Huntingburg budget approval process; Kays recommends a test drive before signing on the dotted line

The City budget was discussed at the Utility Board and Common Council Meeting in Huntingburg Tuesday night.

In setting the hearing dates for the budget, Clerk-Treasurer Tom Dipple, explained that he had a preliminary assessed value of $140 million. The actual assessed value last year was $164 million, but Dipple explained he wanted to publish a lower value so they aren’t penalized for the rates being too high. The proposed figure would put the tax levy at approximately $1.20 per $100 of assessed value.

When the dates for the advertisement Hearing and Adoption went to vote, Council member Linda Summers asked if there would be an executive session to go over the budget prior to the hearing and adoption.

Council member Glenn Kays (District One) then explained that he felt it was unfair the way the City of Huntingburg adopts its budget each year. “We do it differently than the rest of our communities around us.”

Kays explained that he felt the council is not representing their constituents well if they don’t go through the budget line by line before approving it. In the past the city has presented the budget to the council and it was voted upon as a package with no vetting process with the department heads of the city offices.

Kays told the council that he had been against the budgeting process since taking office. He explained that he understood it had been done this way for some time but he felt that, whether it was this year with him or next year with his opponent, the process needed to change.

City Attorney Phil Schneider recommended a special session to have the department heads appear before the council to go over each of their budgets. Council Member Ken Sparrow explained that in previous years, before the current administration, the mayor had brought in the Council two at a time to go over the budget line by line. It had stopped late in the previous administration.

Sparrow didn’t feel this was the best practice and he thought a public hearing would be a better process to address the budget.

Kays made a motion to have a budget meeting prior to the vote for the adoption of the budget. The council and mayor were agreeable to the motion but could not schedule the meetings until determining when everyone would be available for the public hearings.

Mayor Belcher then made the motion that after determining his and Dipple’s availability they would schedule the public hearings for the budget.

The Council then voted on the advertising dates of the hearing and adoption of the budget.

“Every year I’ve been on the council it’s been like this and I haven’t agreed with it. I have brought it up every year and I am glad that we are now going to have these pre-budget meetings,” Kays said. “We can look at the figures all we want to but until we look at the facts behind the figures properly we can’t represent the people properly.”

Kays provided a metaphor, “When you buy a car, you don’t call up the dealer and say ‘hey, I need a new car, bring me one’. You go down and check it out.”