Accounting for future projects as well as analyzing projected revenue, West Bountiful’s city council approved a fiscal year budget for 2025-2026 on June 17. 

The budget – which was initially presented in a council meeting on May 6 – highlighted four main changes that will be made during the upcoming time period. These include upgrading water meters, replacing a driving range net at Lakeside Golf Course, updating the city’s pay scale and replacing a service vehicle.

“The first thing we always focus on is just what are the priorities of the city council,” said Duane Huffman about creating a budget, city administrator of West Bountiful. “There’s not always a lot of huge changes year-to-year till you know what they want to do, but that’s kind of the first thing we always keep in mind. We always have a very close eye on revenue so that we understand what’s available and then we start working through the services that the city provides and figuring out what’s working and what’s not working and what needs to be changed.”

According to Huffman, replacing water meters is expected to be the city’s biggest undertaking for fiscal year 2025-2026. Upgrading from technology that’s over 15 years old, the new infrastructure will allow both residents and city officials to read meters in real time. The goal behind this change is to create a dynamic where residents can be notified of significant water usage increases quickly, allowing them to identify and repair leaks before they become serious. 

The city budgeted the cost of the water meter system replacement to be $911,800, as stated in page 25 of the June 17 agenda. Other changes have established costs as well, such as the golf net replacement, which accounts for $336,500 of the course’s expenditures. 

While they have budgeted for the updates, the city currently reports an estimated cost of $96,600 being made to change the pay scale, plus $75,100 in expenditures for inflationary increases. An effort that affects a variety of positions, the goal for the city was to provide more growth opportunities for current employees. According to the June 17 agenda, the wage increase is the first major update to the scale – which was adopted in 2018 – to not be associated with police positions.

“We went into our kind of an analysis of our scale versus what’s happening out in the market,” said Huffman. “We went through the  process for all of the positions where we use the data with the help of a consultant just to analyze where these positions are and what changes need to be made.”

In addition to the budget for the upcoming fiscal year, the city also voted to approve amendments made to the current 2024-2025 budget. Updates discussed included expenditures incurred from projects such as a reconstruction effort on 1200 North from last year, current endeavors on 1100 West and costs associated with taking over Lakeside Golf Course’s cafe. 

“I don’’t think there’s ever been a year where a final budget hasn’t had at least one amendment,” said Huffman. “Sometimes we’ll have two or three amendments, and that’s because stuff just comes up during the year that needs to be accounted for in the budget, either changes that the council made or changes to projects, different elements like that.”

A full breakdown of the budget can be found in the city council's June 17 agenda. A final version, any changes to the established figures will be made as amendments.