‘Twas the budget meeting, and it went off without a hitch. Let’s just dive right into money matters, shall we?
The City Council passed the fiscal year 2023 operational budget of $186,610,259. The biggest city expenditures are the schools, which are budgeted for $68,747,963; the treasurer’s department, which handles short- and long-term debt; and water, sewer and trash, which are held under separate enterprise funds and weigh in collectively at $19,797,434. The council set the new water, sewer, and solid waste rates and Councilor Varela took the opportunity to point out that the city needs to do better about educating residents on water conservation measures including how to use gray water. Councilor Cohen also noted that the more we recycle and the lower the contamination rates, the cheaper our solid waste rates will be. The water and sewer rates both grew by 2.35%. Once it is posted, the full budget will be available online.
There wasn’t a whole lot else going on, with the laser focus on funding the city, but the council did remove Restaurant Row from the list of city streets. There has been an long, slow, ongoing movement to de-list illegal streets from the street directory, and if you would like to learn more, Dustin Luca has an informative article on the topic. Doreen Wade, president of Salem United, petitioned the council to change the name of the non-street in the Willows from Restaurant Row to Black King Pompey Drive. The petition was sent to the Parks and Rec department, who have jurisdiction over street naming in parks.
That’s all she wrote folks! Short and sweet today.
Have a great weekend! Respectfully submitted,
Jen Lynch