Budget crunching:

The city of Idaho Falls' 2024 fiscal year budgeting process is underway. 

The Idaho Falls City Council discussed the preliminary budget and reviewed asks from department heads Tuesday in a public meeting at the Civic Center for the Performing Arts. The council received General Fund budget presentations from the heads of nine departments — including the Idaho Falls Public Library, Fire, Municipal Services, Public Works, Human Resources/City Attorney, Community Development Services, Police, Parks and Recreation Department and the Mayor’s Office.

“The goal today is to get that high level overview so that we can have a sense of where each department is heading before we start to do the analysis where we have to make hard decisions,” said Idaho Falls Mayor Rebecca Casper in introductory remarks to the council.

As is typical at this stage of the process, the various departments' combined wants exceed the funds expected to be available. The council will work with the departments to prioritize and winnow the requests.

Council members were supplied copies of the 167-page preliminary budget Friday and the draft version is available on the city's website. The 2024 fiscal year begins on Oct. 1 and concludes Sept. 30, 2024. 

“The total proposed budget for fiscal year 2024 is $349.7 million,” wrote Eric Grossarth, Idaho Falls public information officer in an email to the Post Register. “The total adopted budget in fiscal year 2023 was $333.4 million. Funding for a significant proportion of the budget does not come from property taxes, but from utility payments, fees, and other governmental sources.”

The city anticipates revenues and resources of $279.6 million for fiscal year 2024, a $9.9 million increase of 3.7% over the fiscal year 2023 adopted budget of $269.7 million, according to the draft budget.

The 2024 fiscal year preliminary budget includes a 2% market adjustment for regular city employees’ salaries and wages and a 6% budgetary placeholder for Idaho Falls Power Department, according to the draft budget book. Negotiations are still in process with fire union employees.

"This year’s proposed salaries and benefits totaled $90,721,299 which is an increase of 7.3% compared to salaries and benefits in 2022-2023," the draft budget said.

The city faces rising costs for employee health plans.

“Health benefits were calculated using a 20% increase with a plan change of an increase to both deductible and max out of pocket expenses of the PPO and HSA plans. An additional 5% was added to smooth future funding of health insurance changes,” the draft budget book said.

The proposed fiscal year 2024 General Fund expenditures are predicted to be $71,683,775, an increase from $65,728,157 in 2023.

The city anticipates it will receive $44,540,361 from property taxes in the next fiscal  year and $35,405,401 will be allocated to the General Fund. In 2023, the city received $42,707,844 in property tax allocations, and $33,960,945 went to the General Fund.

"The General Fund is the most significant governmental fund and it is used mainly to account for general government activities such as Police, Fire, Parks, Community Development, Municipal Services, Human Resources, Legal, and some Public Works functions," the draft budget book said.

Department heads reviewed their General Fund budget requests for new employees and capital expenditures with the city council.

Combined, department heads made General Fund requests for 14 additional employees citywide — including two emergency communications officers, a victim services coordinator and two probationary police officers for the Police Department; six forestry, irrigation and maintenance employees for Parks and Recreation; an information technology systems specialist for Municipal Services; human resources analyst for Human Resources and an office assistant for the mayor and council. The total cost for requested employees is $988,850. The victims services coordinator position would be grant funded for two years.

Department leaders also asked for $5,205,700 in capital expenditures — including $2 million for a police firearms training range, $1.6 million for an Idaho Falls animal shelter remodel, $900,000 for a storage facility at the 15th East Fire Station (to be paid for with Wildland Fund revenues) and $314,500 in new equipment and park development funds for Parks and Recreation.

Jessica Clements, Idaho Falls Police Department public information officer, clarified that the police department’s funding request for the firearms training range is not an ask for new money. Rather the council must provide spending authority to apply existing contingency funds from the $30 million new police station project toward the construction of the range.

Council members will make difficult decisions this month as they determine the budget priorities for the coming year.

Although the general fund revenues increased $6.6 million, all but 7% of that increase has already been allocated.

Idaho Falls Finance Manager/Treasurer Mark Hagedorn said that the General Fund only has $450,000 available to fund the $6,005,249 they received in requests.

“That's a typical year,” Casper said. “... One of the things we will be looking at is the back and forth discussion on that $450,000, and how it could be spent given the $6 million dollars in asks.”

Deliberations over the budget will continue from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. on July 18 and 25 at the Civic Center for the Performing Arts.

The council is scheduled to approve a tentative budget during its July 27 meeting which starts at 7:30 p.m. A public hearing will be held Aug. 10, and the 2024 budget ordinance will be adopted Aug. 24.