City of Elizabethton officials will be working with a relatively conservative budget proposal for the 2018-19 fiscal year during the first set of budget discussions, scheduled to take place this week.

Prior to his retirement as city manager, Jerome Kitchens worked to compile a budget that includes an $18,914,937 general fund budget, which is compared to the FY 18 budget — $18,940,695.

One of the concerns lingering into the new year is revenue, Kitchens stated in the proposal.

“Revenue remains a concern with property tax remaining flat and reductions in local option tax, business tax and Hall Income tax,” he said.

Due to the projections, local sales taxes have been reduced from the current budget by approximately $60,000 — based on collections to date. But in the new budget, property tax is budgeted with an increase on a little over $5,000.

From the fund balance, $790,011 has been budgeted out to handle a list of projects provided by Kitchens.

In the list, there are 27 projects budgeted to possibly receive funding, including $141,000 for police cars, $140,000 for Elk Avenue canopies, $50,000 each for crosswalks on E Street and sidewalk work, $49,827 for West G Street guardrails, $46,000 for an ADA transition plan and $42,500 for playground equipment at Kiwanis Park.

The proposed budget also features the $1,000 one-time bonus for all full-time employees and $500 for all permanent part-time workers. Kitchens added that by the time workshops are held, a compensation study should be available and that the money budget for bonuses “could be used to fund all or part of the recommendation.”

Elizabethton is also projecting an increase to health and life insurance. The proposed budget features a three-percent increase to health insurance and life insurance was bumped up to 10 percent with an additional cost of $30,000 to the general fund.

For the different departments, the proposal notes the budget for Elizabethton Electric is “very conservative” due to sales prediction.

While the department upped its tree trimming services to assist with outages, the document provided states that no rate increases for the fiscal year are projected.

For the Elizabethton Police Department, an increase of $119,539 has been budgeted to hire three additional school resource officers. According to the proposal, there is a federal grant with the city’s share of 25 percent and 75 percent grant funded for the first three years, to start during the ’18-19 cycle. After the third year of expenditures, SROs will be paid 100 percent from the city.

For the water department, the budget proposal indicates the city has to play “catch up” and has to balance the need of new revenue to cover construction and repair costs “versus keeping our product and services affordable.”

Revenue from costs is anticipated to increase three percent over the next fiscal year.

Other highlights from the budget includes an additional $10,000 has been budgeted to include a facade grant to encourage redevelopment for businesses, which could be linked by a loan pool operated by “local financial institutions.” Development on the Elizabethton Linear Path is also discussed in the proposal. A grant from TDOT and funds set aside for construction will “only be enough to build from Race Street to Riverside Park” according to the budget. The recommendation from the budget is to do this part of construction with grant requirement (paved 10-foot-wide path) and work on the remainder of the trail in future years by using local money with an eight-foot-wide path and surface like the Tweetsie Trail.

Discussion on the General Fund will take place this week while Utilities and Enterprise funds will be discussed next Tuesday.