Quincy City Council approves $73.6 million 2019 budget
Charles H. Featherstone/Columbia Basin Herald At a Tuesday night meeting of the city council, Quincy Police Chief Kieth Siebert (right) swears in (l-r) Sergeant Julie Fuller and detectives Brad Poldervart and Stephen Harder, all veteran Quincy police officers promoted to new positions.
QUINCY — The City of Quincy passed a $73.6 million budget for 2019, including $24 million for continued work on the city’s industrial waste water treatment and reuse system.
“We’ve gone through the budget, gone over it tooth and nail,” said Quincy City Administrator Tim Snead.
After several days of meetings to hammer out the 2019 budget, which is large for a town of 8,000 people, council members unanimously approved the budget with virtually no discussion.
The budget includes all of the city’s 36 separate operating and capital funds.
The city’s $14.9 million general fund includes $3.5 million to operate the police department, $871,000 for the fire department (which Quincy contracts out to Grant County Fire District No. 3) and $1.1 million for the parks and recreation department. Of the total $14.9 million general fund, the 2019 budget leaves $4.5 million unspent as an “ending fund unreserved.”
The city is also budgeting $9.1 million for streets ($3.6 million in the street fund and $5.4 million in the street construction reserve fund), $1 million for continued construction on the new city hall, $5 million for the water fund, $3 million for the industrial sewer operating fund and $3.9 million for the domestic sewer fund.
In addition, the council also approved a roughly 2 percent increase in water connection fees and monthly water rates, garbage and composting fees, and industrial sewer rates.
“We’re having to do a lot of upgrades on old water lines, and the town is growing,” Snead told council members.
“The (industrial waste water) reuse system will help with water use, but we’re getting tight on water rights, and we’re having to look at getting new rights,” Snead said.
Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.