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Council reviews budget preview: $66.9M revenue projection, $23M transfer to East Common project
Summary
Finance director Lisa Dudley presented a budget draft showing nearly $66.9 million in revenues, a planned $23 million transfer toward the Mill Creek East Common capital project, a $1 million pavement-preservation general-fund line, no new FTEs and a 3% COLA plus 1.5% merit.
Millcreek’s finance director presented a draft fiscal plan on April 14 that projects roughly $66.9 million in general-fund revenues for fiscal year 2026 and anticipates transferring about $23 million to a new capital fund for the Mill Creek East Common project.
Lisa Dudley outlined the revenue assumptions and expenditure allocations that underlie the draft. Key points included a built-in 3% cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) and 1.5% merit pool for current employees; no new full-time equivalents (FTEs) are included in the draft budget. Dudley said three FTE requests (a position shared between building and planning, a purchasing agent, and a GIS position for public-works engineering) were removed from the draft.
The draft separates large, dedicated revenue streams from other operations: Dudley assigned property-tax–related lines, franchise fees and several sales-tax sources to fund public safety (including the UPD contract), and identified $23 million in bond-proceeds/transfers slated for the Mill Creek East Common capital project fund. She said the city expects to issue a new sales-tax revenue bond (tentatively slated for August) to fund construction and related costs for the East Common project and that issuance will generate issuance costs (about $294,000 shown in the draft) that must be covered in the year of issuance.
Dudley said the budget includes a new general-fund pavement-preservation line (previously treated as CIP), with a target of $1,000,000 to preserve pavement without moving the funding through the capital-improvement fund. She also described transfers from park-impact fees and other anticipated grants into project funds and noted that the city has already moved earlier budgeted transfers into the Phase 2 project fund.
Other notes: the building department’s revenue is projected to cover its expenditures (about $1.5M revenue and $1.4M expenditures in the draft); the justice-court contract figure included in the draft (about $260,000) was flagged for follow up with Holiday city staff; and stormwater utility charges will include a 2.3% rate increase per the stormwater plan.
Council members discussed scheduling a special council budget session to review details; staff proposed several dates for that session. Dudley said staff will provide more detailed spreadsheets and follow up on specific lines (for example, county distributions from a recently enacted quarter-percent county sales tax for roads). No budget adoption occurred at the work session; staff will return to the council for a dedicated budget meeting.
