Livingston Aldermen have approved the city’s budget on final reading for the 2025-2026 fiscal year.
The city’s budget does contain a five-cent property tax increase as requested by MTAS. Livingston Mayor Lori Elder Burnett said the city tries to do a small tax increase gradually rather than doing one big increase every few years. Burnett said increased taxes will help the city maintain its infrastructure.
“We’ve got city streets, city sidewalks, tiles,” Burnett said. “We’ve got to maintain what we’ve got, and the price of everything is going up, the cost of living is going up. We try to be good to our employees to so that they can help absorb some of the things that are going on, you know, as prices keep going up.”
The budget projects the city’s general fund to have an estimated $6 million in revenue, while having an estimated $6.1 million in expenditures. Burnett said the city has overbudgeted in certain areas to cover unexpected expenses.
“We looked at what historically, you know, has happened with, you know, when we have had to replace a vehicle, and you know, we do have some equipment that’s budgeted in here from things that are needed in each department,” Burnett said. “We took those into consideration, and we have put some of those things in because again, like I said, sometimes you have to replace equipment thats aging out or projects on a building. I mean, just try to maintain everything that we have. We have allowed for some of that in this budget to as is done every year.”
Burnett said no major capital projects are coming out of the general purpose fund. Burnett did mention two particular existing projects that are included in the budget.
“Our wastewater plant, we have bid it out, and we are kind of waiting on some paperwork for it, but that’s really out of the water fund, not the general budget fund,” Burnett said. “But we’ve got that big project coming up. We are still working on our airport. We’ve bid out the terminal for a rehab project. We are waiting on some numbers to come in for that.”
Burnett said there are step raises for city employees. Burnett said the raises are essential to keep tenured employees who are well-versed in their respective departments. Burnett said she feels pretty good about this year’s budget.
The Livingston Board of Aldermen approved the budget on final reading during a special-called meeting on Monday.
