GREEN RIVER — The Green River City Council unanimously adopted the fiscal year 2025 budget Tuesday night, with the discussion centering mostly around the schedule of fees.

The City of Green River adopts its budget in three parts: the adoption of the wages for all elected and appointed officials, adopting the schedule of fees charged for services, products, licenses, rentals, and more, and then finally making appropriations and adopting the budget. While the budget was adopted without any discussion, the schedule of fees included a good amount of discussion before it was ultimately passed as presented.

Councilman Gary Killpack proposed two amendments to the schedule of fees, first by making a motion that all waived fees, including fees that are waived or nonprofits and 501c’s, must come before the City Council for approval. During this discussion, City Administrator Reed Clevenger and City Finance Director Christ Meats said that all waived fees do come before the Council before they are waived, except for waived fees less than $750 for nonprofits. However, Killpack said that this rule has not been followed this year, but did not elaborate on when waived fees did not get Council approval.

“That’s not 100 percent true, that’s not what happened this year,” he said.

The Council split their vote on this amendment, with Council Members Killpack, Ron Williams, and Robert Berg voting in favor of the amendment, and Mayor Pete Rust and Council Members Sherry Bushman and George Jost voting against it. Council Member Mike Shutran was absent from the meeting. Due to the tie vote, the motion did not pass.

Killpack’s second proposed amendment was to include the $1 locker fee at the Rec Center in the daily passes, so patrons don’t have to pay for a locker if they buy a daily pass to the recreation center. However, Parks and Recreation Director Katie Duncombe said that the rec center would not have enough lockers for people to use if every daily patron automatically got a locker with their daily pass. Additionally, she said the daily locker fees account for about $5,700 of the rec center’s revenue.

“That’s a lot of money in the scheme of things,” she said.

The motion for the amendment failed in a 4-2 vote, with Killpack and Williams voting in favor of it and the rest of the Council voting against.

As for the budget, Green River is projecting revenues totaling $17.7 million in the general fund, with expenditures totaling $20.7 million, leaving a deficit of around $3 million in the general fund budget. With other non-disclosed financing uses, the city had to balance a $4.2 million deficit in the general fund. However, the city is estimating to start the fiscal year with a beginning general fund balance of $14.7 million, leaving a sub-total fund balance of $10.5 million.

With restricted funds accounted for, the city is estimating that the general fund will end FY24 with $234,384 of unrestricted and undesignated funds.

Additionally, the city is estimating to have $3.4 million in capital projects, however, they will have $2.5 million in other financing sources, leaving a capital project fund deficit of $900,000. With the fund beginning FY25 with an estimated $4.3 million, there will be a sub total capital fund balance of about $3.4 million. View the full budget summary below.