City Council Recap
FY 2018 Operating Budget Adopted
City Council adopted the Operating Budget for fiscal year 2018, which runs July 1, 2017 through June 30, 2018. The total budget for next fiscal year is $867,180,577, with the General Fund, the City’s main operating fund through which many services are provided, at $485,976,000. Real Estate taxes will remain unchanged, with small increases in user fees for water, sewer and stormwater. The total annual increase for an average household of four with a 2017 assessment of $175,000 is $22.20.
There were two changes from the
recommended budget City Manager Cindy Rohlf presented to City Council in March. An additional $700,000 has been budgeted to go to the School division in support of an overall 3% salary adjustment for all employees. This brings the City’s support for the schools from the General Fund from $2.4 million to $3.1 million for next fiscal year. The City Manager also retracted the proposed Special Events ordinance, indicating that it needs further assessment before being implemented. This change decreased the General Fund revenues by $52,000.
SCOT Center Relocation MOU
Last night City Council approved a Memorandum of Understanding with the Newport News School System for the relocation of the school division’s Service Center for Operations and Transportation (SCOT center). The move is necessary to allow for the potential expansion of Jefferson Lab as well as for a research park associated with Tech Center. The Comprehensive Agreement for the project of relocating the SCOT center has not yet been finalized.
Other Actions
All items on last night’s regular City Council
meeting agenda were approved, and the entire Council meeting can be viewed on-demand.
Next Meeting
The next regular meeting of the Newport News City Council will be Tuesday, May 23rd. City Council typically meets the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of each month at 7:00 pm in City Council Chambers, City Hall, 2400 Washington Avenue. Meetings are shown live on the City's Cable Channel NNTV (Cox Ch 48/Verizon Ch 19) and are streamed live on
www.nnva.gov/nntv. City Council meetings are also available to be
watched on-demand the day following the meeting. Oftentimes City Council holds work sessions in the 10th floor conference room of City Hall in the afternoon before the regular meetings. Work sessions are open to the public. Agendas for work sessions and regular meetings are
available online in the Agenda Center the Friday before the meeting.