The City of McMinnville’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen gave the budget for fiscal year 2024-25 its second and final read on Tuesday. With careful weighing and counter-weighing, the Finance Committee managed to avoid a tax hike for residents of McMinnville in its recommended budget.
Between the first official read, which took place on May 14, and Tuesday evening’s regularly scheduled meeting, the Board arranged a special-called meeting on May 21 to review three specific nonprofits which requested to have their funding looked at once more: McMinnville-Warren County Senior Center, Meals on Wheels and Main Street McMinnville.
During the special-called meeting, it was determined to award the Senior Center $30,000 and Main Street McMinnville $35,000 but to maintain the $0 suggested allotment to Meals on Wheels.
These recommendations were adopted with the second read for the sake of brevity, which City Attorney Tim Pirtle indicated was a legal method of handling the adjustment to the proposed budget during the meeting for the first reading.
The projected ending general fund balance for June 30 is $5,797,318, which is 28.6 percent of total appropriations. Included in this year’s budget are the following general fund expenditures:
• Department of Administration - $2,404,818
• Police Department - $4,896,063
• Fire Department - $3,721,272
• Community Development - $552,188
• Parks Department - $2,941,041
• Public Works - $2,296,274
• Debt Service (Principal and interest) - $784,911
• Capital Items and Projects - $2,477,077
In addition to the general fund, several other areas reflected the following estimated positions for June 30, 2025:
• State Street Aid Fund - $301,058
• Solid Waste Fund - $615,625
• Drug Fund - $116,192
• Water and Sewer Fund - $26,387,249
Before voting on the second read of the budget, Commissioner Stacey Harvey posited the thought of deferring funding for Main Street Live to the Tourism Development Board instead of using the city’s budget funds in recognition of the fact the event is geared toward tourism. The $35,000 donated to Main Street McMinnville is used to pay the organization’s administrative fees.
“The reason I say that is that it makes sense, but two, we look at page one of our budget and it tells us we are operating at a -$2.485 million cash position because of the capital budgets,” said Stacey. “We have a net positive of $18,800 in the revenue, we still have to deal with that capital budget. It would seem to me that if the TDB money can be used to promote tourism and Main Street Live promotes tourism as the testimony was last week, it would make sense to me that Main Street Live would be funded by the TDB rather than the city itself.”
Mayor Ryle Chastain agreed it was something that could be given consideration going forward as it is a sound use of the funds through the TDB, which by law must be used solely for tourism. No adjustments were made for the upcoming year’s budget as it would require conversations between the TDB and Main Street McMinnville.
The proposed budget was motioned for approval by Stacey and seconded by Commissioner Steve Harvey. It passed unanimously and will be effective for the dates July 1, 2024 through June 31, 2025.
