Quincy approves $91.7 million budget for 2022

QUINCY — The Quincy City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved a $91.7 million budget for 2022, largely to cover a number of major planned water treatment and reuse projects.

“It largely relates to our industries, which are big,” said City Administrator Pat Haley. “We may be a town of 8,100 people, but we have the utility demand of a big city.”

By comparison, Moses Lake approved a total budget of $83.6 million for a town more than four times the size of Quincy, while Ephrata, which has roughly the same population as Quincy, in early December passed a 2022 budget of $22.4 million.

The budget sets out 2022 expenditures of $83.5 million with $8.2 million expected to be unspent by the end of the year, and anticipates revenue of $53.9 million added to an existing balance of $37.8 million at the beginning of 2022.

The city is planning to spend around $34.4 million for various industrial and residential water treatment projects, while $9 million is set aside for planning, design and construction of a major indoor recreation center at Lauzier Park.

Among the major projects included in the 2022 budget:

• $7.2 million for street construction, including $1.8 million to rebuild B Street Northeast and $1.2 million to bring Alder, Birch and J streets up to city standards;

• $1 million to purchase additional water rights, and another $500,000 for engineering work on a new well if a new right can be secured;

• $3.3 million to dig and construct a system to store water drawn from the Columbia Basin Project’s West Canal in the aquifer beneath Quincy;

• $4.4 million to design and refurbish the city’s municipal wastewater treatment system for use to water lawns and city parks;

• $3.9 million to improve and enhance the city’s industrial waste water treatment system, which handles wastewater produced by Quincy’s food processors;

• $1.5 million for pool improvements at the aquatic center.

Haley said much of the cost of the industrial water treatment system will be borne by the system’s users — Quincy Foods, Amway and Lamb Weston — either in a lump sum or as an add-on to the rates they pay.

For example, the budget estimates revenue for its wastewater reuse utility — which processes water used by some of the city’s data centers — at $6.5 million in 2022.

As part of the city’s $24 million general operating budget, Quincy expects to spend roughly $2.6 million on police operations, $951,000 on firefighting and $1.4 million on general government administration in 2022.

Haley said the Quincy Police Department will forgo new vehicles this year to ensure Grant County Fire District 3, which provides fire protection within the city limits, can buy a new ladder truck to replace a 25-year-old truck that has reached the end of its service life.

Also during Tuesday’s meeting, city clerk Nancy Schanze swore in newly elected city council members Dave Dormier and Jeff Spence, as well as Andrew Royer and Mayor Paul Worley, both of whom are beginning their second four-year terms on the council.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.