Prior to the Knox City Council meeting on Tuesday evening, City Clerk-Treasurers Jeff Houston met with a field representative with the Department of Local Government Finance in order to discuss the projected budget and budget calendar.
Clerk-Treasurer Houston provided the approved calendar to The Council during their meeting. There has been a change to how the budget notice must be submitted.Budgets are no longer published, but instead must be uploaded to the Department of Local Government Finance gateway website. He had to have the first draft of the budget uploaded by Wednesday, July 29. He informed The Council that with their approval he would upload the approved budget the day following their meeting.
The next important date mentioned was August 11th, which is when it will go to the County Council. Following that will be a public hearing held on September 22nd. Once all the suggestions are taken into consideration and amendments are made the budget adoption will take place on October 13th. The last step is to upload the final version to the Department of Local Government Finance gateway website.
Houston is confident that, as long as the calendar is followed, things will be inline with the law, “If we follow that calendar we’ll be okay as far as all the time restrictions and what we have to do according to the state.”
After Jeff addressed the important dates he went on to describe the first draft of the budget notice which includes an estimated max levy of slightly more than $1.4 million, an estimated total budget of about $3.25 million and a property tax levy of approximately $1.6 million. Houston says that the levy must be advertised high in order to receive the maximum amount.
