Tonight the City Council approved the City Manager's budget with only a slight amendment. The budget calls for a 1¢/$100 valuation tax increase, from 67.86¢ to 68.86¢. The vote was unanimous.

I'll post more of the details later.

The increase is on the debt service side of the budget, which finances the capitol improvement projects, such as streets and parks and library books.

The operational side was held constant, to the same level for three years.

City Manager Bill Dollar is to be complimented for holding his side of the budget in line, to the point of actually reducing his budget and absorbing the recent approval for a higher homestead exemption. He prepared his budget very much in line with the advice given by various Council members over the last year.

There were ways that we could have avoided the increase, by reducing the operations side of the budget, but in many cases the medicine was worse than the illness.

I was fully committed to not allowing a tax increase but I couldn't find a way to do it. I'll explain my efforts and reasoning in that future post (or posts).