Fire Chief Mike Wilson presents his budget to the council.

WARSAW — The Warsaw Common Council spent almost two hours discussing the budgets of nine different departments during the meeting held last night, Aug. 20.

Department heads were present to explain their budgets to the council. Some departments only had one budget while others had as many as seven.

Warsaw Police Chief Scott Whitaker presented the Warsaw Police Department budgets. The first budget discussed was the police general fund which has risen 5.88 percent to $5,003,176. Whitaker explained that the increase is due to wanting to add two new sworn officers, bringing the total up to 40 and the purchase of four new police vehicles. He further explained that the department is having trouble staffing, many times running the required minimum number of officers on a shift. The police forfeiture budget is at $86,350, up 354.47 percent. The law continuing education budget is set at $38,000 and all funds are generated from court docket fees. The police pension budget is set by state code.

Warsaw Fire Chief Mike Wilson then presented the Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory budgets. The fire operating budget saw a 7.99 percent increase to $4,926,040. The equipment replacement budget jumped 65.04 percent to $1,222,272 due to the expected replacement of Squad 13-3. Further information on these budgets can be viewed here.

Warsaw Municipal Airport Manager Nick King presented the aviation budget. Overall, the general budget dropped 4.77 percent to $843,114.15. Hal Heagy followed and presented the cemetery budget. This budget rose 4 percent to $707,558.

City Planner Jeremy Skinner presented the most budgets with a total of seven. The building and planning budget saw a 1 percent increase to $757,995. The technology park budget includes possible capital outlay projects and was presented as $692,000. The redevelopment general fund sits at $331,925. This money could be used to support the possible senior housing project on Market Street. The redevelopment allocation budget is $1,597,710 and the big project for 2019 is the Buffalo Street plaza. The Northern TIF budget contains $6,167,914 and the main projects are phase II of CR 300N and the airport sanitary sewer system. The Winona interurban budget has $50,000 it could contribute to the demolition of the Gatke building. The redevelopment eastern TIF budget has $750,000 for the Anchorage Road project.

Parks Superintendent Larry Plummer presented the parks and recreation budget. This budget is up 9.5 percent to $2,591,910. The increase is due to adding an administrative assistant, redoing the amphitheater at Lucerne Park and adding a parking lot to Kelly Park.

Other budgets presented included the clerk-treasurer budget, the general bond budget, the cumulative capital improvement budget, the EDIT budget, the Riverboat budget, the CCD budget and the council budget.

The public hearing and first reading of the budgets will take place at the Oct. 1 meeting with the final reading and budget adoption taking place at the Oct. 15 meeting. Line one cuts can still be made to the budget.

In other news:

• Council member Jeff Grose presented a resolution establishing deer nuisance area boundaries. The council approved this resolution. Read more about this program here.
• The council approved the ordinance for the Mitchell-Messmore annexation. This public hearing and financial plan presentation previously occurred. The annexation will be zoned R-1 and takes effect on Sept. 19.
• J.J. Thallemer LLC presented a petition for annexation. Thallemer explained that this annexation sits just south of the Tru Hotel annexation and would provide city services to his business office. He further noted he would abstain himself from the future public hearing.
• The next meeting will take place at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 4, due to the Labor Day holiday.