City Hall funds are in new budget

When the newly-appointed budget committee looked at the first draft of the proposed city budget on Thursday, April 8, there was some concern over the costs to build a new City Hall.

The $12.71 million budget is an approximate 27 percent increase from last year's $9.9 million budget. Eileen Stein, city manager, said she had not determined the specific reasons for the increase, but said it may be partly due to new grants and a "conservative" estimate for the expenses to build the new City Hall.

The city budgeted $1.2 million for the construction of City Hall, plus another $200,000 for capital improvements such as furnishing.

City Hall will be located on the northeast corner of the former middle school site, next to the planned new library and the former middle school administration building (see related story).

Stein said the city is planning to pay for a large chunk of the construction costs with the money it will make when it sells the Multnomah Publishers general office building on 204 West Adams Ave. The city put the building on the market in October for $949,900, but Stein said she does not know how much money the city will receive from the sale.

Stein wrote in a budget summary sheet that, "in the event the sale does not occur prior to construction, the budget anticipates a combination of contributions from the general, water and sewer charge funds to finance construction."

Stein said she does not yet have specific figures for the construction costs and chose a relatively high estimate. She told the budget committee the estimates for construction are $100 to $125 per square feet for 8,000 to 10,000 square feet.

"There are two ways to look at that," Stein told The Nugget. "You could say it is conservative and we have money set aside, or you could say we have too much set aside. Are you going to build a nicer building than we want to? I need to get a better estimate of the costs."

Stein told the committee the city might not use all of the $200,000 in the general fund to furnish City Hall.

"It doesn't mean we'll use it all," Stein said. "It's just there if we need it."

But Jerry Mohler, budget committee member, said he doesn't want the city to have money to spend on whatever they want.

"I don't look at the budget as something we have if we like to spend it," Mohler said. "Put in the number you know you are going to spend. The budget committee is supposed to go on hard numbers."

Stein will continue to make changes to the proposed budget and meet with the budget committee over the next several weeks.

She said she will talk to the design architect to get a better cost estimate.