The City of Cayce Budget Committee held its first work session to begin planning for the 2025-26 fiscal year.

Nothing in the budget is set in stone as of now, but the city will have to have a finalized and balanced budget by June 30. The new budget will take effect on July 1, as required by state law.

The budget draft discussed at the April 1 meeting only deals with utilities in the city like water, septic and sewage, and grease waste. City leaders have not mentioned any potential millage or tax increase.

The anticipated revenue for the upcoming fiscal year is $26,540,576 and the anticipated expenses are $25,927,678.

This year, the budget committee intends to implement a capital improvement fund to allocate any excess revenue from the upcoming fiscal year.

“Once we finish the operating budget, we will look at our revenues and expenses and any revenue we have in excess of our expenses at that time will be allocated to the capital improvement plan,” Chief Financial Officer Kelly McMullen said.

McMullen also noted that inflation has played a large role this year in terms of the utility budget, which means less money is planned to be allocated to the capital fund for the next fiscal year.

Many of the operating costs were able to go down from last year because of infrastructure improvements. Some of these improvements included a chlorination update at the water treatment plant and the installation of new meters to get a more accurate read on electricity usage.

A new master plan for a new sewage system is also in the beginning stages of implementation. The plan will update the current system to a hydraulic model to aid in assessing future sewage and wastewater treatment needs.

The operations budget for the next fiscal year is not expected to change from the current one, which will help keep costs relatively the same for consumers.

One area that is expected to see an increase in costs is sludge disposal. The cost increase is attributed to the upcoming negotiation of a new contract as the current one expires in September of this year.

To access the entire proposed utilities budget, go to the City of Cayce’s website, go to the council minutes tab and scroll down until you find the April 1 budget work session.

The budget work meeting video can be found on the City of Cayce’s YouTube channel.