City decreases its operating budget by 17 percent

by Becky Uehling

Grant tribune-sentinel

Grant’s city council will decrease its tax levy by 6.3% from last year, thanks to increases in sales taxes received from the city’s 1% sales tax initiated in 2012, according to City Superintendent Edward Dunn.

“We have far exceeded the original annual estimations (for the sales tax revenue); therefore, we were able to reduce the tax asking for the debt service substantially,” Dunn said. 

The operating budget was decreased by the Grant City Council by 17.09%, thus decreasing the budget, Dunn said. 

“I think the Mayor and City Council did an excellent job at prioritizing the needs of the citizens of Grant, knowing the economic hardships that everyone is going through,” Dunn said. 

Dunn praised the City Council for recognizing the need for continued progression and its willingness to continue to make Grant a great place to live.  

“In the upcomingbudget, most of the focus is on housing and rightfully so,” he said. “We hope to do a few infrastructure additions andimprovements so that we can have developable lots in the very near future.”

The decrease is a change over last year’s (2020-2021)  tax asking, which was increased by 10% from the previous year (2019-2020).