Our Town Commissioners Approves Budget for Fiscal Year 2025
The Our Town Board of Commissioners approved the operating and capital budget for fiscal year 2025 at its last meeting.
The total operating budget is $XX,XXX,XXX for July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2025. The budget focuses on sustaining current levels of core services for residents while keeping the current tax rate of XX.XX. The budget targets additional funding to specific areas of organizational and community importance while maintaining a balanced budget as post-pandemic sales tax revenues stabilize.
“We are pleased to deliver a budget that reflects the County’s efforts to ensure residents receive the quality services they rely on without experiencing a tax increase,” said the Chairman of the Our Town Board of County Commissioners.
The Our Town Manager stated, “We prioritize the needs of our residents when we develop the budget because we are aware of how it impacts everyone in the County.” “We pride ourselves on practicing fiscal responsibility and making strategic investments that benefit our community.”
The FY 2025 operating budget is the result of collaboration and input received at budget work sessions, meetings with Our Town departments, input from outside agencies and residents, and information from school officials. The total operating budget for FY 2025 of $XX,XXX,XXX is allocated as follows:
General Government Fund: $XX,XXX,XXX
General Government Debt Budgetary Fund: $X,XXX,XXX
Education Budgetary Fund: $XX,XXX,XXX
Education Debt Fund: $ XX,XXX,XXX
Economic Development Budgetary Fund: $ XX,XXX,XXX
Water & Wastewater Operating Fund: $ XX,XXX,XXX
Solid Waste Operating Fund: $ XX,XXX,XXX
Key investments in the budget include:
Adding five school resource officers to accomplish having a school resource officer at all public schools.
Additional operating funding for Our Town Public Schools.
Additional operating and capital funding for Emergency Medical Services and Fire Services.
Salary adjustments for Our Town employees based on a comprehensive compensation study.
The FY25 budget includes a bifurcated model for the county’s tax structure, providing more transparency to residents about where their tax dollars are being allocated. Each fund in the budget is clearly labeled as to how much of the total XX,XX tax rate it makes up. The tax rates for each fund are as follows:
General fund: XX.XX
Debt fund: X.XX
Education operating fund: XX.XX
Education debt fund: X.XX
Economic development: X.XX
Total tax rate: XX.XX
Our Town Government’s general fund budget is for tax-funded services, such as education, Our Town department programs and services, the Our Town Police Department, supporting community partners, and other crucial services residents rely on. The operating budget for Our Town Water is funded solely by rates and fees collected from ratepayers of the utility and is not funded by taxpayer dollars.
