Humboldt city council is continuing to finalize their 2016 budget as they held another meeting Thursday night.

Homeowners may be faced with a five percent tax hike to help balance the books this year in the first of a five year plan.

"When you look at the list of projects that may be on the horizon, in taking a look at how we're going to make our roads better and how we're going to make sure our sewer and water stays together and those types of things, the five percent number is something that we think is needed," City Manager Roy Hardy explained following the three hour session

This was the second meeting in two weeks, he said their goals changed from their first discussion that focused mostly on four large projects, Thursday they went over smaller expenditures.

"When you have that together of course what you have got to try and do is put together a budget that's going to address what's happening currently and what has to happen in the future. Part of it was laying it out to council what a five year plan may look like. What we were able to do is get back from council is some of the programs that they wanted staff to look at."

Mayor Malcolm Eaton is concerned with how much spending is going into the airport, he says it's under utilized. Councilor Roger Nordick brought up the downtown Christmas decorations however he used the word "tired" rather than claiming the expense was too high. Other services questioned but really with no options are things such as traffic control for city events or city parking lot maintenance. They could look elsewhere but contracting out that work will become a burden and not fiscally responsible, what staff is now left with is perhaps increasing efficiency during such work projects.

Hardy says with their priority based budget process, every service is being picked over.

"It's a lot more information, it does take some time to look at. The issue is you are really going to have to make such decisions based on some real criteria and not base it on anecdotal information."

Council expects to let the public see the numbers before they sign off in April, a public presentation will be held in March at some point.

Council is already giving the go ahead for a number of projects such as the water treatment plant upgrade.

Worth noting, last year's capital expenditures reached almost $2.8 million.

You can hear more from Hardy below in his interview with Bolt FM's Clark Stork.

You can read more about the first budget meeting here if you missed or want more information.