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Comments
BC
“Our goal is to present a balanced budget reflective of our financial realities and our commitment to serving McMinnville,” he said.
Oh, hindsight how cruel is your mighty fist. Where was THIS Mr. Towery when the budget started exploding years ago?
CubFan
Part 1
I’m outraged at this. We as taxpayers have to carefully consider our personal budgets. As everything from rent to groceries to utilities and more go up in price, we have to examine our budgets and make cuts. That’s what I expect from the city. And up until recently, their answer has seemed to be to increase fees. The $13 monthly fee on our water and light bill starting in January 2023 was to retire a $1.8 million shortfall. The city has collected enough to satisfy the original purpose of $1.8 million PLUS ANOTHER +$2 million from the utility user fees in the last year, and they are still short $3 million. Is it too simplistic to wonder if they hadn’t imposed the utility fees, we would now be facing a $5 million deficit? This is mismanagement of funds.
CubFan
Part 2
The city raised this user fee in January 2025. On top of that, it’s highly probable the city will be assessing another user fee for the stormwater system (estimated $15 a month).
Let’s go back to what our taxes and fees looked like before any city “user fee” on the utility bills and before the new fire department levy. Assuming an average home value of $250,000, we paid $1.50 for the fire department. This part of our taxes was $375 per year. At that time, there were no “fees”.
Now, let’s presume the city claws back all $1.50 of the old fire department money (they’ve already started this), also presume they will start charging us for the storm water system. Our taxes and fees will now be: $375 (for old fire department bond , $1.50/M), $500 (new fire department bond $2/M- we are already paying this), $156 “user fee on utility bills ($13/mo), $180 (proposed stormwater fee $15/mo).
Add that all together: $375 + $500 + $156 + $180= $1211 per year.
To recap, a couple of years ago we were paying $375, and now we could be paying $1211. Over a 3X INCREASE!
(All this is before the planned Park and Rec Bond)!
CubFan
Part 3
Who can afford this? Yet no one is talking about the kind of money the city expects average citizens to pay.
Then consider other rising costs: housing, insurance, utilities, groceries… nothing has gone down. Credit card debt has skyrocketed. This is not sustainable. The only logical answer I can see is for the city to cut expenses. It might mean cutting jobs and services, which is a hard thing. But the reality is we can’t keep writing checks. (Perhaps it’s time to “DOGE” the city?)
Bigfootlives
CubFan, anytime you mention the fee/tax to cover the perpetual $1.8 million dollar budget shortfall you have to throw in the increased billing services fee incurred by the city for changing the agreement in this boondoggle. The annual billing services fee went from $600 to $147,000 dollars.
I do hope Mr. Towery’s navigation has improved.
https://newsregister.com/article?articleTitle=water-light-delivers-wastewater-billing-surprise--1685112241--46217--
Moe
"CubFan, anytime you mention the fee/tax to cover the perpetual $1.8 million dollar budget shortfall you have to throw in the increased billing services fee incurred by the city for changing the agreement in this boondoggle. The annual billing services fee went from $600 to $147,000 dollars."
How about this:
Remove the "$13" MW&L fee.
Then send MW&L a notice that that triggers the restoration of the billing fee to $600!
fiddler
Rising costs, yet in this edition of the paper there's talk of the city purchasing county buildings. Where's the logic?
Pretty soon we may have defaults on loans, including mortgages a/c all the "DOGE efficiency policies," and yet the city talks about spending money (they won't get from property taxes when people default).
The cuts pretty soon may be HUGE!