TONGANOXIE NEWSLETTER
Fall 2024
City of Tonganoxie, Kansas
2025 Budget Highlights
The City of Tonganoxie’s FY 2025 adopted Budget communicates the City’s immediate and long-term plan for continuing to deliver high-quality city services at a reasonable cost to Tonganoxie residents and visitors. The Tonganoxie City Council approved a “flat” mill levy, which maintained the 4 mill reduction in the City and Library mill implemented last year. In the dollar bill graph below, the depiction indicates that most of the taxing entities within the City of Tonganoxie Tax District, held flat or had minor reductions in the mill rates, all except for Leavenworth County who raised their rate by 1.8 mills. For the City’s General Fund budget, property taxes provide 51% of revenues, and those dollars are used largely for funding Police, Fire, Public Administration and Public Works. The City’s 2025 Budget reflected the City Council’s emphasis on 4 primary focus areas: 1) Investing in well planned and maintained infrastructure and includes projects like the 4th St bridge, the 8th consecutive year of enhanced levels of street maintenance and preservation, and a Waste Water Treatment Plant expansion to help the Community grow for decades; 2) Enhancing local amenities and services and includes allocations for the City’s water park painting and diving board replacements, financial support for Community organizations to support events and programming, and support for the Leavenworth County Development Corporation; 3) Supporting City Services and includes vehicle purchases for Police and Public Works, Public Safety department operational budget enhancements, police and Fire Station facility maintenance updates, and merit opportunity for City employees; 4) Promoting financial stability by meeting all existing debt service obligations for previous infrastructure investments with efforts to minimize or avoid future debt issuances. We understand that even the most comprehensive budget may still not address everyone’s needs or concerns fully, and how difficult it is to work up a budget during April through September but not for use until the following year. We encourage public participation during the budget process, including actively seeking response during the City’s Customer Satisfaction Survey, but would remind everyone to please continue to communicate with the City’s elected officials and city staff so that we can continue to improve Tonganoxie.
HOW $1 OF FY 2025 PROPERTY TAX REVENUE IS DISTRIBUTED IN
THE CITY OF TONGANOXIE
www.tonganoxie.org
Tonganoxie Fire Department improves ISO rating
The City of Tonganoxie and the Tonganoxie Fire Department have proudly announced an improvement in their Insurance Services Office (ISO) rating. Starting January 1, 2025, the city's new ISO rating will be Class 2, an upgrade from the previous Class 3, which was completed in 2019. This rating is part of the Public Protection Classification (PPC) program, which evaluates a community’s fire protection services, including fire department resources, 911 dispatch capabilities, water supply, and community risk reduction. ISO ratings range from 1 to 10, with Class 1 being the highest, representing superior fire protection, and Class 10 indicating that the area doesn’t meet minimum fire suppression criteria. Out of more than 38,000 fire departments evaluated across the U.S., only 7% achieve a Class 2 rating or better. The Tonganoxie Fire Department joins the City of Leavenworth Fire Department, as the only two agencies in Leavenworth County with a Class 2 rating; the other agencies in the County range from a 3.5-10.
Per the Kansas Insurance Department, several factors can affect your homeowner’s and/or renter’s insurance premiums, including local fire protection. They suggest that insurance companies take into account a community’s firefighting capability when determining premiums, specifically the fire protection class rating assigned to your address. For more information on this, please visit: https://insurance.kansas.gov
Spooktacular & Mayor’s Christmas tree lighting event
Tonganoxie Business Association is coordinating the Annual Spooktacular Event for Friday October 25th, 6pm-8pm, along 4th Street downtown. The City is also gearing up for this year’s Mayor’s tree lighting event which will be on Saturday November 23rd. This year’s theme is “Tinsel Town”. Each year the event kicks off with a food drive held by students at TES, TMS and Genesis schools. This year the food drive will be the week of November 18th and conclude with City staff collecting and delivering the donations on November 22nd to Good Shepherd Thrift Shop and Food Bank to benefit Tonganoxie and nearby residents. The annual parade will be Saturday the 23rd at 5:00pm and will start at 4th Street and Delaware Street and conclude at the Tonganoxie Public Library. The class collecting the most items for the food drive will lead the parade with Mayor Frese and later get to have a pizza party with the Mayor. The tree lighting will be held in the library parking lot at 6:00pm. There will be food, music, games and a special visit from Santa himself. Special thanks to a small but mighty group of volunteers that coordinate the Mayor’s Tree and downtown decorations.
Downtown (4th St) Plan Work continues on the development of a new Downtown Regulating Plan, replacing an existing 20+ year old plan. The Plan will designate where different use, building form, or design standards apply, and how different standards transition to achieve a distinct and coordinated place with predictable built results and a high-quality public realm. The three phase approach began in July with “due diligence” and information gathering, the second phase “Engagement and Goal Development” ran from August through October, and incorporated a stakeholder group of downtown
business owners as well as a public input meeting. The third phase “Regulating Plan Development” is underway, and incorporates input from the stakeholders meetings and the public. One of the unique aspects of this Plan is to identify transition areas, both East and West of the Historic Downtown Business District (HBD), as well as areas to the north and South of the 4th St corridor. As important as the HBD is to the identity of 4th St, equally important are the designated areas described above, as those areas represent where recent projects have been pursued, but don’t fit neatly within the strict confines of an older plan. The Plan will also examine precedents and best practices, including traffic calming for reduced speeds, parking needs, streetscape amenities, street trees, arts and culture components, programmable public spaces, is there a downtown “brand,” and explore development characteristics including the scale and form of development, storefront character, mixed use in a downtown setting, downtown scale neighborhoods, improvements to signage and wayfinding, and the integral part downtown gateways play. The target date for a draft is sometime this November. We would like to thank the downtown business stakeholders group for their earnest input and for their willingness to share their vision for an improved downtown environment.
Downtown Stakeholders participated in two Planning Sessions
Elements of a Regulating Plan
TPD updates The Tonganoxie Police Department (TPD) has a strong commitment to equity, robust training, and enhancing public safety. A month ago, the Department hosted an active shooter training seminar that was offered to agencies nationwide. The training was over a weeklong, and multiple Tonganoxie officers were certified to teach the class to other Leavenworth County first responders. Participation ranged from many different counties in the metro, as well as officers who attended from the East Coast. Prominent examples of our community policing philosophy include proactively participating in local festivals, school functions, and our town’s special events. Examples include Snow Cone with a Cop, periodic citizen academy venues; using our MILO use-of-force simulator, grade school Lead to Read / Pizza with a Policeman, Officers passing out candy at Halloween celebrations, Secret Santa, and many more. These opportunities allow us to engage personally
The City was happy to serve as hosts for a Kansas City Regional visit by a group of young European Leaders on a long visit to the United States, coordinated by the U.S. Department of State, and regionally by Global Ties KC. The group of visitors represented 13 different European countries, and were from a wide array of and effectively with the Tonganoxie community. European leaders visit Tonganoxie
How to Contact your City Council members backgrounds including higher education and governmental entities. The visit to the City entailed discussion on rural perceptions near a larger regional area, and how social, political and economic factors impact policy discussion and decision making. Specific questions about the City Council - City Manager form of government, budgeting challenges and how a small City is impacted by the County and State governments. While in Tonganoxie, the group also toured Tonganoxie High School and met with USD 464 Administrators to discuss the education system and share insight into the educational systems of their respective countries. We are proud to be able to share the amazing history of our community and the measured growth within the strategic plan outlines.
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