EudoraNews.com

Between the streams of numbers and pages of charts of the proposed 2002 Eudora city budget lies potential for a rock wall at the cemetery, a city administrator, a new patrol car, and maybe a paved surface for Winchester Road.

If Eudora does take on a city administrator, he or she would likely be hired in January.

For those projects to become a reality, city officials and auditors must pour over the 35-page draft and flesh out details as they did last Wednesday at a four-and-half hour-long study session, complete with sharpened pencils, caffeine and smoking breaks.

But unlike study sessions in college, the only cramming going on involved getting as many projects as possible in the budget.

Ken Hite, CPA with Lowenthal, Singleton, Webb and Wilson in Lawrence, reminded officials that the proposed budget can't be a wish list for the city.

"The budget is not a vehicle to determine how much you can spend," Hite said. "It tells you how much you can't spend over."

He emphasized that Eudora needed to pay attention to its infrastructure needs, that without a large tax base, can strain the city. The theme of the 2002 budget, he said, was to provide the same level of service and meet infrastructure needs with a comparable tax rate to last year.

"What happens often in a city that is growing at a rapid rate is that a lot of times the tax revenue lags behind the infrastructure needs," Hite said.

Recreation director Dianna Beebe discussed improving recreation fields around West Elementary School by adding restrooms, concession stands and light poles.

But like other plans, including a new swimming pool, the idea seems like a long-range goal rather than an immediately-accomplishable project.

"If the budget's fairly tight and you consider it to be fiscally irresponsible, you'll probably have to put these off," Hite said.

City officials went through the budget page by page, deciding what items could be cut, like a project to fix 13th Street west of Church Street, in favor of other projects, like Winchester Road, or simply to trim the budget. Meanwhile, auditors made changes to spreadsheets on a laptop computer.

The money the council assigns to certain items

doesn't necessarily mean that's where it will end up, city clerk Donna Oleson said. Sometimes the city doesn't have the cash or something else will take priority, she said.

The council will look at the revised budget again after Monday's meeting. They then must publish the budget by Aug. 5. Afterward, they will have a public hearing and then finally approve the budget.

After the council approves the budget, Oleson said writing job descriptions is her next project.

In the meantime, aside from wanting to update city hall's technology, including publishing meeting minutes on CD-ROM, she has a big-time item on her wish list for the budget.

"Someday I'd like to have a new city hall," Oleson said, "but I'll have to put out a collection bucket for that."