Evansville city officials have been crunching the numbers since May to prepare next year’s budget. A budget proposal was presented to city council at a hearing Monday afternoon.
Both revenues and expenditures are up in the proposed budget. The city expects to take in almost $440 million.
One challenge for city revenue, property tax caps.
"Next year, we expect property tax caps to hit at 17.2 million dollars. Said in its easiest terms, that’s 17.2 million dollars that we don’t have coming in that we would have had if it were not for property tax caps," Mayor Lloyd Winnecke told the council.
On the expense side, health insurance costs are expected go up 2.2 percent. The mayor says it’s the smallest increase in recent years.
Winnecke says another driver of costs is increased capital investment in the city’s water and sewer system.
Nonetheless, the city expects a surplus of $6.5 million under the proposed budget.
Several more budget hearings are scheduled over the next two months.
City council is slated to approve the final budget in mid-October.
Read the "Citizen's Budget" courtesy of the mayor's office: