Ephrata approves parade, works on budget planning

EPHRATA — The Ephrata City Council approved a Veterans Day Parade and discussed budgeting during their Nov. 1 meeting, City Administrator Ray Towry said. They also examined property tax rates.

“Council has just asked for the typical 1% (overall revenue) increase last night,” Towry said Nov. 2. “Which is what you’re allotted, not counting new construction.” 

State law prohibits a higher increase and the rate set by the city will fall in line with those requirements, he said. 

The public hearings included those for the budget and city tax rate, but negotiations with the police and public employees unions have put a pause on finalizing the budget until salaries are settled out, Towry said. Once that is done, the city can move forward with its budget process. 

“We’re putting together a draft budget where we’ve worked really hard in being equitable, and we’ve done that since my first tenure here (working for the city in another role). It’s been a long-standing practice.” 

Towry said the budget will add a few positions to the city’s staffing to accommodate the growth in the city and ensure services remain solid for the community.

“I use the analogy of, we’re standing on a bridge and behind us is the small town that we’ve always loved and known, but in front of us is the small city that we are actually becoming that needs to be able to provide services. We’ve got to add some positions,” he said.

Those positions will be direct service positions such as public works staff and similar positions, he said. 

Additional police department positions include promoting an officer to captain after a new recruit finishes her academy and field training. The goal is to get patrols up to full strength without putting stress on officers by pulling someone off the streets and promoting him or her to captain before someone is ready to fulfill that person’s patrol duties, Towry said. That’s just an initial improvement to the city’s police force.

“Over the next four or five years, hopefully, we’ll add another four officers. … We currently have two officers and a sergeant scheduled for each of our four crews. We’d like to increase that to three officers and a sergeant to the crews,” he said. 

Other priorities include infrastructure that will improve water, streets and other issues to ensure quality service to residents, he said. The city is currently working on multiple water and sewer projects that are intended to add capacity and improve water pressure for residents. The northeastern section of town lacks good water pressure, Towry said, so a new water tower and other improvements are intended to fix that concern. 

An annexation requested by Sandoval Rentals was tabled because of some filings that needed to be corrected prior to the annexation being examined, Towry said. That is likely to come up again at a future meeting once the filings for the land are in line with city and county codes. Towry said nothing seemed negligent about the filing. Some information simply needed to be corrected prior to any annexation moving forward.

The Veterans Day Parade is being put on by American Legion Art Semro Post 28, Towry said.