The city of Whitefish’s preliminary budget for next fiscal year is down 23 percent from last year’s total, and at $48.6 million includes a proposed property tax reduction of 5.2 percent due to voters’ approval of a resort tax increase.
At $68.3 million, last year’s budget was an anomaly, according to City Manager Chuck Stearns, inflated to 60 percent above normal due primarily to its inclusion of $8.5 million to complete the Haskill Basin conservation easement, and $14.4 million for the new downtown City Hall and parking structure project, construction of which is underway.
Under the budget, property taxes would see a reduction of 7 mills because of an increased property tax rebate that occurred when voters approved a resort-tax hike from 2 percent to 3 percent.
Seventy percent of the revenue from the extra 1 percent will go toward the cost of the conservation easement, while 25 percent is used for property tax rebates to city property owners.
Changes in the management of the Stumptown Ice Den will also affect the budget because it is now privately managed, trimming $464,861 from the budget.
Meanwhile, city employees will see a 3.8 percent pay increase, which is more than the previous year’s increase of 2.3 percent.
Stearns said the budget also marks the first year in more than 20 years that there will not be a phase-in of property value increases from a reappraisal.
With the State Legislature adopting a two-year reappraisal cycle, there is no general valuation increase this year. The only property valuation or mill value increase available will be from new construction going on the tax rolls and some other classes of valuation like Centrally Assessed property.
“We are projecting and hoping that the mill value increases by 3.1 percent to $22,000 per mill this year,” Stearns wrote in the proposed budget.