Bismarck's 2008 preliminary budget reflects the community's strong growth and taxpayers' desires to keep taxes under control, Mayor John Warford said.

A new fire station, additional employees and a five-year street improvement project highlighted talks at a special meeting held by the Bismarck City Commission on Friday morning, which culminated in the adoption of the preliminary budget.

The commission began preparing to staff the proposed northside fire station by approving the July 1 hiring of seven firefighters at a cost of $178,127. The facility itself, estimated at $2.2 million, will appear on the June ballot as the city asks voters to use sales tax revenue for the project.

Receiving the full support of the commission was the street project that targets several streets in need of rebuilding, according to Commissioner Sandi Tabor. The city will allocate just more than $2 million a year in sales tax revenues over five years to provide the $10.3 million needed for the reconstruction.

The streets are located in Bismarck's older areas, many dating from World War II, according to Keith Hunke, assistant city administrator. As construction takes place, the underground utilities will be evaluated and upgraded where necessary, said Keith Demke, director of utility operations.

"It's a good way to use sales tax," Tabor said. "It's bringing back benefits to citizens that they can feel and touch every day."

City employees will realize up to a 4.9 percent salary increase, based on performance, and the city will kick in enough to cover a 15 percent increase in health funds and continue to cover the entire premium for at least one more year.

Tabor said that at some point, the city will have to look at its health insurance program in an effort to find ways to control the escalating costs. This could mean employees will be asked to start paying a portion of the premiums.

"I spent some time with the human resources director in Fargo, and they've had to go to at least a modest participation by employees for health insurance," Commissioner Connie Sprynczynatyk said. "We'll seriously have to look at this and consider an implementation date."

In the Capital Improvement Project budget, $525,000 was approved for the second-floor remodeling of the police department; $1.2 million for remodeling of the fourth floor of the City/County Building; and $600,000 for the Police and Fire Training Complex.

Among the one-time expenditures the city will fund is a resource managment planning study for $125,000 that will look at salary structure, recruitment, retention and succession. There also will be a $200,000 study of traffic signals in order to optimize traffic flow through Bismarck. The city will spend $40,000 on the traffic signal study, with the rest coming from the Metropolitan Planning Organization.

The budget will reduce the property tax levy by 6.67 mills from 2007, to 87.83 in 2008. Property values did go up 11.73 percent, but few residents will be hit by that increase, with the average increase on a home being 6.93 percent. On a home valued at $100,000, the increase in the city portion of the tax bill will be $5.19, or an increase of 1.22 percent.

The city portion of the tax bill is about 22 percent, with Burleigh County at 14 percent, the Bismarck Park District at 8 percent and Bismarck School District about 56 percent.

Commissioner Steve Schwab asked where the "highly touted" state property tax relief was found. Sprynczynatyk said the relief will be based on property tax, but realized by taxpayers through their income tax.

Formal introduction of the preliminary budget will be made at Tuesday's meeting, with the public hearing and final adoption scheduled for Sept. 25.

"I think that in an overall assessment of the budget, it shows great balance," Warford said. "The city is growing and has exponential needs, yet the public wants us to keep taxes down. This budget shows we're being responsible."