Inflation is common theme for Hillsboro City Council meeting

The Hillsboro City Council met on Tuesday, Dec. 13 where the topic of inflation kept coming up.

The council approved a 2022 Budget Amendment after learning that mostly inflation led to the city needing to spend over a million dollars more than had originally been budgeted.

“Inflation is the operating word of the year,” said Hillsboro City Administrator Matt Stile. “Around the board, everything has just been higher.”

In all, the council approved seven amendment expenditures for Recreation, Debt Service, Municipal Court, CIP, Water, Refuse and Electric for a total of $6,466,731. The original budget was for $5,324,318.

Inflation also came up in the conversation for the council when approving a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) of $1.00 per hour for all employees in the adopted budget which is on average of a 4% raise which will cost the city around $58,000.

Still reminded the council that at the beginning of 2022, the city did a cost-of-living adjustment of 2% based on budget.
“However the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which is widely used to compute COLAs, had inflation increasing to 6.2% at the start of 2022. Through the course of 2022, inflation has seen the CPI rise another 7.1%.

Stiles explained that while the $1.00 per hour increase would not cover inflation, the 2023 budget also includes a 2% performance bonus for the middle of 2023 if finances would allow it. He said that are a few employees who recently changed positions that received the COLA early due to their transition. “Those employees would not receive an additional increase,” said Stiles.

The COLA will be applied on the Jan. 12 pay date.

The Hillsboro City offices will be closed on Monday, January 2 for New Years.

The next council meeting will be Jan. 3.

In other business, the council:

* heard an annual report from Ben Steketee, Building Inspection, Code Enforcement, Fire Department.

* learned that Stiles will be meeting with the president and treasurer of the Hillsboro Senior Center on Jan. 19 to discuss a funding agreement for the annual request for $10,000 in funding to support the center. Stiles reported that he requested financial information and other data to help give context to the agreement. He hopes to have something drafted in late-January or early-February.

* approved the following applications for Cereal Malt Beverage Licenses: Casey’s Retail Company, Hillsboro Municipal Golf Association, Cooperative Grain & Supply (Ampride), PH North Inc. (Pizza Hut), DG Retail LLC (Dollar General) and Torres Family LLC (Pueblo Viejo).

* agreed to seek qualifications for an individual or firm to serve as the city’s Insurance Agent for property and liability insurance in order to give a fair opportunity for anyone to apply. Stiles explained that the city has been insured by EMC Insurance Group, Inc. for the past several decades and the policy had been serviced by IMA Financial Group of Wichita for the past seven years and then the Insurance Center of Hillsboro took over at the beginning of 2022. He said the “selected individual or firm will service the city’s property and liability insurance, complete an annual review of coverages, submit all required documents for coverage, provide resources or expertise to lower city’s premiums and offer opportunities to the city to get the most value from its insurance provider”. The current EMC policy is available for review and the city will obtain claims history for any interested candidate.

* heard that the George Yang, owner of the Quik Flick/Radio Shack building, was given copies of the notices the city has adopted regarding the fixing of the property’s roof and masonry on the north side. Stiles said, “He has indicated that he plans on fixing the roof and masonry to sell the building. We are waiting to see if there is sufficient action on the building, but the city does plan on doing the work after the Dec. 30 deadline imposed on the condemnation resolution.”

* learned that Stiles told the council that he sent a notification to the Marion County Planning commission regarding the proposed container home facility at 180th and Indigo letting them know that the council voted in a Dec. 6 meeting to deny the proposed permit. He also reached out to the owner of the business to see if they may have an interest in locating to a more appropriately zoned area.

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