2015 Vol. 9 Issue 7 December - Laserfiche WebLink

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Gem Lake News Page 5 of 6 Final Budget Numbers for 2016 to be Voted On The 2016 preliminary budget includes increases in the areas of planning and zoning, police and fire protection and other contingencies. The Gem Lake tax levy will account for approximately one third of a typical property tax bill, the other two thirds coming from school and county taxes. The City Council Meeting will take place at 7:00 p.m. at Heritage Hall and the residents are encouraged to attend. A final draft 2016 General Fund Budget for Gem Lake of $353,870 will be presented to the Gem Lake City Council for a final vote on November 17 at the City Council Meeting. This includes a Final Property Tax Levy of $295,026, which can be broken down into a General Tax Levy of $225,026, and a Debt Tax Levy of $70,000. This compares to draft budget numbers from August, when the initial number for the General Fund Budget was $397,820. The initial budget number was later able to be reduced, due to better budget projections that came in over th e past several months. State law requires cities to submit preliminary budgets to their county well before the end of the year, so preliminary notices can be sent to residents, outlining what their property taxes might be for the year ahead. Because the final budgets cannot, by state law, go any higher than the preliminary budget submitted, most cities have to plan in a little "wiggle room" as they finalize figures for the year ahead. It is common for preliminary budget numbers to vary from final budget numbers. It is also not uncommon, especially in Gem Lake, for the complete final budget to be smaller than the preliminary one. (This happened both last year and the year before for the budget years of 2014 and 2015.) For the last eight years, it has been the norm in Gem Lake to create a tentative budget in June for the upcoming year, based on projections available at the time, and then create a refined budget in November, when better figures are available for various budget line items. Sometimes at this point in the year, the council has also elected to apply some of the available surplus in the current budget to do a buy down of the following year tax levy.