Council accepts the 2025 budget with minor tax rate increases

• Council accepts the 2025 budget with minor tax rate increases
• Center’s Mayor David Chadwick expresses his gratitude to the many different City of Center staff that took great care to present a well prepared balanced budget for FY2025. Dennis Phillips | LIght and Champion

Dennis Phillips

dennis@lightandchampion.com

Community | Light and Champion

With slight increases in the property tax rate, the City of Center budget will raise more revenue from property taxes than last year’s budget by $82,320, which is a 3.97% increase from last year. The property tax revenue from new property added to the tax roll this year is $17,025. The Council adopted the budget as submitted after a public hearing in which no one from the audience spoke.

Mayor David Chadwick wrote in a letter with the budget, “Planning the future of our City is not a spectator sport; I would encourage everyone to attend a City Council meeting or consider volunteering for service on a board or committee.”

Utility Rates

The Council was presented alterations to the utility rate structure with adjustments to all customer classes of 7.5% after intentionally maintaining rates with minimal increases to residential customers over the last three years. Commercial development has necessitated new and expanded sewer lines. At the same time, industrial customers require discharge monitoring to prevent treatment issues or permit exceedance. Total water demand combined with drought conditions in 2022 also exposed the need to expedite plans for water treatment efficiency and increase water supply for production.

This year’s rate adjustment specifically ensures the ability for payment on debt used for the replacement of the Aiken Water Treatment Plant. Garbage rates were presented that would increase monthly service charges for residential by 3% and commercial/industrial by 3%. This will accommodate a portion of the CPI-guaranteed increase of the commercial waste hauler contract of 5.0% this year. Average residential customer bills will increase by just under $5 per month.

City Manager Chad Nehring supplied the newspaper with a 2025 City of Center Budget copy. There is far too much information provided to transpose in this article. Any Center resident can stop by the Light and Champion office to read the newspaper’s copy of the adopted budget. The newspaper has a nice reading area with coffee, which is free of charge and encourages your involvement with your city.

Mayor Chadwick presented the budget for a vote by stating, “It is balanced, it is extremely well done. We appreciate our financial director and our City Manager who worked diligently on it and the contributions from each of our departments as they have given us input. As I said earlier, our needs continue to grow, and our funds don’t grow as quickly as our needs do and certainly don’t grow as quickly as our desires do. But we do, I think, a very good job, and have done in the past, balancing our needs and keeping us progressive enough that we do not reach that point that we are in a panic mode where we have to do something and not have the funds.” The motion to adopt the budget passed unanimously.

The Aiken Water Plant was initially built in the 1970s and renovated in the early 1980s. According to Nehring, there have been maintenance and major upkeep projects and expenditures associated with the Aiken Plant. The plant currently produces just under four million gallons of water daily. Though plans for this project have been a topic for the Council over the last several years, to move forward, a rate increase of roughly $4-$5 that the average customer will see on their bill is necessary. That will fund the Aiken Plant replacement and a bond issue, which the Council will discuss at the next couple of upcoming council meetings.

In other Council news, the annual Center Roughrider Homecoming Parade will be held in downtown Center on Sept. 28. The Council agreed to close the square to traffic to allow for the event. The route will be the same as in previous years.

The Council next considered appointments to the zoning board and the planning and zoning commission. James Camp and Anita Williams will join the Zoning Board, and Anita Willams (not the same as Anita Williams) will join the Planning and Zoning Commission. All three were approved and appointed. A few other appointments are pending, which the Council will address in future meetings.

Moody’s reaffirmed the City of Center’s Bond Rating at A2. An A2 bond rating is considered an upper-medium grade rating with low credit risk. It is the sixth highest rating in Moody’s Long-term Corporate Obligation Rating. Bond ratings indicate that a municipal or corporate bond has a relatively low risk of default.