ST. GEORGE — The Santa Clara City Council passed an amendment to its 2022-23 fiscal year budget at its meeting Wednesday night, just a minute after passing the budget.
The amendment mainly adds spending to the Santa Clara Justice Court and administration but one of the larger increases is for the Santa Clara-Ivins Fire Department.
Neither the city’s financial director Debbie Bannon nor any other city officials said the additional funds were in response to neighboring city Ivins adding funds in its own budget for the immediate staffing of the Center Street fire station in Ivins.
Bannon noted that the main reasons for the amendment came from administrative and Justice Court payroll increases.
“Every year we have to amend the budget based on unforeseen expenses,” Bannon told the council.
With no comment from council members, it was unanimously passed 3-0 with members Leina Mathis and Ben Shakespeare absent.
The budget amendment was opened up to public comments before passage. One resident, Justin Kaplan, spoke expressing skepticism about the additional spending.
“I’m always wary of government expanding,” Kaplan said. “Let’s keep the government small. Just do a decent job, not a great job. It just needs to be a decent job.”
Evidence of the increasing fire budget could be seen as a new full-time fire captain and three firefighter/paramedics were sworn in during the meeting, with their families filling the chamber. Mayor Rick Rosenberg expressed admiration for the firefighters and their families in attendance.
“You guys have been heroes of mine since I was a kid,” he said.
Santa Clara-Ivins Fire Department Chief Andrew Parker also announced during the meeting that the department is accepting applicants ages 16-21 to volunteer. The program is affiliated with the national Fire Service Exploring program, which is an affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America. The program is open to both men and women.
An additional $333,663 was added to the fire department, which mainly is overseen and budgeted by Santa Clara while run jointly with Ivins. Overall, the budget remained balanced with $9,058,086 in both revenues and expenses.
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