City Council meetings
Regular Wayne City Council meetings are at 5:30 pm on the first and third Mondays of each month in City Hall at 513 Main St. We get lonely when it’s just us, so come join the conversation.
City Hall/Police and
CAC Signage
New lettering/numbering is up at 513 Main Street. The next item to arrive in September will be a pedestal sign in the flag pole island about 10 feet tall. It will read “City of Wayne” (vertically) with subtle LED lighting on the columns. The PD is also looking into some vinyl signage on its doors. We are all looking forward to the signage part of City Hall/Police to be complete!
You will also see a refresh on the sign at the Wayne Community Activity Center (CAC) in the next month. The sign “box” is very faded and needed some TLC. Also, with the Early Learning Center (ELC) for Wayne Community Schools opening a few days ago, it gave us the chance to update the CAC sign to include the ELC logo. We felt this was better (visually and cost) than an additional sign for the school (at least at this time). The digital display will stay the same with a change in pole and box color.
Final Budget Workshop
The City Council held its second and final budget workshop at its last meeting. Most of the discussion centered on what tax levy was needed to fund debt obligations and priorities for Keno funds. More Council action will be taken on the budget process at the next two meetings.
The City will begin the process to permanently finance its debt on its last round of improvements at the next meeting. This will amount to an annual payment of approximately $1M on $10M of debt (principle).
“Where should this payment come from” was a major topic of discussion by Council at the budget workshop. The decision for this year will be to make most of the payment from sales tax but a portion from the property tax debt levy (about 10%). What this will mean is a higher property tax debt levy for 2026 that will bring the overall levy up about four cents. The Council can adjust this amount every year. The City is fortunate to have this ability to finance projects from multiple sources (ie a very low debt levy and a relatively unencumbered sales tax revenue stream).
As always, if you would like to discuss City finances – tax levies, bond financing, sales tax rates, fund accounting…really anything that gets you excited to face another day – come in and talk to Beth or me. We would love to talk about what we do, especially during this part of the fiscal year.
Floodplain Changes
The Wayne City Council approved on third and final reading the new floodplain map proposed by the State of Nebraska. This will now be the new governing document for building in and around the community. If you have any questions with the new map/changes, don’t hesitate to reach out to Joel Hansen or me. If you want to learn on your own, use dnr.nebraska.gov/floodplain/interactive-maps and click on the NEW map picture.
Questions, comments,
concerns?
Contact Wes Blecke, City Administrator at 375-1733 or wblecke@cityofwayne.org
