New fire engine, police cars added to proposed Geneva budget
The proposed 2018-19 Geneva budget has gotten a major update because the city can now count on extra money from an increase in the sales tax it charges.
City Administrator Stephanie Dawkins told aldermen Monday that the proposed budget now includes $1.97 million in spending on capital equipment.
The city expects to receive about $1.1 million more from the increased sales tax between July 1, when the new rate goes into effect, and April 30, 2019. Voters on March 20 agreed to double the city's non-home-rule sales tax rate, from .5 percent to 1 percent.
The priciest item on the list Dawkins presented? Spending $605,000 to replace a fire engine. There also are plans to replace a 19-year-old dump truck/snowplow/salt-spreader, for $200,000, and to replace three police vehicles, for about $109,000.
The fire department also is adding ballistic vests and helmets for ambulance crews at a cost of about $14,000, but it's paying for that with development-fee money.
The engine being replaced is 19 years old.
Dawkins said city administrators also intend to start working on a 10-year plan for replacing equipment.
Other changes since the budget was proposed include adding a full-time summer worker in the streets department to concentrate on downtown tasks such as emptying garbage cans and watering flower beds. The worker will be paid out of money collected on taxes on downtown properties. The city also will add two paid summer interns to do GIS and engineering work.
The city council will have a public hearing on the budget at 7 p.m. Monday and is expected to approve it that night. The fiscal year starts May 1.