By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews
YACHATS – Yachats’ Budget Committee has finished its work on the city’s proposed spending plans for fiscal 2023-24, making few changes but foreshadowing a few potential city council decisions in June.
The budget committee – made up of five residents and five council members – spent nearly seven hours over two afternoons painstakeningly going over the 94-page document.
It voted 8-1 Friday to approve the city’s general fund budget of $1.9 million. Councilor Ann Stott was absent; committee member Brad Webb voted no, as he has done in the past.
The city council will now take up the budget in June during a formal public hearing.
The city is in strong financial shape because of continued strong revenue from lodging taxes – expected to hit $1.4 million over the next 12 months. The city also has built up reserves for capital improvement projects that now total more than $3.5 million.
That resulted in the budget committee recommending the council OK spending plans to begin the long-awaited renovation of the Little Log Church Museum, launch the $1.09 million remodel and expansion of the library, undertake $1 million in water projects, and $245,000 in repairs, maintenance and improvements to the Commons, and funding two new public works positions.
The budget process was aided this year by a new, five-member Finance Committee formed late last fall, and a new capital project prioritization process spearheaded by Holly Hamilton, a project planner working on contract.
The Finance Committee spent several months looking at long-term revenue and then worked with Hamilton and a capital improvement group to better organize what had been a chaotic and frustrating process to propose, study and launch projects.
Now the capital improvements committee prioritizes projects by available revenue, estimated cost, city priorities and pencils them in over a five-year period.
The budget says the city will have $4.12 million for capital improvements starting July 1 and should collect another $2.4 million during the fiscal year. It anticipated spending $2.9 million in 2023-24 on everything from water projects, to the Commons, to the library and streets with ending balance of $3.6 million by June 30, 2024.
Those capital projects can still be changed by the city council – and there was a hint of that over both meetings when trails advocate Joanne Kittel, mayor Craig Berdie and councilor Catherine Whitten-Carey pushed to move up the timeline for work on a proposed boardwalk along Ocean View Drive from 2026-27 to 2024-25.
There was also extensive discussion – and several votes — at the committee’s May 5 meeting to fund the city planner as a four or five day-a-week employee instead of the proposed two day a week contractor.
Planning Commission chair John Theilacker told the committee the city has too much going on – reviewing construction plans, land use issues and conditional use hearings – to have a planner working two days a week. The commission last month sent the council a letter urging it as a full-time position.
City manager Heide Lambert, who is leaving at the end of the month, said her goal with the proposed staffing was to keep more people in part-time positions in order to give a new city manager flexibility to organize new, full-time jobs at city hall. City hall has been working with mostly temporary or contract workers for more than two years.
Tom Lauritzen, a budget committee member who largely crafted the document with Hamilton, suggested the committee “take the opportunity” to combine the contracts of the planner, capital improvement coordinator and code enforcement into one non-unionized higher-level staff job.
“There’s an opportunity to do that and improve our service level,” he said.
After more discussion about the role of the budget committee in dictating policy or debating personnel, it held a series of three votes to raise the budget for the planning job to four days a week or keep the job at two days a week. All three motions failed on 4-4 votes.
Finally it voted 5-3 to fund the job four days a week. Webb and councilors Ann Stott and Greg Scott voted no.
Chamber money
Using proceeds from increased lodging taxes, Lambert did propose raising the city’s support to the Yachats Chamber of Commerce from $95,000 this year to $230,000 starting July 1.
The allocation is for visitor center operations, marketing and events, personnel services, and July 4 fireworks. The fireworks allocation was in a separate line item of $25,000 in the current budget but is now folded into the chamber’s overall budget.
Lambert said at the May 5 meeting the increase was designed to “minimize the city’s micromanaging of the chamber” and to let new executive director Bobbi Price and the chamber board continue to revitalize the organization, which now has 75 members.
“This is about investing in the chamber that has not been invested in in more than a decade,” Lambert said.
Price told the committee that the increased funds would be used to upgrade the visitor center building and keep it open more during the tourist season, create more promotional materials and increase its marketing efforts – especially those aimed at off-season and “responsible” tourism.
“This is the one entity that you are funding that brings money back to the city,” she said.
The committee’s vote May 5 to approve the chamber allocation was unanimous.