Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Budget Picture

Here's an updated budget picture for the pool project (see chart below). We were able to reduce the cost of the project from $3.2 to $2.6 million dollars by removing the kiddy pool and spa and performing some serious value engineering. Fundraising is creeping along, mostly in the form of bricks. We've raised over $25,000 to date, but as you can see, we are still over a hundred thousand short of being able to open the pool this summer. Considering that we originally hoped to raise over $1 million dollars, we think $100-150K is very doable.

We hope to be able to close this gap further by avoiding change orders that dip into the budgeted contingency. The City Council voted last night to issue bonds through US Bank rather than a public offering. The result of this vote is that we've saved over $37,000 in issuance costs that can now be put towards construction. Due to the structure of the debt, it looks like tax rates initially will be slightly higher than projected and will likely be around $.37 per thousand assessed value for the first few years. The council felt it was a reasonable trade off to save up front costs and the average rate over 20 years remains below $.30. For the average home, the 2009 assessed value was $131,036 which yields a tax rate of about $50/year.

We still need to work hard at fundraising to be able to open the pool. We still have plenty of room for bricks in the front walkway, and the donor board has only a handful of names donating over $1000. Please spread the word.

Thanks again to our contributors, your support is hugely important to our community!

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