Mountain View, MO – The Mountain View City Council met on Monday, June 28, to discuss the fiscal year budget for 2021-2022 (FY22). Many citizens voiced concerns and shock at the budgets increase to over $9.2 million. Ozark Radio News spoke with Council member Ellie Carson about the upcoming budget and what caused the increase.
The budget for the city of Mountain View for the 2020-2021 year was roughly $6.9 million. The budget for FY22 being $9.2 million caused shock at the increase of $2.3 million but a large portion of this funding is coming from grants, not the city. Carson said “Our financial officer, Linda Higgins, was able to procure about $2 million in grant funding for the city. While these generally have a zero to 10% match, we still have to put ALL the grant funding in the budget. So it’s not costing us that much money and we’re not spending that much money, it just needs to be reflected in the budget that the funds are going to the certain departments.”
Many of these improvements are going to underground drainage repairs, airport repairs, and to fixing parts of the tennis court and city pool. Other parts of the grants are going to replace outdated equipment. This includes a new trash truck, new air conditioning for the senior center, and other equipment. On the new equipment, Carson said “These items being used were ancient, didn’t work half the time, and our guys were doing the best they could with what they had but it’s way past time to get updated items that the supervisors requested.”
The increase of $300,000 that the city has to fund will come from small increases to trash and sewage rates that had not increased since the 1990s. While Mountain View, as many parts of the nation, was hit hard by the February 2021 winter storm, the city is not increasing electric rates to cover that unforeseen cost.
