City Spending | Shad 4 City Council

City Spending

All levels of government must remain accountable to the people they serve. City spending should be regularly evaluated to ensure that funds are used wisely and reflect community priorities. After reviewing our current budget, I see some areas where adjustments could be made to keep costs under control—particularly in personnel expenses, vehicles, and parks maintenance.

Download the Ivins City Budget From City Reports (Bottom of Page) HERE

Download an easy to read budget analysis as provide by Fred Birnbaum HERE

In my own household and business, when costs rise above income, we have to make careful choices. We cut back or make temporary adjustments, but we don’t pass unnecessary burdens onto family or clients. Our city should follow the same principle. It's not always easy, but it is necessary for the long term health of our community.

IDEA 1: Bids For Costs onto the Budget | Like many organizations require, I think Ivins should require bids against line items added to the budget. Perhaps this is required only if the one time cost is higher than $5,000, or repeated costs of maybe $200 per month or $1,000 per year. This helps to prevent waste of taxpayer dollars.

IDEA 2: Contract High Cost Work | Let's put the grounds maintenance work out to bid to private contractors and see what it might cost. After talking with many city officials, Ivins hasn't done this in decades. It might be worth finding out. Other cities do this. Some do it well, and some don't. But, if a private contractor doesn't take care of the city to the staff's liking, they can be fired and replaced. The city's ground maintenance department doesn't have the same level of accountability.

IDEA 3: Shared Responsibility in Personnel Costs | Staffing is one of the largest expenses in the budget. I value the work of our city employees and believe they deserve fair pay and benefits. At the same time, during tight budget years, we should explore temporary measures such as asking higher-paid department heads to take on additional responsibilities, or modestly adjust their benefit contributions. I no longer endorse the following idea, as I was misinformed about our city staff being paid same wages as St George counterparts: [Another option is a short-term salary adjustment for top administrators—paired with a commitment to restore pay levels (plus a small bonus) once revenues from sources like the nightly rental tax create a surplus. This way, leadership helps carry the burden without impacting frontline services.]

IDEA 4: Efficiency and Partnerships | Before cutting services or raising taxes, the city should prioritize efficiency. This could mean partnering with neighboring cities for shared services (such as equipment storage or specialized staff), using technology to streamline operations, or contracting out certain tasks when it saves money without reducing quality.

IDEA 5: Share Public Works Yard With Santa Clara [by Nicole Graf] | Instead of purchasing the land to build a new city public works yard, building an access road on the South side of town across the river, perhaps we could talk to Santa Clara about an expanded & shared yard, which already has great access, and is very close to our city boundaries already. Great way to reduce capital expenditures, etc.

IDEA 6: Shared Public Works Department With Santa Clara [by Jon Graf] | Let's take that shared principle one step further, and propose to Santa Clara to share the public works equipment and vehicles also. We can easily calendar the days, or again, perhaps we could join forces for personnel.

IDEA 7: Automation Reducing Hiring Pressure [by Dillon Hurt] | Consider more automation to reduce the need to hire more personnel. Such as robot lawn mowers. Since Black Desert currently uses robot lawn mowers, perhaps an arrangement could be made to purchase used ones when they replace them with new. I also talked with Washington City, and they purchased a painting robot to paint soccer field lines in two hours, that took two workers eight hours to do before. The robot cost $25,000-$28,000, and paid for itself in less than a year.

IDEA 8: Smarter Vehicle Management | Evaluate the city’s vehicle fleet and identify areas where high-cost vehicles may not be necessary. For example, instead of maintaining newer or specialized vehicles for non-emergency purposes such as grounds keeping or animal shelter services, we could sell those and replace them with more affordable used or basic models. This keeps costs down while still getting the job done.