The City of Carbondale is ready to move forward on its Fiscal 2014 budget.
Tuesday night, council members took part in a public hearing and discussion of the city's 46-million dollar proposed revenue plan. The public hearing is the final step before the council formally votes on the new budget.
The budget plan includes a little more than $23 million in general funds spending which provides for basic city services along with economic development efforts. Council member Chris Wissmann says he thinks it's important for the city to take note of what businesses are closing as well as those coming in. He says he'd like to see such a list for the past year to help chart how the local economy is evolving.
"If we start noticing that clothing store, after clothing store, after clothing store, after clothing store is closing, then we probably know that our market is completely tapped for clothing stores. We probably ought not to focus our economic development efforts on bringing more clothing stores to town. We probably need to think about something else."
The city's budget proposal calls for renewed emphasis on economic development, neighborhood restoration, and business district enhancements.
Carbondale's Fiscal 2014 budget provides for a 3% across the board pay raise for city employees. The city is predicting that sales tax revenues will increase by 1% during the coming budget year.
City officials say they will continue to explore a variety of cost-containment measures including leaving vacant positions open, looking for ways to reduce energy consumption, and longer term contracts for purchasing electricity.
