(Spirit Lake)– The Spirit Lake city council Tuesday decided to fund some last minute requests for funding, but not for the entire amounts that had been originally requested.
The council last month received requests from the Spirit Lake Airport Authority and the Lakes Community Land Trust. In addition, the council Tuesday received a new last minute request for funding from the YMCA for a fitness program it wants to start up for fourth grade students in the Spirit Lake School District. 10-thousand dollars was being requested from the city by “Y” spokesman Norm Johnson, who indicated the funding request will be an annual one.
Council members agreed the requests are good ones. But with the city’s budget already in the red, councilman Jeff Thee queried “How much further in the red to we want to go?”. Councilman Kevin Bice said it’s time the city look reality in the face.
With that, the council voted to give 5,833-dollars to the Y to fund its request through July, 2007; they voted to give three thousand dollars to the Lakes Community Land Trust which requested five thousand originally; and they voted to give six thousand to the Airport Authority…considerably less than it’s original request.
The Spirit Lake city council also Tuesday deferred action on a resolution calling for a special election to change the way proceeds from the Local Option Sales Tax are allocated. Currently 40 percent is allocated for property tax relief with 60 percent for capital improvements. Under the revision, the 60 percent could be used for any legal purpose, meaning atleast some of that money would go into the city’s cash-starved General Fund. The council wants to wait until the first of the year to adopt the resolution, with a possible election in April or May.
