Earlier this week the West Fargo city commission passed our preliminary budget for 2021.  The budget that was passed included a zero overall mill levy increase despite staff’s request for an incremental 2 mill increase.  City staff did a great job in finding areas to cut and tweak to keep our 2021 mill levy equal to 2020.   Due to an expected decrease in interest and state revenues the city will be using general fund reserves to make up a revenue deficit.  This is always a concern but is expected to be a short term issue.

I believe that this overall budget makes sense given the impacts of the pandemic to our community and increases in other fees the city has pushed forward over the last 6 months.  My concern with our 2021 budget is that we are committing to numerous expenses (staff for example) that creates a hole in our 2022 budget.  This means that this budget puts us in a position where we will have to increase the mill levy for 2022.  Alternatively, we could work to find areas where we can permanently cut expenses.  At the top of this list should be the West Fargo Airport.  Read a previous post Now Boarding for West Fargo.  To be clear, I’m not suggesting close the airport…just change how it’s funded so that the people who use it are contributing to the costs of it being there.

Did you know that owners of private planes use the West Fargo airport for free (no fees) but West Fargo residents (99.9% of us who don’t use it) pay for it through property tax?  Why are we paying property taxes to provide a free landing location to people or businesses who own private planes?