McCall Idaho Headline News

The city of McCall will likely propose a flat budget for next year in order to deal with the now $6.2 million in debt from the J-Ditch lawsuit, Deputy City Manager Fred Quiel said.

As a result, the budget that takes effect Oct. 1 will provide about the same amount of services as this year's budget, Quiel said.

The city owes Employers Insurance of Wausau and St. Clair Contractors, Inc., about $6.2 million from a lawsuit the city lost due to its mismanagement of the construction of the city's winter wastewater storage pond.

The city authorized a $300,000 payment to the winners of the lawsuit earlier this month from surplus city funds.

The city does not know what capital improvements will be included in the 2008 budget, but expects an operational budget of about $15.7 million.

At present, the city budget is not in balance. The only funds currently balanced are the water and sewer funds. The city still needs to trim about $3.2 million from the budget to get to a balanced budget, he said.

Most of the current overage is in the airport budget. The city will likely trim $2.5 million in airport requests for a sewer line and land acquisition to balance the budget, Quiel said. Currently,, the general fund budget is $400,000 over budget, the public works and streets budget is $300,000 over budget, the library budget is $20,000 over budget, the recreation budget is $12,000 over budget and the golf budget is about $6,000 over budget, he said.

The city staff is identifying what city needs for next year can be funded with a flat budget.
City staffers will come back to the McCall City Council on July 19 with a proposal for a balanced budget. If the council agrees with the spending plan, a public hearing will be held on Aug. 9.