2023 Goshen budget approved by unanimous vote
Oct. 11—GOSHEN — City council members approved the city's 2023 budget during their meeting Monday evening.
The budget passed unanimously by the council's members was unchanged from the budget approved by the council on first reading during its Sept. 19 meeting.
"I really do appreciate all the city staff and department heads who help me through this process," Mayor Jeremy Stutsman said prior to Monday's vote. "I appreciate all the conversations I get to have with council members and community members as we're developing the budget each year. It represents about three and a half to four months of work for me and others, and it's always nice to see us be able to develop something that we can all agree to. So, I appreciate your work on that."
All in all, a total of $60.9 million in budget requests from across all funds were approved, a notable drop from the $69.8 million approved for the city's 2022 budget.
A breakdown of the budget's top funds, known as the "Big Four," as compared to the 2022 budget is as follows:
—General Fund: $28.8 million, down from the $30.5 million approved for 2022
—Motor Vehicle Highway: $4.4 million, up from the $3.1 million approved for 2022
—Parks and Recreation: $3.4 million, up from the $3 million approved for 2022
—Public Safety LOIT: $2.4 million, up from the $2.2 million approved for 2022
According to accounting firm Baker Tilly, which handles budgetary oversight for the city, the 2023 budget's "Big Four" account for approximately 92% of the city's payroll and benefits, 77% of supplies purchased for the city, 62% of services and charges, and 49% of the city's capital budget.
THE BUDGET
As approved, a majority of the funding increases included in the 2023 budget are due to raises and other employee expenses, as the budget includes a 3.5% raise for most city staff.
Some of the other approved changes include: adding $90,000 to the council's budget to cover the expected costs of the 2023 local election; shifting the wages for the city's Community Relations Commission director position out of the mayor's budget and into the CRC budget; adding additional dollars to the clerk-treasurer's budget to help with file storage as well as the 3.5% raise for employees; new dollars added to the cemeteries budget to hire a third full-time staff member; a modest increase to the Central Garage's budget; and additional funding for the Environmental Resilience department to allow for moving one part-time staff member to a full-time position.
RETURNING TO NORMAL
Prior to Monday's vote, Stutsman also took some time to address the nearly $9 million reduction in the 2023 budget when compared to the 2022 budget.
During the budget's first reading, Stutsman explained that the city's nearly $70 million budget for 2022 was the largest in Goshen's history, while the 2023 budget sees the city beginning to return to a budget size more typical of the recent past, which on average has fallen between $55 million and $60 million.
When referencing 2022's larger than average budget, Stutsman noted that it had always been his intention for that significant funding jump to be a temporary thing, as the city in 2021 found itself in the unique position of having the largest cash balances Goshen had seen in decades. That in turn left him to approach the 2022 budget with the belief that it was time for the city to start spending more of that money in order to help bring some of those balances back down.
"So, we have dropped that drastically," Stutsman said of the change between the 2022 and 2023 budgets. "Before we were operating in the $50-$55 million range. So, we are getting closer to our yearly budget like we said we would — we'd go high, go up and then start coming back down to level it out."
Stutsman also noted that of the total budget approved for 2023, about $3.3 million is coming from American Rescue Plan funding that the city is set to receive next year — the result of federal legislation designed to aid the country's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"So, we're actually getting pretty close to our past yearly budgets already, but the ARP funds are building us up, because that's money we have to spend," Stutsman said. "We have to identify how we're going to spend it by 2024, have projects identified, and then the money actually spent by 2026. So, those are just things that are kind of inflating our budget."
John Kline can be reached at john.kline@goshennews.com or 574-533-2151, ext. 240315. Follow John on Twitter @jkline_TGN.
