The Herculaneum Board of Aldermen approved its 2024-2025 fiscal year budget that projects the city bringing in over a quarter million dollars more than it spends.
According to the budget, which started July 1 and runs through June 30, 2025, the city is projected to spend $9,119,303 and bring in $9,397,595, a surplus of $278,292, said Herculaneum City Administrator Dusty Hosna, who was hired in April.
The city started this fiscal year with $4,692,700 in reserves and the new budget projects the city ending with $4.8 million in reserve funds, he added.
Hosna said the city tries to maintain about $4.5 million in its reserve funds.
Cutting unnecessary expenditures was the goal for the city this year, he said.
He said Herculaneum Mayor Ryan Wright has been adamant about finding different ways to save the city money, such as looking into different banking options.
Hosna said after posting a request for proposals, the Board of Aldermen approved a banking change that could possibly bring in an additional $180,000 in revenue for the city.
He said the city also recently sought bids for a water tower maintenance agreement and by doing so, saved the city more than $250,000 over five years.
Hosna said the biggest savings for the fiscal year budget was a major drop in accounting fees. “The city is on pace to pay out around $40,000 this year for accounting services, a huge savings over last year’s total number of $124,000. This is due to a switch in accounting firms and more responsibilities being handled by in-house staff.”
Hosna said Herculaneum staff have implemented several changes to make city processes more efficient and save taxpayer money, including reducing the city’s legal fees by 10 percent this year.
“We have taken on several planning and zoning and economic development duties in-house, which saves on legal fees,” Hosna said. “The attorneys no longer process the applications for zoning requests anymore, and they don’t attend the planning and zoning meetings unless requested.”
Last fiscal year, Hosna said, the city closed out the budget by giving merit-based raises across the board, purchasing a new fire pumper, buying much needed ammunition for the Police Department, starting the process for in-car and body camera upgrades and adding a park superintendent to help manage the city’s parks.
He said these improvements were the beginning of the plan to bring the city to a good place to start planning for future improvements.
“The city has played the repair game for too long, and we need to really establish a good baseline so that next budget year we can start a five- and 10-year capital improvement plan. The Board of Aldermen recognized the need to get our police equipment, fire equipment and Public Works equipment up to a good starting point,” Hosna said. “The practice of replacing things as they break and being completely reactive can be costly and time-consuming.”
Hosna said this year’s budget will see an increase in capital improvement expenditures, with $910,000 budgeted for those projects.
He said the city plans to complete infrastructure upgrades at the sewer and water facility; rebuild a new pavilion at the park that was destroyed in a storm last spring; add a fence to enclose the playground and splashpad at the park; update police vehicles; and purchase a new snowplow.
Hosna said the city is making improvements in several other areas, with increased social media presence and a new website with a public portal for public documents.
He said the city anticipates general fund revenue to increase from last year due to an increase in business activity, adding that plans are underway for multiple restaurants to open in Herculaneum in the upcoming year, which have not yet been announced.
Hosna said increased retail activity would bring more revenue from the city’s ½-cent sales tax for capital improvements. It also would see more revenue from the 1-cent sales tax charged at businesses in the Community Improvement District (CID), and those funds could be used to beautify the city’s commercial districts and attract positive development.
He said the city is considering creating grants using CID funds for businesses to upgrade their facilities, such as upgrading signage or siding.
“We’re going to start using those funds as they’re intended, to make the area look better. We’re potentially going to do some ‘Welcome to Herculaneum’ signage at the roundabout and things like that to make it more appealing when you come to town.”
Hosna said the city is also investing in its Park Department and already has added a part-time park superintendent to help keep Herculaneum parks clean and well-maintained.
He said having the park superintendent has made a huge difference in the cleanliness and operations of the Bay of Naples Splash Zone.
“Throughout the season, it’s only had three or four days of being down, and all the chemicals were always good. I think we had a really successful year,” Hosna said.
“We hope our push for economic development will continue to result in more revenue that will allow us to provide our residents with the best possible services.”