Good news for Oxford Village residents, the proposed budget keeps property taxes at the same rate as last year.

Not-so-good news for village water and sewer users, it appears there could be a rate hike in their future because the municipality has lost customers and revenue.

Those were some of the issues that came up last week when village Manager Joe Young presented the proposed 2016-17 budget to council.

Council is still working on the budget and it’s subject to change in the coming weeks.

It’s scheduled to be adopted at the 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 24 meeting following a public hearing on it that same evening.

Oxford’s new fiscal year begins July 1.

Young presented a proposed general fund budget of $2.025 million, proposed police budget of $908,760 and proposed dispatch center budget of $338,300.

The general fund budget includes $775,000 that gets transferred to the police budget and the police budget includes $300,000 that gets transferred to the dispatch budget.

Minus the dispatch transfer, the police budget is $608,760, which means the actual combined proposed budget for police and dispatch services is $947,060.

The proposed 2016-17 budget is projected to leave the three budgets (general fund, police and dispatch) with a combined fund balance of $473,584, which equals 20.6 percent of the village’s expenses, according to Young.

To support the proposed budget, the village is looking to keep the property tax rate at 10.62 mills, which equals $10.62 for every $1,000 of a property’s taxable value.

That’s been the rate since 2010.

Village officials are proposing to maintain this rate rather than allowing the Headlee Amendment to reduce it to 10.47 mills because the total taxable value of the municipality increased this year.

Headlee requires local governments to reduce their millage rates whenever the annual growth in property values is greater than the rate of inflation.

The 2016 taxable value of the village as a whole is $113.5 million, which represents an increase of $1.56 million or 1.39 percent, according to Young.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) increase for 2016 was 0.3 percent. CPI is used to calculate inflation.

Levying this extra 0.15 mill for the 2016-17 budget would yield an additional $17,000 in revenue for the municipality, according to Young.

Oxford Village can levy more than the Headlee-reduced rate as long as it conducts a truth in taxation hearing for the public. Council has scheduled one for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 10. The village has the authority to levy, if it chooses, up to 14.02 mills without a vote of the people.

Officials are considering some potential cost-saving measures such as closing the village office on Fridays and contracting with the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office for police dispatch services.

The sheriff’s office indicated it could provide police dispatch services to the village for $23,246 for July 1 to March 31, 2017 and $31,115 for April 1, 2017 to March 31, 2018.

Representatives from the county and village dispatch centers are going to make presentations to council at a special 5 p.m. Thursday, May 5 meeting.

Young informed council there is a need to look at increasing water and sewer rates because less village water is being purchased.

“The water fund has had a significant drop in (its) customer base over the past few years,” he explained. “That unfortunately, then results in revenues not coming in to cover our costs.”

The village lost a “major industrial (water) user,” as Young put it, when earlier this year, the Parker Hannifin Corporation closed its 42,500-square-foot Oxford facility on S. Glaspie St. It employed approximately 85 people.

Also, a number of commercial water customers along M-24, north and south of the village limits, were lost when they switched to the township water system.

These businesses are located in the township, but they had been connected to the village system for years because township water had been unavailable to them. However, when mains were extended and township water became accessible, the businesses were required to switch systems.

Oxford Middle School and Lakeville Elementary will also be lost as village customers as the township is planning to extend one of its water mains eastward along Lakeville Rd. and across school property in order to reach the Lake Villa Manufactured Home Community.

October 2014 was the last time the village raised its water and sewer rates. Young explained those rates were based on customers consuming 136 million gallons of water annually. Consumption is now down to 104 million gallons annually, he said.

This significant decrease in volume has resulted in an annual loss of $151,000 for the water fund and $52,000 for the sewer fund, according to Young.

“The sewer fund has some reserves, about $400,000. The water fund, though, is getting close to (having) less than $100,000 (in reserves) if we don’t increase, at some point, water rates,” Young said.