Council begins budget workshops this Wednesday

posted on 2/27/2023

The City Council will hold its first of five budget workshops this Wednesday, March 1.

At the March 1 workshop, the City Council will receive budget presentations from the Executive, Finance, Recreation, Library, and Information Technology (DoverNet) departments. Budget workshops are also scheduled for March 8, 15, 29, and April 5. The Council will hold a public hearing on the school portion of the budget on March 15 and the rest on March 22. All meetings/workshops occur on Wednesdays; see a detailed schedule below.

The City Manager presented his proposed fiscal year 2024 budget to the City Council on Feb. 15. It totals $183,821,915 across all funds, an increase over the previous year of $4,125,089, or 2.3%. The General Fund portion of the budget, funded primarily through property taxes, is $146,705,670, an increase over the previous year of $6,930,771, or 5%. As proposed, the budget exceeds the tax cap by $483,092 and would require a two-thirds majority vote of the City Council to adopt.

The complete line-item proposed budget is available on the FY2024 Budget Revealed page. Videos of the budget workshops and the documents presented will also be posted to the webpage, including the School Board’s previous budget meetings and workshops.

City Council budget meetings and workshops

• March 1: Budget workshop on Executive, Finance, Recreation, Welfare, DoverNet, and Library department budgets
• March 8: Budget workshop on the School Department budget
• March 15: Special meeting, including a public hearing on the School Department’s budget
• March 15: Following the special meeting, budget workshop on the Police, Fire and Rescue, and Planning budgets
• March 22: Regular meeting, including a public hearing on the City portion of the proposed budget
• March 29: Budget workshop on the Community Services budget
• April 5: Budget workshop, followed by a special meeting for the adoption of the budget
• April 12: Regular meeting, which is also reserved as a fallback date for budget adoption, if necessary

All the above meetings and workshops will be held on Wednesdays in City Hall’s Council Chambers.

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The Budget Revealed newsletter is a weekly update on the City Council’s budget process. It contains brief highlights of the week’s budget presentations, the upcoming schedule and other budget tidbits. To sign up for these emails, visit https://bit.ly/dovernewsletters and add “Budget Revealed” to your current email subscription list.