Along with a proposed 2.5% increase for city employees, budgets presented to the Warsaw Common Council on Monday included something new for 2025 - longevity pay.
Sworn firefighters and police officers already receive longevity pay, but now the plan is for all city employees to receive it.
The first half of Warsaw Common Council’s budget hearings for 2025 on Monday were for Oakwood Cemetery, human resources, the parks and recreation department, street department, community economic and development and building and planning department.
The remaining city departments will present their budgets to the city council at 6 p.m. Aug. 19.
Cemetery sexton Hal Heagy presented two budgets to the council, beginning with the cemetery’s main budget.
“What you’re going to hear probably 150 times, at least all the department heads, is we are going 2.5% raise (for employees) and there is a longevity raise in there, also,” he said.
With the longevity pay and raises included, salaries and wages are proposed to go up 4.6% in his 2025 budget. He said he has three employees in his department who have over 15 years each.
Later, Clerk-Treasurer Lynne Christiansen said she asked the department heads to separate out the longevity pay under salaries and wages in their budgets so the city council could see the impact of that since it’s new for next year. It’s based off $120 per year of service for up to 25 years.
Regarding the longevity pay, Heagy said he has one employee with one year, one at five, two at six, one at 15, one at 16 and he’s currently at 18 years of service.
The largest increase in Heagy’s budget was for machinery equipment, which is proposed at an 18% increase from $54,000 to $64,000. Heagy said he put the purchase of a truck in there as the cemetery currently has two that are getting old.
In total, his cemetery budget went up 4% to $889,530 from $854,856.
Heagy’s second budget is his permanent budget, which is a revenue fund. The funds in it come from half the lot sales in the cemetery, not tax dollars. It’s proposed to increase from $101,000 in 2024 to $135,000 in 2025. The increase is due to a stone wall, lean-to shed and getting electrical out to Legion 3.
“Two reasons. One, we want to light up the flags. That’s something we should have been doing. I don’t have electricity out in the cemetery. We wanted to get it out to 3 to honor the military. And also, we’re looking at maybe some work as a pond or something out there and I’ll need electric out there for that, too,” he said.
The $50,000 lean-to shed may be put aside. Heagy said they’re running out of niches (for placement of above-ground ashes) in the cremation garden. The number of cremations are growing.
Human Resource Director Denny Harlan presented his one proposed budget, which totals $314,717 for 2025, a decrease of $20,190 from the 2024 budget.
The biggest change for his budget, he said, is in his salaries and wages. He over-budgeted last year for the maintenance position for 2024, so he decreased that budget by $7,353 for 2025. He also over-budgeted health insurance last year, so he decreased it by $37,576 for 2025.
Councilwoman Cindy Dobbins asked if his administrative assistant was going to be moved to an HR generalist. In his budget for 2025, Harlan has no funds for the administrative assistant but $50,960 for the new position of HR generalist.
“So what we’re doing ... we’re adding HR generalist to the HR salaries. Montana (Gardner) has done a fantastic job and she went to SHRM (Society of Human Resources Managers) and got certified as an HR professional, so we’re going to make that a position to where she’s more specific on what she’s doing. And we won’t have an administrative assistant. So we’re not adding anybody, we’re just adding the position,” Harlan explained.
Parks and Recreation Department Superintendent Larry Plummer presented three proposed budgets for 2025.
The first was the park operating budget, which totals $3,263,530, a 10% increase above the 2024 approved budget.
Of that budget total, $1,301,900 is for salaries and wages.
“We did the 2.5%. Longevity is in there. Longevity is $21,900 for our department as we have three of us over 25-30 years,” Plummer said. “This also includes an additional employee. It’s been eight years since we’ve had an additional employee, and as our workload continues to grow - we’ve added two parks - the future proposes more parks coming on to the north side up there. The workload on our facilities, we’re in need of an additional employee. That’s figured in there.”
Insurance increased 12% to $492,000.
Most areas of the budget had no increase, including other personal services, supplies, operating supplies, repair and maintenance supplies, other services and charges, communication and transportation, printing and advertising and rentals.
Under repairs and maintenance, there’s $46,000 budgeted asphalt the northeast parking lots of Central Park, which are the two lots in front of Biblical Gardens. Another $40,000 is budgeted for Central Park sidewalk replacement.
“We’d like to do about 250 foot of sidewalk replacement on the circle inside Central Park on the west side. That’s the side that’s always under water. We’d like to change the elevation on that and have the water go under the sidewalk into the drains, as it was in 1994,” Plummer said.
Capital outlays in the budget has a 24% increase to $153,000. That includes $80,000 for building restrooms at Hire Park; $40,000 for a new pickup truck; and $90,000 for playground replacement at Kiddieland at Central Park.
The total for the park non-reverting recreation budget is proposed at $25,350 for 2025, an increase of $2,000. As of Monday morning, Plummer said there was a current fund balance of $50,011.94 in there so only half of that is being requested for the 2025 budget.
The third and final park budget is the non-reverting capital fund budget for the Fireman’s Building, Nye Youth Cabin and the kayak kiosks. It’s proposed at $55,250 for 2025, a 23% increase due to flooring and siding projects. As of Monday morning, Plummer said there was $115,773.32 in the fund, so less than half of that was proposed for the 2025 budget.
Five budgets for the street department were presented by Superintendent Dustin Dillon.
The first was the general fund, which includes a 3.88% increase for salaries and wages for the 2.5% increase and $34,800 for longevity. Dillon said he did add another employee for 2025, which was in his budget last year but he didn’t end up adding another employee.
“As we’re moving forward, we’ve got a very solid team right now, and we still need that extra person, but it’s going to be the right person to join our team at that time and not just moving somebody in. We’ve came a long way, we’ve got one of the best teams we’ve ever had, and that I’ve ever had a chance to be a part of,” he stated.
The proposed total for the general budget for 2025 is $6,894,945, a 4.95% increase over 2024’s $6,569,437.
The Motor Vehicle Highway unrestricted budget is proposed at $450,000, unchanged from 2024. Local Roads and Streets is proposed at $350,000, unchanged from 2024; and MVH restricted is $450,000, unchanged from 2024.
The wheel tax budget is proposed at $700,000, the same as 2024.
City Planner Justin Taylor presented his sole budget for the Building & Planning Department, which included the 2.5% increase for full-time employee salaries and $7,680 for longevity pay.
“There was also a need to increase the amount allocated to BZA and Plan Commission members since compensation for that was increased from $30 to $50 (per meeting). This increase was not reflected on previous budgets, so we just wanted to make sure we added that this year,” he said.
The total proposed for his department’s 2025 budget is $995,144, a 5% increase over 2024’s $945,289.
The last budgets presented for Monday came from Community and Economic Development Director Jeremy Skinner, who presented six budgets. The budgets were previously presented to the Warsaw Redevelopment Commission, who unanimously approved them.
“So all of my budgets that I present tonight are not necessarily tax rate-based, unlike a lot of the budgets you just heard from, so they are mostly increment-based outside of the Redevelopment General, which is part of the city’s tax rate, but the rest are increment-based,” Skinner explained.
The Warsaw Technology Park budget is proposed at $450,000; Redevelopment General, $292,180; Northern Residential TIF, $545,000; Southern Residential TIF, $350,000; Redevelopment Northern TIF, $6,189,285; and Winona Interurban TIF, $65,000.