Preliminary city budget/levy must be adopted by Sept. 30

By Tim Douglass

tdouglass@pctribune.com

Glenwood City Commissioners got their first look at a draft of the 2024 General Fund budget, which when finalized, will help determine the proposed levy for Glenwood City taxpayers.  

No action was taken as the commissioners and staff will spend the next few weeks examining the budget provided by staff.  The preliminary budget and levy for 2024 must be adopted and certified to Pope County by Sept. 30.  At that point, the levy can be reduced, but cannot be increased when the final levy is adopted at the end of the year.  

City Administrator Dave Iverson did tell the commission that the current budget is a work in progress and that the city’s financial audit, provided at the end of August, delayed the budget process to some extent.  

“At this point it is a bare-bones budget proposal across the board and we’re looking at about an 8.2 percent budget increase.  Because he is still compiling information combined with other unknown factors, the possible levy increase was not yet finalized.  

“We’re trying to be conservative and keep it close to last year,” Iverson explained.  Other cities, he added, seem to be “coming in at the same 7 to 10 percent budget increases.”

Iverson said that with the cost of products and services increasing over the past year, increasing the city’s annual budget is likely.  “Some of the costs we’re looking at have skyrocketed and if we don’t keep up we’ll be caught in a slide backwards and catching up would be more painful,” Iverson added.

He said that the 8.2 percent increase in the budget at this point means about $250,000 more than the 2023 budget.  “Most of that is because of inflationary increases,” he added.

City Commissioners and staff will continue to work on the proposed 2024 city budget through the month and adopt the preliminary budget and levy at the last meeting in September, it was stated.