Casper's 2012 city budget was passed earlier this week with no comments either for or against the final document as it went through the hearing process at Tuesday's city council meeting.

"There being no one to speak for or against the budget I now declared the public hearing closed."

Mayor Paul Bertolio dropped the gavel on the public hearing.  Just over $136.2 million was the final budget total. That's up from $124.4 last year. Sales tax revenues are anticipated to be about %12  higher this year at around 52 million. In the final discussion before the vote Councilman, Keith Goodenough, expressed disappointment in a lack of citizen participation.

"And it just seems to me that there must be a way to engage the public more than we're doing. One of our goals for next year is to communicate better with the public. So I would just hope that by next year at this time we have a way to set up a process where people actually pay attention to what we're doing with their money."

Council member, Kim Holloway, says she's comfortable with the amount of transparency around the process and reminds that the document is on line and is in fairly simple language. Councilman, Maury Daubin, suggests it might be that citizens find the budget process boring.

If you would like to have a look at where and how the City Council is spending your tax dollars  follow the link to the Casper city government webpage:

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