On the plus side

Following four lengthy budget workshops, the fifth workshop for the Town of Saratoga saw council members and department heads end up with a budget putting them $3,000 in the black. Despite being advertised for 6 p.m., the workshop on April 29 began at 5:30 p.m. and lasted for three hours. As has happened with previous budget workshops, Mayor John Zeiger quickly handed the workshop over to Councilmember Jon Nelson.

Nelson informed those gathered of the work he had done since the April 15 workshop, which included going through the Industrial Siting Council paperwork for the Chokecherry/Sierra Madre project, the Gateway West project, Ekola Flats, TB Flats and TransWest Express and calculating the impact money the Town of Saratoga would receive for Fiscal Year 2019/2020 (FY19/20). The impact funding from those five projects, combined with county impact funds, came to a total of $832,730.

The same process was applied by Nelson in attempting to figure out how much money would be raised with the One Cent Sales Tax (5th penny tax) in FY19/20 with the wind energy projects beginning to take place. The number Nelson came to was $749,500. Following discussion among the council, however, it was decided to stay with the number that had been applied in the previous budget workshop, $657,550. In other areas of general fund revenues, the Town of Saratoga followed proposed revenues supplied by the Wyoming Association of Municipalities (WAM).

While the numbers from WAM served as a guide for the council members and department heads throughout most of the budget workshop, there were still some areas that it was agreed upon to go with a different number. One such example was the state cigarette tax, with Town of Saratoga Clerk Suzie Cox projecting $14,500 for FY19/20.

“Last time we had a cigarette tax of $14,500. WAM’s telling us that it should be $11,175,” said Nelson. “Not a big dollar difference.”

“But you don’t consider what that impact is going to do on cigarette sales and stuff. They may say what they’re saying, but I think you’re going to see higher. That goes with a lot of those things. Just the mere fact that they’re coming in at all is going to change it from what they’re projections are,” said Cox.

Combining projections from WAM and Nelson, the council projected that general fund tax revenue would come to a total of $2,767,923. Another section of the general fund that saw changes was that of miscellaneous revenue, increasing the total from $99,696 to $103,296. The other revenue streams had been aligned to numbers Nelson had given at the previous budget workshop. The total for general fund revenues came to $3,098,569.

Following examination of the revenues, the council went through the general fund expenditures. While cuts had already been made to departments in the previous workshops, the packet provided by Cox showed even further cuts to expenditures in departments such as town hall and parks. Other departments, like Saratoga Lake, saw an increase due to impact funding from Gateway West. Still, others also saw slight increases due to changes in insurance requirements, according to Cox.

The total of general fund expenditures came to $3,095,187 and leaving the Town of Saratoga with $3,382 in excess funds.

With the general fund taken care of, the next item for the budget workshop was the enterprise funds. Enterprise funds, unlike general funds, take care of themselves as they provide a service to the public for a fee that is supposed to make the fund self-supporting.

The enterprise fund saw few changes. The water department and sewer department saw increases in both revenue and expenditures due to grants and impact funding while the weed and pest revenues saw a decrease in their revenues and expenditures, though that decrease was minimal. The projected revenue for the enterprise fund is at $4,459,387.33 and the expenditures are $4,060,114.33 with approximately $400,000 in the positive.

Following the previous budget workshop, it was expected that Dennis Tschacher of ACM would be in attendance to discuss the audit for the Town of Saratoga. According to Zeiger, however, there was a scheduling conflict. Another workshop is planned for 6 p.m. on May 20 in which Tschacher is expected to attend.