CEDAR CITY — Cedar City officials prioritized exploring new sources of water and maintaining current infrastructure in its recently adopted $60 million budget for the current fiscal year.
On June 8, the City Council unanimously approved and adopted the budget for the 2022-2023 fiscal year that went into effect at the beginning of the month.
However, City Finance Director Jason Norris noted that the number assigned to a budget is “complicated.”
“So we have different buckets that we do different things with,” he said. “We move money from one bucket to another.”
Because of the way the process works, some funds are counted twice. For instance, if $500,000 is transferred from the Recreation, Arts and Parks tax, also known as RAP, to the general fund, it will be included in the overall budget as $1 million.
For comparison, when the city used the same method, last year’s budget was estimated at $54 million, as reported by Cedar City News.
Water projects
The city is emphasizing water exploration projects, which Norris said was part of Cedar City Mayor Garth Green’s vision. Approximately $5.8 million was earmarked for water-related capital projects, in order to assess and acquire water rights, replace water lines and upgrade the supervisory control and data acquisition system, also known as SCADA.
The city has 11 water storage tanks that can hold approximately 19 million gallons, which amount to about 1 1/2 to 2 days of excess capacity should the region run out of water or if the wells shut off at once, Public Works Director Ryan Marshall said during the special budget meetings in May. (See Ed. Note.)
For this and other reasons, Marshall said the Public Works Department is concerned about water usage.
“That’s scary for all of us,” he said. “So, we want to start getting some redundancy out there.”
To increase the water supply, the city set aside $1 million to drill test wells and $2 million in additional funds to drill a production well, according to the budget.
The city commissioned Willowstick Technologies to conduct a comprehensive study in search of new water sources, as previously reported by Cedar City News. Marshall predicted that the budget would allow the city to drill several test wells using the study to guide them to the most likely sources of potable water.
The city reviewed the study results in the council chambers earlier this month. Watch the discussion here.
Public safety
The budget includes $412,461 for capital projects requested by the Cedar City Police Department and $745,000 for those submitted by the Cedar City Fire Department.
The police department received approval for $100,000 for new police vehicles, $88,200 for tasers and $12,000 for sniper rifles, among other requests.
Police Chief Darin Adams said during the budget meetings that the tasers officers currently use are no longer supported and he hoped to get everyone updated equipment.
“(The) tasers we use are outdated; we limped along for a bit,” he said.
Additionally, the department was approved to hire two patrol officers and one school resource officer, Norris said.
Norris said that while the city didn’t approve requests for funds from the fire department to build two new fire stations, officials budgeted $350,000 to acquire land for future projects.
The city also earmarked $20,000 for updates to the fire department’s training center, according to the budget.
Additionally, the department received $200,000 to buy rapid response trucks, $60,000 to purchase a flood response trailer and $115,000 for 800 MHz radios, the budget states.
Streets and Highways
Capital projects to improve Cedar City’s streets and highways were budgeted at just under $2.8 million, according to the budget. A project at the intersection of 895 South and Joe Thurston Way received $23,000 and $350,000 was earmarked to install a traffic signal at the intersection of Kitty Hawk Drive and Airport Road.
Senior engineer Jonathan Stahis said the traffic light project at Kitty Hawk will likely be completed by the end of the year.
“We’re seeing a lot more traffic going down toward Airport Road (with the new bridge),” he told Cedar City News. “So there’s a lot of interest in getting it done from the public. We’re trying to move forward as quickly as we can.”
Additionally, the city budgeted $1 million to acquire and develop roads from the Cedar City Transportation and active transportation plan, and $300,000 to widen streets at new developments.
To view the entire Cedar City budget for the 2022-2023 fiscal year, click here.
Ed. Note: This story has been updated to fix a typo that erroneously stated that the city’s 11 water storage tanks can hold up to 19 billion gallons.
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