By Scott Taylor,Staff Writer

AUBURN – Councilors will begin work on their fiscal year 2006-07 budget Monday night.

City Manager Pat Finnigan said the council will begin with a general overview of the city’s $61.5 million budget so far this year, and long-term financial projections.

“Just like any other time, we start at zero,” Finnigan said. “We never assume that just because we had this much money in our budget last year, that’s what we’ll get this year.”

Finnigan said she expects the meeting to be the first of many. The council usually begins budget reviews in the spring, but decided to move up the starting date to December this year.

It won’t mean an early settlement for the budget, but a more drawn-out process.

“Much of what we need to know, to finally adopt a budget, we just won’t know until much later,” Finnigan said. Assessed property valuations are set for the coming year in May, and state aid for education is settled each year in June.

“But what we can do is go over each service the city offers and see what it costs,” Finnigan said. “And then, we can begin to judge what services we actually want.”

The city began mailing property value notices to Auburn property tax payers last month. Overall, Auburn’s total assessed property valuation should rise from about $1.2 billion to $1.8 billion, and some individual property valuations would increase 50 to 100 percent.

The city’s notices also included an estimated property tax based on tax rate of $22 per $1,000 of assessed valuation. Based on that rate, many tax bills doubled or tripled.

That ignited a furor in the city and led to the formation of a taxpayer association and an effort to recall Mayor Normand Guay and a majority of city councilors.

Finnigan said she expects the meeting to be well-attended. They will also be telecast live on Great Falls TV.

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