The way the budget is currently shaping up could mean as much as a 30% increase over last year’s figures.
In his initial proposal, Rapid City mayor Jason Salamun aimed for a $340 million budget, nearly $80 million over last year.
Salamun said it’s a head turning jump in the budget.
"If you only saw that number, you’d wonder is everybody’s taxes going up that much? I want to reassure the public – a lot of that has to do with enterprise funds – and we have two significant projects happening at the same time, two expansion projects,” Salamun said
Those projects are an expansion of the Rapid City airport terminal, and the wastewater plant.
Salamun described the latter as the biggest project in city history.
“We have a significant amount of construction loans going to that, a lot of that coming through the state, as well as their own capital they have saved up for from that," Salamun said. "This is a project you have approved that will serve this community for decades and decades to come that’s also realized – as revenue and as expenses. So, these aren’t necessarily ongoing operating costs, but these are big capital costs happening at the same time.”
Salamun said overall, the increases are less drastic than it seems on paper.
“The general fund budget was a 4.2% increase," Salamun said. "The overall budget, while yes there is tens and tens of millions of dollars of increases due to those significant capital projects, much of that is funding that is coming to the city from another source to be used for those purposes.”
The second and final budget reading is scheduled for September 4.