Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness described his 2018 budget proposal Wednesday evening with the City Council Finance Committee as a sort of bucket game.  The state requires cities to utilize a variety of separate funds one could describe as “buckets” of money for the city to use.

Mayor Fadness spent the most amount of time talking about the largest of those “buckets,” the General Fund.  The city is projected to begin 2018 with a General Fund cash balance of more than $15.4 million.  Projected revenues that year bring the revenue total for 2018 exceeding $54.8 million.  With projected expenses at just under $54.26 million, that leaves a surplus in that fund of more than $614,000.  The largest single expenditure in the 2018 budget estimate will pay personnel costs of just under $27.3 million.  The budget projection shows the city with a $16 million cash balance  in the General Fund at the end of 2018.

Under the mayor’s spending plan, city employees would receive a 5% across the board pay increase.  He also is looking to increase the city staff by about 16 positions, including 3 sworn police officers and 3 additional firefighters.  That proposal does not include a proposal for salary increases on behalf of the city’s elected officials…the Finance Committee may have a recommendation on that issue by the end of August.

Employees would receive a city match for contributions made to the 457 plan (a government retirement savings plan much like a private sector 401(k)).  The city match would be no more than $1,000 in one year.

The mayor reviewed a number of other money “buckets,” including those earmarked for road construction and maintenance, as well as sewer and storm water services.

The General Fund tax rate is projected to increase about 1.5 cents per $100 of assessed property valuation next year.

In describing his 2018 budget, Fadness told the Finance Committee “…as a whole, it’s just really taking care of our people, adding additional staff in key areas and then we’re just maintaining the assets we have.  We’re doing all of that, sound investing in our community, while, I think, keeping a pretty low tax implication on our residents.”