ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
The Liberal City Commission needed less than 20 minutes to get through its agenda for its most recent meeting Tuesday evening.
The lone item of new business on the commission’s agenda was discussion of Resolution 2416 concerning the intent to levy a property tax exceeding the Revenue Neutral Rate.
“As per the agenda packet, this resolution would serve as the City of Liberal’s official notice to the Seward County Clerk of our intention to exceed the Revenue Neutral Rate. This resolution provides an estimated mill rate and the final mill rate will be determined when we have the Revenue Neutral Rate and budget hearings at the Aug. 27 commission meeting,” Finance Director Kristyn Reust said. “The Revenue Neutral Rate is currently calculated at 50.367 mills by the Seward County Clerk, and the proposed mill levy is 53.078 mills.”
“The biggest thing this does is it gives us until October to finish the budget, but I highly doubt we will exceed the Revenue Neutral Rate,” City Manager Rusty Varnado added. “At least, the goal is not to levy any more next year than we did this year. I think we’re doing pretty well within our interest we’re gaining on our money, and we’re doing some smart spending, so I think that will remain beneficial for us. Again, this just gives us time to make everything as right as possible so we don’t overtax.”
Ultimately, the commission voted unanimously to approve the resolution.
After that discussion, Varnado gave an update from his office.
“To start, we’ve targeted July 16 for a special meeting to discuss the insurance renewal, and staff is going to recommend we keep the current plan in place,” Varnado said. “Instead of having a full meeting or having the commission vote on anything, I just need a consensus the commission is okay with us keeping the Blue Cross Blue Shield health, vision and dental for another year. Then, we did some preliminary work on adjusting some contributions. The initial movement got it to where we’re going to spend about an additional $290,000 after we increase the employee contributions. But, as part of the survey, everyone was very passionate about keeping Blue Cross Blue Shield, so if we ever want them to change, we’ve got to do a better job at educating them at how good the other plan is. As long as you’re all good with the City maintaining the policy we have, we can move forward with that.”
Varnado also talked about attendance at Adventure Bay Water Park for the summer so far as well as some other projects.
“Adventure Bay Water Park has, to date, had record numbers, so the public is really out in force and using the facility,” Varnado said. “We have also scheduled a town hall meeting for Tuesday, July 30, and we’d like it, if you have any particular topics you’d like to have discussed, to get in touch with Keeley [Moree] so she can put out a community survey so we can at least get some feedback on those topics that are near and dear to you all before we put together the final presentation. Keeley is also working on a new Web site for the Mid-America Air Museum – in case you haven’t yet seen the new Web site for the golf course, it’s far, far beyond what we had before. As great as the museum is, we don’t really have a marketing tool to match the quality of what’s showcased inside. She’s started work on that, so we’ve got some really high hopes there. Keeley’s also been working on some discussions about finding more cost-effective lodging at Arkalon Park – As you all know, the initial plan/hope was to build for about $40,000 each, and it came in at $140,000, so she spent some time today with a vendor looking at other options to get that back down into the $40,000 range, and we’d like to put three or four out there in order to assess demand through the end of the year and then determine what direction we want to go with indoor lodging at Arkalon Park as opposed to sleeping in tents or in your RV or whatever.”
Varnado also mentioned the upcoming chip seal work coming up and reminded people to be sure and keep their vehicles off the streets or else be towed.
During the commissioners’ comments, Commissioner Janeth Vazquez briefly plugged the annual Community Health Fair, set for Saturday, Oct. 5.
“I do again think it’s going to be a very successful event, we’ve all been very pleased with turnout the past few years,” Vazquez said. “We’ve been doing different stories and we’re going to be doing a lot more marketing for this event this year. There was a reporter who did an investigative story, and we know Seward County has one of the highest rates of uninsured residents in the whole state, and another finding showed 20 percent of Hispanic people are uninsured across the state. We do want to promote all the services that will be offered. I think this fair is something that needs highlighted and bragged about with Liberal, because there really aren’t a lot of health fairs throughout the state, and the other fairs that are coordinated are done on a far smaller scale, so I do anticipate the more marketing we do, the more people we’ll pull in from out of town.”
