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Valuation mostly up for entities
Published 6/23/2009 in Local News
By STEPHANIE FARLEY
Finney County and its other taxing entities, including Garden City Community College, the cities of Holcomb and Garden City and Holcomb USD 363, are looking at increases for 2009 in their estimated valuations. Garden City USD 457 is expected to see a slight dip.
The preliminary valuation numbers are in for 2009, with the county and GCCC up about 1.7 percent from $488,591,128 in 2008 to $496,774,093 for 2009. The city of Garden City is up about 4.7 percent, from $141,945,298 to $148,601,541.
The city of Holcomb is up about 3.3 percent, from $8,143,606 in 2008 to $8,415,768 for 2009. Garden City USD 457 is down less than half a percent from 2008's $316,918,028 to $315,397,413. And Holcomb USD 363 is up about 5.7 percent from 2008's $167,438,376 to $177,026,196 in 2009.
The portion of USD 102 in Finney County (the majority is in Gray County) is up about 2.7 percent from 2008's $4,234,724 to $4,350,484.
According to Finney County Administrator Pete Olson, the increase in valuation is "fairly modest." Olson explained Monday that the increase wouldn't provide a big relief to the county during the 2010 budget process.
But the fact the valuation didn't decrease, he said, means there's no additional pressure on the budget process.
At this point, Olson said, it's too early to tell how the small increase will affect the budget, explaining the increase, when applied to last year's budgeting process, could have accounted for about six-tenths of a mill.
Olson said the commission and county staff will know more on how the increased valuation will affect the budget during the commission's July 13 budget workshop.
While Garden City USD 457 was down for 2009, Kathleen Whitley, financial officer for USD 457, doesn't expect any major impact on the budget. The decrease is a "pretty small amount," she said.
"We always like to see it go up," she said.
"This is what we wait for," Holcomb City Administrator Robin Peña said of the valuation.
Peña said Monday she hasn't met with department heads about their budgets but that it's always a good thing when valuation goes up.
Garden City Finance Director Melinda Hitz said the city "was budgeting off of a 2 percent valuation increase in hopes of a 4 percent increase. The 4.75 percent increase was a nice surprise."
Hitz said the City Commission's goal for the 2010 budget is to remain even with the 2009 mill levy and that the commission has heard all of the departments' requests, as well as the general fund revenue estimates. At this time, Hitz stated, the city budget for 2010 needs to address $249,650 by either reducing funding requests, revising revenue estimates or a combination of the two.
The Garden City Commission will meet at 2 p.m. June 30 for a budget workshop to address changes to the proposed budget.
According to GCCC President Carol Ballantyne, the college considered increasing by a mill last year but ended up not having to because, among other things, valuation came in higher than anticipated.
This year could be a different story, with Ballantyne saying the college probably will be looking at increasing its budget by a mill this year because valuation didn't increase by a big amount and the college recently returned $121,155 to the state because of the ongoing Kansas revenue shortfall.
"But I haven't quite gotten that far," she said of going through all of the numbers and considering the options.
Budgetwise, she said, the college is about $800,000 off of its previous budget, explaining the college is looking internally at what can be cut, not including personnel, before seeking a mill increase or other cuts.
The college may have to seek a mill increase, she said, "but that's what we're still looking at. I don't believe it will be anymore than that if we do."
In the meantime, Ballantyne's hoping the college's enrollment will go up. Increased enrollment allows the college to stay even or above its counterparts when the state formula for funding is figured, she said.
Holcomb USD 363 Superintendent Robert O'Connor is on vacation and was unavailable for comment.
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