The City of Aberdeen held its first public hearing for the 2019 budget at Wednesday’s City Council meeting, and city officials went over some of the new expenditures and financial forecasts.

In the draft budget, the city plans to spend just under $2 million more next year in general fund expenditures, $1 million of which is due primarily to changes in Aberdeen’s Police and Fire departments.

According to Aberdeen Lieutenant Dale Green, the police department recently underwent a restructuring to eliminate the corporal position, which caused all seven corporals to be promoted to the sergeant position. In addition, Green said that several officers are getting a final pay increase because they are completing their fifth year on the job, which results in them hitting their maximum pay amount. These pay increases in the police department totaled up to about $550,000 in additional costs, Mayor Erik Larson said.

In the fire department, the city is bringing in three new firefighters, which would total about $450,000 in costs, Larson said.

The budget also includes pay raises for seven city staff positions, including all the department directors. These raises were proposed at a September Aberdeen City Council meeting, but all the raises were denied by council members except for the increase for the finance director position, which the city has been unable to fill since April.

Larson has said the raises would put the city’s administrative positions 10 percent behind the market average, and would help the city retain and hire for those jobs.

The raises include a 10 percent salary increase for the empty city administrator position (which the city has been unable to hire for since January); 10 percent for the Public Works director; 15 percent each for the directors of the Parks and Recreation, Community Development and Human Resources departments; and 5 percent each for the positions of city attorney and Human Resources technician.

According to Larson, the base salary for a city administrator would’ve likely been around $110,460 without the 10 percent proposed salary increase.

During the meeting, a couple council members said they disapproved of adding the city administrator funding to the budget when it could go elsewhere.

There’s no new funding in the 2019 budget for the planned Gateway Center — which would likely house some offices, community space and tourism information — or any new funding to assist with the city’s homelessness issues, Larson said.

The budget also proposes adding another legal assistant, as City Attorney Patrice Kent said there’s a “boatload” of work for the Legal Department’s prosecutor and lone legal assistant to handle by themselves. Larson said that position would cost about $50,000 in the budget.

In terms of taxes, Larson said the city estimates a 3.5 percent increase in sales tax revenue compared to 2018, and that the amount of property tax on residents would go up 1 percent, the capped amount.

Before the budget is finalized, the city will have a final public hearing on Nov. 28 at the city council meeting, and there will be a budget workshop on Dec. 5. The city plans to have a final reading and adoption of the budget on Dec. 12.