The Dillon Town Council has approved a 2025 draft budget that is balanced with revenues covering expenditures by about $300,000.

The council voted unanimously at its Tuesday, Nov. 12, meeting to approve the draft budget. Dillon finance director Mary Kay Perrotti told the council that the final 2025 budget would be presented at a meeting on Dec. 10.

“We are in a rising-expense environment. We have wage increases this year. We have health insurance expense increases, various inflationary increases that we’ve had to absorb,” Perrotti said. “So balancing the general fund was definitely a challenge this year, but we did it.”

Perrotti said that the finance department continues to project conservative revenues in 2025. By the end of 2024, it is estimated that the town will have raised about $6.3 million in sales tax revenue — and those revenues are projected to remain flat in 2025, according to the draft budget.

In the general fund, the 2025 draft budget projects total revenues to be about $21.3 million. That is a 15% increase from the about $18 million in total revenues the town originally projected in the 2024 budget, but only a slight increase from the about $21 million in revenues the town now expects to raise this year.

Total expenditures in the general fund total about $21 million. That is also about a 15% increase from the $18 million in total expenditures budgeted for 2024, but the town now estimates that total expenditures in 2024 will total closer to $20 million.

Perrotti said that to help balance the budget, it was decided that $400,000 budgeted for summer recreational activities would be removed. She said that that item is “tabled” for now but could be added back into the budget if funds allow.

Perrotti also noted that the draft budget contains about $1.1 million for Dillon to provide law enforcement services in Keystone, but the two towns have not yet signed an intergovernmental agreement related to that, so it remains to be seen whether that will remain in the final budget.

Capital projects in the 2025 draft budget include $100,000 for town hall improvements, $150,000 for a town hall generator, $150,000 for marina docks, $200,000 for a facility analysis for police and $500,000 for a marina bulkhead and boat ramp construction project. 

The draft budget also includes about $500,000 in park improvements, including $250,000 for a town park plaza and $65,000 for improvements at the disc golf course.