Cedar City, UTAH – In their recently approved $60 million budget for the current fiscal year, Cedar City authorities gave priority to investigating potential new water sources and preserving the city’s present infrastructure. The budget for the 2022–2023 fiscal year was unanimously authorized and accepted by the City Council on June 8 and became effective at the start of the following month.
The amount associated with a budget, according to Jason Norris, director of city finances, is “complex.”
So, he said, “we have various buckets that we use for different things. Money is transferred from one bucket to another.
Some monies are tallied twice as a result of the procedure. For instance, if $500,000 is moved from the RAP tax, also known as the recreation, arts, and parks tax, to the general fund, it will be included as $1 million in the total budget.
According to Cedar City News, the city projected last year’s budget at $54 million using the same methodology.
Projects involving water research are being prioritized by the city, as was the intention of Cedar City Mayor Garth Green, according to Norris. In order to evaluate and obtain water rights, repair water pipes, and modernize the SCADA, or supervisory control and data acquisition system, around $5.8 million was set aside for water-related capital projects.
Public Works Director Ryan Marshall stated during the special budget meetings in May that the city has 11 water storage tanks with a combined capacity of about 19 million gallons, or about 1 1/2 to 2 days’ worth of additional storage should the region run out of water or if all of the wells suddenly shut off. See the Ed. Note.
Marshall said that the Public Works Department is worried about water use for these and other reasons.
We’re all afraid of it, he added. Therefore, we want to begin creating some redundancies.
According to the budget, the city allocated $1 million to dig test wells and an extra $2 million to drill a production well in order to boost the water supply.
As previously reported by Cedar City News, the city hired Willowstick Technologies to carry out a thorough investigation in search of new water sources. Marshall anticipated that the funding would enable the city to dig a number of test wells using the research to direct them to the sources of drinkable water that were likely to be the most accessible.
Earlier this month, the city’s council evaluated the study’s findings. View the conversation here.
