10 November 2011

The City’s budget for fiscal year 2012, which began this past October 1, 2011, still reflects the times in which we live today. The recession is still slamming cities hard across the country; cities have been forced to trim payroll costs, maintenance costs, health insurance costs, training costs, and infrastructure investment at a time when demands for service (police, ambulance, code enforcement, vacant and dangerous building monitoring and abatement, court processing, etc.) have been the greatest.

Grandview, of course, is included in this regard, as we have faced revenue declines since 2008. To date, overall resources have not increased, but total revenues have maintained some stability, and the City is not nearly as sales tax-dependent as many of the cities around us.

The budgets of the past few years and next are more about staying on course toward meeting the City’s primary goals, addressing its priorities, and making significant progress even in difficult times.

For the last several years, the Board of Aldermen and citizens alike have focused on certain priorities for community improvement and service excellence. These can generally be summarized as follows:

1. Improvement of the transportation system – adding new roads or widening and improving existing
   thoroughfares and existing traffic corridors.
2. Promotion and support of economic development within the City – to include commercial marketing, adoption of business incentives, creation of enhanced enterprise zones, and cooperative efforts with developers and commercial brokers in order to attract retail development, new and expanding industry, new investment and new jobs to the community.
3. Improvement of communication and marketing efforts to improve the City’s image and better inform citizens about key initiatives, activities, events, and programs that enhance the
   quality of life.
4. Attraction of new residential development – with developers providing more housing options, styles, and price ranges to enhance housing choices and provide move-up opportunities.
5. Preservation of neighborhoods – providing proactive code enforcement, supporting neighborhood preservation, and encouraging historic preservation.
6. Ongoing improvement and enhancement of public safety services – maintaining standards, providing regular training, adding new technology to support and enhance efforts in the field, and providing for regular equipment and vehicle replacement, as well as facility upgrades.
7. Enhancement of community recreation opportunities and activity centers.
8. Providing for ongoing facility and communications systems replacement, upgrades, and maintenance.

In keeping with these objectives, the City has focused on numerous initiatives and efforts to stabilize, improve, beautify, and enhance city services and all amenities within our community over the past decade. Unfortunately, since 2008, cities have felt the recession in the form of reduced revenues – sales taxes, property taxes, business licensing fees, building and associated permit fees, and even items like ambulance service revenues. Meanwhile, the City property tax rate remains the same as it was in 1985. General Fund revenues, which support the bulk of City operations, are estimated to be $14,365,050 for FY 2012 compared with $14,389,600 in FY 2010.

In spite of the gloomy economic environment, we have plenty of reasons to celebrate Grandview’s 100-year anniversary in 2012. The City has weathered more than its share of adversity in the past thirty years or more, but there is progress being made on all fronts at the present time. Given the dire state of many state and local budgets around the country, we are fortunate to be in the position we’re in without further personnel reductions or service disruptions. The City is still operating effectively, and with a little help from the overall economy, we see many more exciting things happening in the near future, as well as the long term.

The City staff’s cooperation, creativity, and focus on cost-saving initiatives, will allow departments to maximize resources, use new strategies, and develop more new projects to continue to move Grandview in the desired direction.

While revenues no longer support the same total complement of full-time employees (10 fewer than in 2009), the City has so far managed to navigate the recession without layoffs, pay or benefit reductions, or noticeable impacts on services. Meanwhile, the special sales tax funds (for street improvements and capital improvements), park bond funds, and federal grant money, while affected by the recession too, allow the City to complete desired infrastructure projects and continue replacing needed equipment.

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