On the eve of passing its 2011-12 budget, the Commerce City Council may have to trim its revenue expectations by another $50,000.
The council hopes to approve its spending plan Monday night, meeting in the Commerce Room of the Commerce Civic Center at 6:30 p.m.
But concerns about when a new industry will begin buying natural gas from the city surfaced at Monday night’s work session and may cause the council to reduce its revenue forecast by $50,000.
Ward 5 councilman Clark Hill raised the issue, noting a story in The Commerce News in which a Jackson County Area Chamber of Commerce official told the county’s industrial development authority that the company planning to buy the Louisiana Pacific oriented strand board plant in Center is experiencing delays. The company is expected, like LP, to be a major gas customer.
“They think it’s going to happen, but it looks like it won’t be operational until mid to late 2012,” Hill noted.
City manager Clarence Bryant said the 2011-12 budget anticipated $50,000 in revenue from the plant during the upcoming fiscal year — $10,000 a month for five months of the year.
“Can we start looking at where we're going to come up with that?" Hill asked. "It would be better to be able to spread it over 12 months."
"I can come up with some scenarios," accounting manager James Wascher replied.
"It would come out of gas fund reserves," interjected Bryant.
The industry, which has not been named, plans to manufacture wood pellets for wood-burning heating systems. Local officials who have been working with the company say the company is all but certain to locate at Center but had to overcome some obstacles related to rail transport of its product to Brunswick and is considering converting its truck fleet from diesel to liquefied or compressed natural gas.
Originally, the company expressed interest in getting production started by this fall, then backed it up to early 2012. Now — according Courtney Bernardi, the chamber's vice president for economic development — the production date is fall of 2012.
With or without that revenue, the council expects to approve the spending plan Monday night. The council ironed out the then-final details of the $24 million budget a month ago in a work session following its regular May meeting. Wascher updated the council at Monday night's work session on what he's done since.
"There are no changes other than what we discussed," Wascher told the council. "We took some capital projects out of the electric department and the gas department" to close a $32,000 revenue gap to balance the budget.
Redistricting Plan Also On Agenda
The council also expects to approve the new map of its election districts Monday night. The council and school board have apparently reached a consensus in approval of the plan created by Jackson County GIS director Joel Logan. The new voting district map evens out the population among the cityís five wards/districts without placing any of the elected officials in new districts.
