categories based on taxes, depends on income from user fees paid by local residents and businesses.
City Manager Greg McDanel said his remarks to the council will also include a summary of the newly enacted transient guest tax, a 5 percent “bed tax” assessed on nightly hotel stays.
The council has already heard staff presentations related to $6.3 million in proposed General Fund spending along with an ambitious capital improvements blueprint totaling $7.2 million and calling for construction of a new $4 million police and fire headquarters.
Other capital initiatives include $1.74 million for street improvements, about six times as much money as was spent during the current year.
Additional spending embraces rebuilding the apron at Northwest Missouri Regional Airport at a cost of around $1 million.
Ninety percent of the apron project is to be funded through a Missouri Department of Transportation block grant, with a $108,000 local match financed through a low-interest loan from the State Transportation Assistance Revolving Fund, a MoDOT program known as STAR.
As for Mozingo, the council has been asked to ratify a $2.9 million budget already approved by the Mozingo Lake Advisory Board and comprising $634,000 in capital spending for both operations and maintenance, with the lion’s share of the latter amount earmarked for equipping and furnishing a new lakeside conference center and golf course clubhouse.
Mozingo revenues come primarily from patron fees derived from the two golf courses, campsite and cabin rentals and other charges, plus a half-cent-on-the-dollar Mozingo Lake sales tax.
In addition, a large majority of the funding for conference center construction is being financed using proceeds from a separate eighth-of-a-cent sales tax approved by voters in April 2016.
Other spending in the new fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, includes $1.77 million by Maryville Parks & Recreation and $417,300 by the Maryville Public Library, both quasi-independent agencies funded with their own property tax levies.
Council approval of the budget is scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 25, at City Hall.
As for the regular portion of Wednesday’s meeting, the council will consider renewing an existing work-release agreement with Maryville Treatment Center, a local state Department of Corrections facility.
The contract pays up to six MTC inmates $7.50 a day for such tasks as painting, picking up litter, mowing grass, trimming trees and cutting weeds and brush.
Following the regular session, the council will adjourn then reconvene in a closed session involving the proposed lease, purchase or sale of real estate.
