Atchison City Commissioners have heard the initial numbers on the city’s proposed 2013 budget.

They heard the budget presentation from City Manager Trey Cocking during the final budget workshop following Monday evening’s Atchison City Commission meeting.

Cocking presented a 24 point two four million dollar budget, with an anticipated ending cash balance of five point five four million.

The workshop presented two key discussion points, whether to keep the mill levy flat or lower the mill levy a proposed one point one two mill.

Cocking explains a scenario on what could happen if they kept the mill levy the same.

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After brief discussion, Commissioners made their final recommendations.

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Most departments saw a slight reduction from their budget requests, largely because of an overestimation of telephone expenses that was highlighted in a previous workshop.

The professional services line item for Community Development saw the largest slash at just over 10 thousand dollars and fuel expense for the streets budget saw around a nine thousand dollar hit.

The largest point of debate came in the waning moments of the one hour presentation when Commissioner Jack Bower once again brought a public policy topic to the table, requesting having a city representative on the governing body of the Chamber of Commerce board.

They were the only partner of the city that doesn’t have a member on the governing body.

Bower believes any entity that receives city appropriation should have a city official on it.

However, Commissioners Hartman and Butler serve on the committee, in which they say mirrors the discussion and action of the governing body.

Cocking discusses the Chamber board’s feelings and Bower offered a solution to meet the request.

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When it came to deciding to reserve the funding, some commissioners saw no red flags being done by the governing body to warrant reserving and Commissioners Hartman, Butler and Purcell verbally agreed to not reserve funding while Commissioner Bower and Mayor Reavis desired to have an answer before allocating funding. In the end, the appropriation stayed in place.

The budget is now ready for a public hearing at the July 16th meeting and request to adopt the budget as is.

A copy of the drafted will be published in the local newspaper or on the city’s web site: www.cityofatchison.com.