The Mountain Home City Council had one of its busiest agendas in several months Thursday night. Among the items the dealt with was the city budget. Heather Loftis has the story.
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TRANSCRIPT
The council, with Paige Evans abstaining, approved a budget of $53,876,918 for 2025, an increase of almost $2.5 million from 2024. The additional funds are coming from a projected carryover revenue of $3.5 million. The city anticipates collecting $14.6 million in sales tax revenue, up from the $14.2 million projected this year.
Also approved by the council Thursday night was a new wage scale for city employees which includes a 3% cost of living raise. The change to the wage scale will take effect with the pay period beginning Dec. 30.
The council approved a just over $15 million amendment to the contract with the Tolm Group which is doing work on the wastewater treatment plant which is 35 years old. Among the work being done is switching from chlorination disinfection to Ultraviolet disinfection of the waste water. They will also enclose the UV disinfection system and do a plant wide electrical upgrade.
An engineering report with Garver was approved for $150,000 so they can do design work on a plan to connect the Midway and Southwest water tanks. The plan is to have redundancy in case one of the tanks goes down.
The council approved spending just over $538,000 for cardio equipment that will go in the new Mountain Home Community and Aquatic Center. Parks and Recreation Director Daniel Baxley explained the price of the equipment is expected to go up significantly after the first of the year, so he advised the council to buy it now and the company they are buying it from has agreed to pay to put it in storage until the community center is ready to open.
The council also approved the rezoning of land from commercial C-3 to residential R-4 near the intersection of U.S. Highway 62 Southwest and the U.S. Highway 62/412 Bypass. The area is known as Sycamore Flats and already has 12 townhomes built on it, and the owner plans on building eight more.
Barring the need for a special meeting before the end of the year, Thursday night was the final meeting for Paige Evans who served six years on the Mountain Home City Council.
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