Celina Aldermen Approve Budget On First Reading

The Celina Board of Aldermen approved its new fiscal year budget on first reading.

The spending plan does not include any major changes, but Celina Mayor Luke Collins said the money is there to consider employee raises in the future.

“At this point in time there is not raises included in the budget,” Collins said. “But it is planned to take care of that probably in July or August.”

Collins said the raises could range from 50 cents to a dollar.

“It requires two readings for the budget to pass,” Collins said. “The course of action that we are going to try to do is pass the budget as is and come back to do a budget amendment for raises. It would lower our general fund for next year.”

According to the City Recorder, the budget does not include a tax raise or new employee positions. It does include a 3 percent water rate increase as required by the State Comptroller’s Office.

As for the total budget, it estimates some 2.7 million in revenue and 2.6 million in expenditures. A some $200,000 increase in revenue compared to this year’s budget is included. But, expenditures also are expected to increase by about the same amount.

The bottom line comes to an excess of $42,000.