Leelanau Township unanimously approved its 2024-25 recommended budget of $851,940, as well as four township officer salary resolutions on Monday. Emergency Services fund revenues come in at $1,843,212, which makes up 59% of the revenue allocation, while the general fund revenue makes up 19%. Expenditures for the budget total are $2.8 million, with 53%, or $1.48 million, of those appropriations being wages and benefits.
Township board trustees held a special meeting Monday morning to thoroughly discuss and review with the public its budget for the new fiscal year starting April 1 through March 31, 2025. The budget meeting was originally set for last week Tuesday, but another meeting had to be scheduled to allow for more discussion and questions from members of the public.
Township Supervisor Mike McMillan, who was appointed to the position last spring, said he thought it was a productive meeting and a learning process for himself shifting from private to public budget planning.
“We have a lot more data than we had last week available to us, so this is an ongoing process,” McMillan said at the meeting.
Salary resolutions
Salaries for all township officers were adjusted, but the clerk role had the highest increase in pay, a 24% raise, from $41,767 to $52,000, which is competitive with Leland and Glen Arbor township clerk salaries to accommodate the clerk’s additional responsibilities.
“The increase to $52K is not unreasonable… but then if you turn around and look at our fellow townships, and Glen Arbor did 35% on their clerk, we’re still way below the base pay on that, and then you have a 42% (increase) for their treasurer…” McMillan said.
Additional officer salaries were increased by 3.1%, with the treasurer position seeing a slight increase from $47,760 to $49,240, the supervisor from $35,972 to $37,051, and finally trustees from $4,850 to $4,996.
Salary increases for other township employees were also approved. The fire chief saw a 3.1% increase up $2,250 to $77,250, and paid on-call firefighters had the second highest increase, 23%, to their hourly wage pay going from $16.25 to $20. The facilities manager, which the township describes as an essential position in a competitive market, will receive an hourly wage increase from $22.50 to $26. And both the deputy clerk and deputy treasurer will now receive $24.
The township also identified a tax administration collection fee as a possible budget savings of $140,302 for township taxpayers. The General Property Tax Law provides that a local property tax collecting unit may add a property tax administration fee of not more than 1% of the total tax bill per parcel. McMillan said because they’ve been encountering issues with their new software, they want to make sure all of their numbers are correct before going into the April meeting where they would vote on it.
“We were going through our budget trying to figure out what we could do to get money back to the residents, and that’s one that we really thought we could do away with,” he said. “But we think that’s going to be something we can eliminate… Right now the residents see it (tax administration fees) as a charge when they get their tax bills — Our budget, with the property tax increases we’ve received the last couple years, we can absorb those internally.”
Board trustees discussed the need for a seven year capital improvement plan as well, noting that the township planning commission would assist in the process. McMillan said they have been collecting revenue but have not been spending anything in the facilities fund, so trustees want to address how to best utilize those monies with a plan at next month’s township meeting.
The full township budget can be viewed online at https://leelanautownshipmi. gov.
