Celina’s new board of Aldermen met for the first time Tuesday night and approved a budget for the 2025-2026 fiscal year on final reading.
The budget’s general fund projects bring in an estimated $3.6 million while expenditures total some $4 million. Celina Mayor Luke Collins said the aldermen did not make any cuts to make up the sum $400,000 deficit.
“We still have a healthy fund balance, but we are not moving in a good direction,” Collins said. “I would like to see us building that fund balance, so we’ll just have to wait and see how the sales tax comes in. What happens with inflation, overtime issues, there’s just a lot of unknown.”
Collins said the city’s budget will cut property tax rate in half. Collins said he believes the budget is good, as the city was able to provide a $1.50 per hour raise for city employees without raising taxes.
“It is a step in the right direction,” Collins said. “We lose a lot of good employees because we don’t pay enough. And you know it makes it tough, you know, if you have a revolving door, and you’re having to hire new employees. I mean, we hired two new employees last week, and if you can get good people and keep them, you’re better off.”
Collins said he is concerned about inflation and the recent performance of the city’s sales tax.
“Now the last couple of months has shown that our sales tax revenue has been decreasing compared to the last four years, and of course, inflation is increasing,” Collins said. “So hopefully, that trend will turn around, but if it does not, there will be some decisions in the future.”
The budget projects the city’s utility fund balance to increase by an estimated $60,000.
In other business, the board briefly discussed having planning meetings again to help the board of aldermen prepare for meetings. A decision was not officially made, but the board agreed to look at which day and time could work best.
Collins also mentioned that moving forward, the city will hold aldermen meetings at 5:30pm instead of 6pm.
The board of aldermen verbally agreed to give Jason Upton the authority to continue doing maintenance at Donaldson Park. The city is allowed to do some maintenance as part of the lease agreement with the Corps of Engineers.
Upton said there are multiple invasive species at the park that need to be removed. Upton said removing the invasive species would make the park more appealing.
Upton also proposed several ideas that he would like the city to do to improve Donaldson Park. Among these ideas were burning a portion of the park to try and reduce the number of mosquitoes, restoring the park’s sign, and mentioning that the city has received permission to install a community garden at the park.
