By BECKY KISER
Hays Post

Hays City Commissioners will continue reviewing the 2016 budget proposal during their meeting tonight.

They will also consider setting a public hearing date of Thursday, August 13, for the 2016 budget, with a 25.00 mill levy, the same as in 2015.

According to City Manager Toby Dougherty, sales tax revenues for 2015 are estimated at a 1.75% increase from 2014.  For 2016, sales tax revenues are estimated at a 1.00% increase above the 2015 estimate.

“We think these are conservative but achievable based on our current trend,” said Dougherty.

Operating expenditures are a little more than $400,000 higher than last year.

Dougherty explained it’s mostly because of money the city decided it wanted to begin setting aside for street work.

“We identified $500,000 in the General Fund budget we plan on transferring to Special Highway (fund) so we can spend well over a million dollars on street maintenance this year.

“According to the age, condition and amount of streets we have, we should be spending $3 million a year to take care of our streets–a million and a half on replacement and a million and a half on maintenance.

“This (2016) budget will get us about a million and a half dollars on the maintenance side, so we’re pretty happy with that,” Dougherty said.

The commission meeting begins at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 23, in Hays City Hall, 1507 Main Street.

The complete agenda is available here.