Silver Lake Adopts Budget; Sidewalk To Be Extended
Posted
Ben Quiggle-
SILVER LAKE – The Silver Lake Town Council held a quick budget adoption meeting on Wednesday evening, as quotes for further dredging of Silver Lake were delayed and will be opened at a future meeting.
In 2018, the town is estimated to see gross property tax income of $368,011, a $13,000 to $14,000 increase over 2017’s revenue. They will lose almost $33,000 of that due to property tax circuit breakers.
Still, the town is in good fiscal health, according to Eric Walsh, with Umbaugh & Associates, an accounting firm the town has contracted to review their annual budgets. Walsh said in September that barring any major expenditures they were in “good shape” heading into the new year.
Chad Miner, council president, said that the town works hard to keep spending to a minimum in order to be prudent with taxpayers’ money. He said that there are a number of projects funded under the 2018 budget that fill voids in the community.
The town has budgeted around $70,000 to extend the town’s sidewalk north along Ind. 15 from Moyer’s Root Beer Stand to a mobile home community behind the town’s Pizza King.
“We are seeing a lot of foot traffic along that stretch of road,” said Miner. “They are heading to the gas station, so this is being put in to keep pedestrians safe.”
Another item the town hopes to tackle in 2018 is finishing the dredging of Silver Lake. The town received a $145,000 Lake And River Enhancement grant from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources in April to complete the project.
So far, they have dredged a canal along Edora Drive that was so filled with sediment that Miner said you couldn’t even get boats in the water. They also dredged a number of other areas in the northern portion of the lake.
The town hopes to use the rest of the funding to put in a hole, similar to a sinkhole, just to the east of Edora Drive canal to help filter out sediment in the future and protect the canal from filling up with sediment in the future.
Quotes for the remainder of that project were supposed to be opened on Wednesday evening, but they were delayed until the council’s regular meeting at 7 p.m. Nov. 8.
