The Hutchinson City Council agreed Tuesday to the over 69-million dollar budget for next year and agreed to have it published in the paper on August 5. The public hearing over the budget is set for August 16 at 9 a-m.

The mill levy will stay at 41.453 mills and the proposed general mill rate is 31.592, and the debt service mill levy is 9.681. These are virtually the same rates as last year.

The council also approved a federal fund exchange agreement with the Kansas Department of Transportation. This is a volunteer program that allows the city to trade all or a portion of its federal fund allocations in a specific fiscal year with KDOT in exchange for state transportation dollars.

The exchange rate for the program is 90-cents of state funds for every dollar of local federal obligation authority exchange.

Officials say the benefits include the elimination of costly and time consuming requirements of federal aid projects, and a wider variety of projects that can be funded with state funds.

The council also approved a low bid of nearly 519-thousand dollars with APAC-Kansas, the Shears Division to make some changes to a sewer line that runs under U-S 50.

Because of the improvements being made to widen the highway from the east junction with K-61 to Airport Road, the city in one case will need to extend a 48” sanitary sewer encased in a 60” inch steel pipe at 50 highway and Halstead. It will need to be extended under the additional two lanes of traffic being built.

The other will need to be moved because of the interchange that will be built at K-61 and 50-highway. That includes moving a 12-inch sanitary sewer and 8-inch waterline.

Mayor Ron Sellers, all though going along with approval of the work, questioned the high cost.

He also asked the council to consider using some funds for the tearing down of additional deterioting structures and wants the other council members response at the next council meeting.