TRAVERSE CITY — City commissioners approved the budget for the upcoming fiscal year by the set deadline.
The budget is required by city charter to be approved by the first Monday in June.
Local leaders say approving the $42 million budget will allow the city to move forward with their strategic plan.
City treasurer and finance director, Heidi Scheppe said her department lives and breathes by the guidelines set down by the budget.
“That budget is our guideline as soon as it’s approved. We, departments and the department heads have the opportunity to plan, for purchases and projects over the next 12 months,” said Scheppe.
She said it sets the stage for what they have the authority to spend over the next year.
City manager Liz Vogel said they are adding to their ranks, sprinkling a few more personnel in several departments including water, the marina, and their i-t department.
“This year, no service cuts. We were just looking to rightsize our departments to make sure that we’re, you know, providing the best possible service that we can to the community,” said Vogel.
Vogel said they are adding to their ranks, sprinkling a few more personnel in several departments including water, the marina, and their IT department.
They will also have the fire department be the primary agency to handle ambulance calls.
“The biggest operational change is getting our EMS transport up and running. We have been working hard to fill those positions, order all the necessary equipment, including ambulances, to have that up and running by next year,” said Vogel.
Vogel said approving the budget allows the city to move forward with their five year strategic plan.
“The stars didn’t align for the strategic plan to be done prior to the budget season starting, which is in March. It just wrapped up, but we knew how important it was to have a really thorough planning process with a lot of community input,” said Vogel.
Vogel said they didn’t want to rush the strategic planning process.
“What’s nice about budgets, just like strategic plans, is they’re fluid documents. They can be amended, they can be changed. And so if we need to make some budget amendments throughout the year to tie to action items that haven’t been identified yet, that’s certainly possible,” said Vogel.
Vogel also said the city is in a good spot right now.
“We have a balanced budget. And last year we were actually able to take things that we wanted to budget from this year and put it in last year’s budget because we actually had some money left over. So we’re in a good position,” said Vogel.