Marion budget changes little except taxes
Staff writer
At a hastily arranged meeting Tuesday night, Marion City Council members had no objections and few questions in approving a proposed budget that will make no changes in most city expenditures but will increase property taxes by 10.57%.
Line items for virtually every city expenditure were set at exactly the same amounts as expected city expenditures for those items this year.
If enforced, the budget would mean no new spending for such things as cost-of-living or seniority raises, hiring to fill vacant positions, or expansion of any projects unless the current year estimates intentionally were inflated beyond what actually will be spent this year.
The budget similarly calls for no increase in utility rates nor any decrease caused by switching recycling midyear from a city function to a private function.
Because other revenue sources apparently might not be as robust as they were this year, the budget does call for the 10.57% increase in property tax revenue — an increase fueled mostly by bigger tax bills on properties for which assessed valuation increased.
Most of the council’s hour and a half meeting was devoted to accountant Scot Loyd explaining what various funds were used for without discussing spending priorities within those funds.
He also spoke passionately about the need for the city to raise more in taxes than it actually needs so it can, as he has been urging for years, build ever-larger cash reserves.
With 2026 spending priorities and 2025 projected spending exactly the same, it’s impossible to know how much of the budget might be inflated to create reserves. However, at one point, a cash reserve of more than $250,000 — about one-quarter of the total amount to be raised by property taxes — was cited.
Loyd told council members that he and former interim city administrator Mark McAnarney had “discussed cash reserves a lot.”
Council members asked only basic questions.
Amy Smith asked why the police budget would remain the same as this year despite having fewer officers most of this year and a possibility of having more officers all of next year.
Loyd said that when a city department fluctuated in its number of employees, he preferred to leave the budget the same as before to allow for adequate salaries in the coming year.
Smith did not ask what happened to the money that wasn’t spent on police salaries this year.
Mayor Mike Powers has spoken of his admiration for how some other city councils, notably Hillsboro’s, meet with department heads starting in May to go over likely current and requested future expenditures before drafting a budget.
Loyd told City Administrator Brian Wells, who went through his first city budget cycle this year, that when another city did something different, he should ask how it was done.
“You can learn a lot that way,” Loyd said.
The council will meet at 5 p.m. Monday to consider public questions and comments about the budget and then formally adopt it.
The proposal’s estimated tax rate is 70.728 mills compared to a revenue-neutral rate of 63.967 mills.