Lavonia to Hold Public Hearing Tonight on FY15 Budget

It will likely be a short Lavonia City Council meeting this evening due to the annual tree lighting event, but it will be an important one.

The Council is expected to pass its FY2015 budget tonight.  Lavonia’s fiscal year begins with the calendar year on January 1st.

The estimated budget for Lavonia’s 2015 General Fund comes to $2.2 million in anticipated revenue and $2.1 million in expenditures leaving the City about $27-thousand dollars in the black.

“Property taxes will be up because we have some new investment around the interchange so we’ve got some extra revenue coming out of that,” City manager Gary Fesperman said. “Sales tax is up a little bit. The insurance tax premium is up a little bit. Other than that, pretty much the same as last year.”

Fesperman said, even with some extra projects on the table for FY15, expenditures are down.

“We added in some line items for the cannery since we’ve taken that over, which was not in the previous budget,” he said. “Actually, our expenditures are $37,383 projected less than  what it was last year.”

In addition to the cannery, the City will be working to install new digital water meters throughout their customer base.

A public hearing takes place tonight at 5:15p followed by the regular meeting at 5:30p where the council will vote.