Paullina Council regular meeting on April 17 was a full agenda. Jordan Wulf was approved as a junior fire fighter. A wage increase of $2 per hour for the deputy city clerk, Michelle Wilson was approved. Wilson will be attending “clerk school” provided by Iowa League of Cities. Council will select a city clerk at a later date. The Wonderland Theater application to O’Brien County Community Foundation was approved.
The number of flower baskets on Main Street light posts will be reduced this year. The four posts on the corner of Main and Broadway will feature the beautiful baskets. Other flower pots on the sidewalks may be distributed to businesses interested in maintaining a pot of flowers.
The equipment lease arrangement between the city and AgriVision was approved. The upfront costs to the city for a lease payment and usage fee is $23,000. Hourly use fees over a set number of hours is not included and will be billed at the end of the lease period. The equipment to be leased is brand new Wheel Loader, a 2022 Skid Steer, a brand new Compact Track Loader and a Compact Excavator. The equipment has a retail value of $391,574.00. The city will trade older equipment pieces in with a value of $109,450.00, leaving a final price of $282,124.04 at the end of the lease. An option for a new lease with new equipment will be evaluated at the time.
Three website providers submitted to the city to provide web services to the city of Paullina. Two were sought out instead of using the existing website and local management. A committee of Mayor Brenda Ebel Kruse, Michelle Wilson, and Councilpersons Jay Jones and Lexy Murphy were supposed to have evaluated the options and presented facts to the full council. A chart provided to council comparing features and costs disputes how much factual information council members were given. Council, armed with the chart opted for Spireworks, a company that can be found at an acreage in Spirit Lake and uses a hosting company located in Texas.
The special assessment on the property at 403 E. Broadway was canceled.
A special meeting to hold a public hearing to approve the next year’s budget was held on Monday April 24. The budget provided to the public was flat on revenues. No change. The same budget increased spending by $2 million. The actual spending in FY 2022, the last actual available was $3,241,464.00. The proposed spending for the coming budget year is $5,245,060.00.
Council voted 4-1 to approve the 2023-24 budget. Councilperson Murphy was the only dissenter. Following the meeting she explained her vote, “I voted no because since the early part of the year I asked for the budget and never got it. We, as a council, have never talked about it and we’re supposed to approve everybody’s budget?” She went on to explain where her dismay comes from. “In the past we always got it in late January. We talked about it, tweaked it, revised it, decided it looks better then finally approved it.”
Murphy may get another chance to force a more thorough discussion of the budget. The State of Iowa notified the City of Paullina that a required report, the Urban Renewal Report which explains sources and spending of funds from Urban Renewal (TIF) areas, was not submitted. The report was due in December. Since it had not been submitted the proposed budget was not accepted by the state.
A new public hearing for the proposed budget has been set for Monday May 15 at 5:30pm. The proposed budget and the public hearing notice are published in this week’s “O’Brien County’s Bell-Times-Courier.”