During the November voting session, the Jamestown city council officially approved nine amendments and the 2025 General Fund Budget. Screenshot courtesy of the city of Jamestown’s website

After about two months of discussions and work from council members, the Jamestown city council officially approved the 2025 General Fund Budget for the city, which following nine amendments also approved at the November voting session, has also decreased the projected tax hike by almost half.

Amendments that were proposed and approved at the voting session for the budget include: increasing the amount for fuel for the police department, a decrease in health insurance expenses, cutting the human rights budget, an increase of salaries in the comptroller department, increasing social security, increasing sales tax revenue, decreasing the property tax, and increasing fund balance allocation.

Councilman Brent Sheldon, R-Ward I and chair of the finance committee noted the amendments will result in a balanced budget.

Councilman Russell Bonfiglio, R-At Large, said for him, there had been a concern regarding the amendment to the increase in American Rescue Plan Act lost revenue.

“I was very concerned about that money because I was worried about the new administration and what’s going to happen and that we wouldn’t be able to use it for our budget but I talked with the comptroller and she told me that it was ok to do,” Bonfiglio said. “The only thing I would ask, since people come and go, and I don’t know if this would be possible, is to put something in writing for them.”

Council president Tony Dolce noted because that amendment was a specific line item in regard to health insurance and not just something going to the general fund, that made it OK to do. At the end of the voting session, Dolce acknowledged the hard work being put into the budget by the council.

“Obviously, there were nine amendments that were brought forward this evening,” Dolce said. “Budget time is always a very difficult time and I just want to commend the mayor for the work her administrative staff did on this budget. It’s a very difficult budget.”

Dolce added that every year is a challenge in different ways, but noted that this year there were some mistakes and miscalculations that needed to be made up for. Additionally, he said the council was able to work to decrease the amount of a tax increase down to 3.61% from the original 7.79%.

“These are not easy decisions, you know, we’re lucky and fortunate that we still have a fairly decent fund balance to look at to use, with the American Rescue Plan,” Dolce said. “But again, the warning signs are there, that money is going to be gone.”

Moving forward, Dolce said in the future there is a lot to look at and that a lot of it is speculation for some areas, depending on the economy. He commended the council for doing what they could do to help the situation.

“A lot of people want to know the bottom line, and the bottom line is that with a 3.6% increase, the average $100,000 house is around $80 a year, which comes down to $7.73 a month,” Dolce said.

Other work is being done to help with general costs, including a separate resolution that was approved at the voting session, asking the state to increase state aid. Dolce said it is a huge challenge, but that they are working to keep the budget balanced, run the city, and stay afloat. It was also acknowledged that there has not been a significant tax increase in about eight years in the city.

“I just want to thank the council for their work, and again the mayor for a difficult road and going through each one of those lines and trying to balance this out as best we can,” Dolce said. “And thank you to all of the department heads for all of their hard work in coming in for the past two months and going through the budgets. We’d love to give you more, we know there’s a lot more that you need, and we do the best we can with what we have.”

Dolce said going into 2025 they will continue to monitor the budget as much as possible, and work forward to 2026.