By KEVIN NEVERS

With only a few week to go before the Chesterton Town Council begins to cobble together the 2007 municipal budget, it has finally, formally, approved the 2006 budget, as reviewed and revised by the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance (DLGF).

At their meeting Monday night, members voted 5-0 to adopt that document.

Of particular interest, for 2007 DLGF has reduced the Street Department’s two principal budgets—Motor Vehicle Highway (MVH), used to fund general operations, and Local Road & Street (LR&S), used for sidewalk and paving as well as lease payments—to below 2006 levels.

This year MVH totals $857,606. Clerk-Treasurer Gayle Polakowski had advertised a 2007 MVH of $906,815. What DLGF authorized was $840,266, a decrease of $17,340 or 2.02 percent from the 2006 MVH.

At the same time DLGF reduced the 2006 LR&S by $1,732 or 1.32 percent, from $130,702 to $128,970.

After the meeting Polakowski told the Chesterton Tribune that both MVH and LR&S are both partially funded by the state and that the state is simply kicking in less funds.

Other highlights from the 2006 budget:

•The total municipal tax rate is $0.5733 per $100 of assessed valuation, an increase of $0.003 or 0.53 percent over last year’s tax rate of $0.5703.

•The total assessed valuation (AV) is $717,514,229, an increase of $47,514,229 or 7.1 percent over last year’s total AV of $670,000,000. Polakowski attributed the nominal increase in the tax rate to the increase in AV. Generally speaking, the greater a municipality’s AV, the lesser the burden on any given property-tax payer.

•For the record, the 2006 General Fund totals $4,164,191. Of that amount the Town Council’s budget totals $92,086; the Police Department’s, $1,826,129; the Fire Department’s, $1,011,500; and the Town Hall’s, $1,234,476.

•The Park & Recreation Department’s budget totals $328,148.

•Police and Fire pensions total $241,050.

•General Obligation Debt totals $117,899; Flood Control Debt, $101,750; Stormwater Debt, $411,888.

Posted 6/29/2006