The Mandan City Commission adopted a preliminary 2008 budget that indicates just a slight increase in what residents will be paying in city property taxes.

Finance director Greg Welch provided an overview of the proposed budget at Tuesday's meeting. He emphasized that it was a preliminary budget, and said he expected some adjustments before final adoption, which is expected to come at the Oct. 2 meeting.

The budget projects a 4.62-mill reduction in the mill levy, from the current 111 mills to 106.43 mills. Coupled with the fact that taxable valuations increased 10.3 percent, property taxes will increase 5.3 percent, providing the city with an additional $193,000 in tax revenues for 2008.

On a home valued at $125,000 this will mean an increase of about $16 in the city's tax share, and for a home of $150,000 the city's portion of the tax bill will increase $19. The total tax bill sent out by Morton County consists of levies from the school district, county, park district and city.

In a mill levy comparison with North Dakota's 12 largest cities, excluding Mandan, the the city mill levy of 106.43 puts Mandan close to the midpoint on average.

City employees can expect a cost-of-living salary increase of 2.5 percent, while benefits will increase 5.3 percent. This increases the total city employee salary/benefit by about 3.1 percent over the 2007 budget. Welch said that the largest increase came in the area of health insurance, which went up 22 percent for a single plan and 19 percent for a family plan.

Staff is still working out a capital outlay expenditure. Total debt service for the city (what the city owes on bonds and loans) is $56.6 million. Recent street and water and sewer projects have put the city in a position of taking on significant debt. This includes the city's contribution to the Memorial Bridge project.

The only rate increase being proposed for 2008 is to the industrial waste rate surcharge. That will increase from $1.05 per hundred cubic feet to $1.20, bringing it more in line with what residents pay, $1.55.

"We still have work to do on a number of capital outlay construction projects, and there are also requests for additional personnel and classification change requests," Welch said. "We're asking departments to prioritize their requests. Once we get their information, we will have a recommendation for capital outlay."

Mayor Ken LaMont, a member of the budget committee, said the budget was particularly tough to put together this year, and will be a real challenge for administration in 2008.

Helbling underscored the fact that the city's debt service is up 39.1 percent. He questioned whether residents, who had requested projects that they were special-assessed for, were making their payments. Welch indicated that defaults were at 1 percent or less.

By state law, the city must adopt its final budget by Oct. 7 and deliver the mill levy to the county auditor no later than Oct. 10.