City Budget Fiscal Year 2022-2023
The city council passed the budget for next fiscal year during our last meeting. We have been working on the budget for several months now, including the recent public hearing.
The city is in good fiscal shape, overall. The mayor and city staff do a very good job juggling all the budgetary needs over the course of the year, and the city council works hard to pass a budget that is reasonable in its approach to meet all those needs.
Costs are going up for the city just as they are for residents. We're all feeling the effects of inflation and the high cost of housing and gas and food, etc. We have to do a good job keeping our city priorities in line with our goal to be careful and frugal with the public's money. I think we do a very good job.
City Disc Golf Course
The council decided to set aside some of our parks budget this year to pay for a new disc golf course in the city. We have some great city parks, and we are always on the look out for ways to improve the use and availability of the park space we have.
I suppose it's a little awkward to talk about putting in a disc golf course at the same time we are trying to be very careful with the city budget; however, I think the mayor and city council and staff have done their homework on this and have planned well for the course, and it will be a high-value, low-cost project we'll enjoy for many years to come.
For the past several months, the mayor and council have been considering installing a disc golf course. We heard a great presentation on the project a number of months ago. We wanted to make sure the project was reasonable under our budget constraints, and we also wanted to make sure the project's continuing maintenance and costs were not a burden to our residents.
We were able to save up for the disc golf course. Once installed it will be very low maintenance and low cost for the city with a very long expected lifespan for years of enjoyment and exercise for city residents, including on some currently underused park space. We're getting a good discounted deal for the course ($10k for the entire thing) and I'm confident the course will get lots of use from our residents.
We continue to save for other possible park projects that we think will add use to our parks without interfering with current use and without unduly burdening residents. Not all possible projects meet those expectations, so we have to be careful what we propose and do.
As an important side note: we do have business or personal funding sponsorship opportunities in the city. If you are ever interested in partnering with the city on a project or event, please contact a member of the city council, the mayor, or city staff.
The picture of the disc golf course below is outdated.
The actual course will be 18 holes and will also use the entrance
park--the tree-filled park as you come into town off of Hwy 20.
It's a great city we live in. I hope we all enjoy the last weeks of summer!
