The Ogden City Council voted to adopt the City’s annual budget last Tuesday, including a property tax increase, for Fiscal Year 2023.
The originally proposed budget included an 18.83% property tax increase, but after receiving input from the public, the City Council and administration worked together to reduce the proposed rate by two percentage points. This was done by negating salary increases for elected officials and reducing other expenditures and using fund balance for some one-time expenditures.
“There are a lot of emotions because these are difficult decisions,” Council Chair Ben Nadolski said. “Thank you to everyone who stuck it out with us.”
The adopted budget focuses on city employees and maintaining essential services by offering competitive wages. The salary increases for employees were based on the results of the compensation study completed in 2019.
“I highly value our employees. Those people are stellar,” Council member Rich Hyer added. “I don’t see a choice. We’ve got to pay our people what they’re worth. It sounds like a big jump, but it’s only a big jump because we’ve kept the wages down for too long. I wish there was another way.”
New positions in the Police and Fire Departments were included to better manage the public safety workload. A new sustainability position to assist Ogden City in using more renewable energy sources and a recreation position were also included in the budget.
In addition to the necessary salary increases and new positions, combating the inflation rate also needed to be addressed. These factors required a property tax increase.
Council members, acting as Redevelopment Agency (RDA) board members and Municipal Building Authority (MBA) trustees, adopted the Fiscal Year 2023 RDA Budget and Fiscal Year 2023 MBA Budget on June 14, 2022. The City’s fiscal year begins July 1 and ends on June 30.
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