The Tooele City Council is considering pay increases for city employees as part of its 2018-19 fiscal-year budget.
City leaders reviewed an in-depth study of Tooele’s finances by Lewis Young Robertson & Burningham, Inc. during a work meeting on April 4.
The study showed a “structural imbalance” for the general fund. For the past 36 years, Tooele has not raised taxes, but has made attempts in other areas to raise revenue and lower expenditures, according Mayor Debbie Winn.
In order to balance the budget through the years, employees have gone without cost-of-living pay increases for several years, the mayor said.
City leaders are considering a property tax increase to give employees a pay raise. The city also would like to build a new police station behind City Hall and a new fire station on 1000 North.
“It’s critical that we provide the best financial planning we can,” Councilman Scott Wardle said. “When employees haven’t seen an increase in wages in over 30 years, at some point you have to look at raising revenue.”
He said he appreciated the transparency provided by the new mayor who helped set up a town hall meeting on Feb. 28 to provide the public with a glimpse of how city finances work.
Budget proposals by city department heads also have been a part of this year’s city council meeting agenda items.
Public safety and fire department budgets were presented in an open meeting on March 7, the parks and recreation budget was presented on March 21, and the public works budget was presented on April 4.
According to the Lewis Young Robertson & Burningham study, one tax scenario to help pay for a city employees’ wage increase shows the owner of a home valued at $240,000 would pay an additional $9.39 per month in city property tax.
The same homeowner would pay an extra $3.87 per month to build a new police station, and an extra $2.78 to build a new fire station on 1000 North.
The city also needs more money to help pay for a judgment levy for legal issues, a deficit makeup, capital improvement projects and equipment.
Council Chairman Steve Pruden said it is imperative that Tooele City continues to educate the public that the city’s property tax rate has not been increased for 36 years.
Wardle said there have been recent tax increases from Tooele County and Tooele County School District, but none from Tooele City.
Pruden said he has learned through public meetings and talking to citizens that replacing the public safety building and preventing police officers from leaving Tooele for higher paying jobs are main priorities.
“They (citizens) want the police situation fixed, both the facility and stopping the high turnover rate for police officers leaving us for other jobs,” Pruden said. “They don’t want any new parks built until we spiff up the parks we already have. This was all very eye-opening to me. I think we’ve been given our marching orders to some degree by the people in the community. They trust us and want us to fix this.”
Councilwoman Melodi Gochis said that employees deserve a pay increase.
“We need to do something other than balancing the budget on the backs of our employees,” Gochis said. “They don’t have the equipment they need and have gone without salary increases for several years. I applaud them for being able to work through the hard times.”
Councilman Dave McCall said the city needs to look to the future.
“We have to look at the complete picture. We are where we are now because we waited so long to do something,” he said. “We need to not only do what we need to do now to get caught up, but we need to go beyond and look toward the future. Tooele is projected to grow to 80,000 people by 2040. We have to lay the foundation for the future.”
Councilman Brad Pratt said citizens are asking for better services.
“They are not asking for luxury things; they are asking for more police officers and a buildup of city-provided services,” Pratt said. “They understand that financially, they will have to pay more.
“This city has done an amazing job in functioning with what we have,” he added. “I don’t know how we can justify asking our departments to do more with what they currently have financially.”
He said the city will still look at ways to cut unnecessary expenses.
Wednesday’s city council meeting will include discussions about finances for the library, attorney’s office, recorder’s office, human resources, finance department and administration.
The mayor and council will hold a second retreat this year on Saturday in the conference room at 8 a.m.
Discussion items for the retreat will include understanding budget reports, transparency, communication, funding sources, contracts, goals, employee salaries, additional employee requests, income versus requests, spring cleanup and Fourth of July activities.
The council has a May 2 deadline to adopt a tentative budget. A final hearing and adoption of the 2018-19 fiscal-year budget is scheduled for June 20.