Any Day
Weekly Update #243 9/15/2024 to 9/21/2024
Any day that I learn something new is a good day, and this week was full of chances to learn and grow. Let me share some of them as I review my week serving as mayor of the best small town in America.
As I sat in on a meeting related to the 2nd Street Project, I learned about one of our force mains and how it moves 30,000 gallons of waste in fifteen minutes several times per day. This also led to the discovery that our flow in July of this year at the plant was over 106 million gallons over the month. I won’t dive deep into all the paths these conversations led, but I will share that our crews are constantly working on and solving problems that the majority of our community members are not even aware need solved. To our teams that work on these various problems, I say thank you for all you do. It makes a huge difference to our tomorrow.
This week, the Mayor’s Youth Council went on a scavenger hunt around the downtown area. They had ten questions designed to help them learn about businesses, art, history, and so much more as they explored the area. Only one of the three teams managed to answer all the questions, but looking at those answers, I would say they guessed at one or two on the way back to check-in. All in all, our members seemed to learn a little something and have a good time in the process, and as they always do, this group of engaged community members gave me a boost of energy and a glimpse of hope for the future of our area.
As we work on the budget each year, I have a few goals I want to balance. In no particular order, I want to be able to fund each department's needs, provide the best cost of living increase possible for our staff members, look to the future and make sure we can maintain or improve our level of service as a whole, and keep the tax rate as level as possible for the upcoming year. In an effort to keep the list concise, I will leave it with these four. Of course, we have to do all of this before the final numbers come in from the state. As those numbers do come in we are able to have them put into our projections for the upcoming year. One of those numbers we just got in this week is Seymour’s Net Assessed Value, which for the first time since 2008 has risen to over $1 billion coming up over $36 million compared to the previous year. In the area of keeping a level tax rate, I have always tried to keep it between $1.35 and $1.45. On average over my time, it has been $1.3984. For 2025, even with a slight decrease in the tax rate we are still able to give a cost of living increase of 4%, fund our departments’ requests and needs, be comfortable with what we look like financially five years from now, and create some educational incentives for our staff to help them continue to improve themselves in the future. This last educational piece will just be the start as we have to work out the details over the next few months on what a tuition assistance program looks like. As we come into the budget approval season, I appreciate everyone that has helped get us to this point. It will now go to the council for their options as provided by state code approval or request a reduction.
There you have several moments this week where I learned something about our community, our processes, our people, and often even myself. Today, I will leave you with a quote from Greek poet Solon, "Seek to learn constantly while you live; do not wait in the faith that old age by itself will bring wisdom."