After looking through the proposed budget, Holte reported a lot of the items in the budget either went up just a little bit, and in some cases went down.

Since the amounts stayed close to the same from previous years, the council turned its attention to how much to raise the general levy to build up a reserve fund to go along with an increase in bond payments over last year.

With bond payments increasing from $184,000 last year (according to the city and special taxing district levy certification) to $303,000 this year, the council decided to settle on a preliminary levy of $800,000 or an increase of $342,500 over last year’s levy amount.

While the increase is a large one, the general consensus on the council was the number could not be much lower. With the increase, the general fund levy amount will go from $273,500 to $497,000 in an attempt to get the fund back in the black.

Councilman Jamie Logan said while some people may be upset by the large increase, keeping the levy at the proposed level rather than raising it to a higher amount could help keep people in Starbuck rather than moving to another community,  “if we can slip by with $800,000 that should help.”

Councilman Larry Noyes said he felt the council can’t go too much higher than the proposed levy, but at the same time can’t go any less or the city wouldn’t have any money on hand.

Johnson said while the number seems large, it should be thought of as a minimum as the current need for general fund money is so great.

While he stated something needed to be done and the levy increased to help the city in its budget crunch, Councilman Tom Goracke cautioned the council is affected just like everyone else in the community.

Holte said he hopes the amount will help get the city out of its current hole and told council members the number is preliminary and could be lowered in November.